Roman Voss, 62, spent 31 years teaching high school woodshop before retiring to restore custom pool cues out of his detached garage outside Paducah, Kentucky. His only flaw, if you asked his few close friends, was that he’d shut himself off entirely from dating after his wife left him for a traveling pharmaceutical rep eight years prior; he’d wave off every setup, say he was too set in his ways, too used to eating cold meatloaf for dinner at 6 sharp and sanding cue shafts until 10 to make space for anyone new. He had a nervous tell, too: he’d polish the same section of a cue handle until his palm ached whenever he felt out of his depth.
He showed up to the local fire department’s annual chili cookoff just after 2 PM, carrying a custom cue he’d spent three months building for the fire chief, inlaid with tiny pieces of mother of pearl he’d gotten from an old fishing buddy down in Pensacola. The air smelled like charred beef, cumin, cheap domestic beer, and the faint tang of diesel from the fire trucks parked along the edge of the lot. Gravel crunched under his scuffed work boots, and he nodded at a handful of former students manning a chili booth off to the left, their faces red from standing over the propane burners.
He turned the corner around a stack of folding chairs too fast, and collided hard with someone holding a giant plastic cup of iced tea. The drink sloshed over the rim, soaking the left sleeve of his plaid flannel shirt before he could jerk back. “Shit, I’m sorry,” he started, already reaching for a napkin sticking out of his back pocket, but the woman he’d bumped into was faster. She grabbed a stack of paper napkins from the folding table next to her, leaned in, and dabbed at the wet fabric on his arm before he could protest. Her fingers brushed his forearm as she worked, and he noticed the thick callus on her index finger, the kind you get from turning thousands of book pages over decades.
He looked up, and met her eyes. She was 58, he guessed, sun-bleached blonde hair with a thick streak of silver at the temple, freckles across her nose, wearing a faded Johnny Cash t-shirt and cutoff jeans that showed off the tiny anchor tattoo on her left calf. She held his eye contact for two full beats longer than polite, a half-smirk playing on her lips, and he fumbled the handle of the cue case he was carrying, nearly dropping it on the ground. “Easy there,” she said, her voice low, a little rough from years of smoking, he thought, and the sound went straight to his chest like a good pool break, sharp and warm all at once.
His first instinct was to mumble another apology, find the chief, drop off the cue, and hightail it back to his garage. He told himself he was being stupid, that she was just being nice, that he had no business noticing how her shirt fit just right, how the corner of her mouth tilted up when she glanced at the leather cue case at his side. “What’s in the case?” she asked, nodding at it, before he could make his escape.
He hesitated, then popped the latches, pulled out the cue, and showed her the mother of pearl inlay, the hand-carved grip, the weight he’d balanced perfectly for the chief’s lanky frame. He explained how he sourced the maple for the shaft from a stand of old growth trees up in Indiana, how he sanded each one by hand for 12 hours straight to get the finish just right. She leaned in close as he talked, her shoulder pressing against his, and he could smell coconut shampoo mixed with the smoky chili scent hanging over the lot. He wanted to lean into the contact, and he hated himself a little for it, for wanting something he’d convinced himself he didn’t deserve for eight years.
When he passed her the cue to feel the weight, their hands brushed again, and this time neither of them pulled away for a full second. “I used to play pool in dive bars up in Wicker Park when I was in college,” she said, twisting the cue in her hand like she knew exactly what to do with it. “I was terrible, but I loved it. Moved down here three months ago from Chicago, just got divorced, haven’t found a decent table yet.”
He was just about to ask her if she’d been to the old Brunswick table at the dive bar downtown, when the fire chief walked up, holding a bowl of chili so loaded with cheese it was oozing over the sides. “There you two are,” the chief said, grinning so wide his cheeks stretched. “I’ve been trying to get Elara to meet you for weeks, knew you two would hit it off. Both of you complain about how no one plays proper 8-ball anymore, both of you have stacks of old blues records taking up half your houses.”
Roman felt his face go hot, and he started polishing the end of the cue handle so fast his wrist ached. Elara laughed, a loud, throaty sound that made his chest feel light, and she nudged his shoulder with her elbow. “Told him I’d hang around the cookoff until you showed up,” she said, smirking again. “Was starting to think you’d bailed.”
He stopped polishing the cue. He thought about the cold meatloaf waiting for him in his fridge, the sanding he planned to do that night, the empty quiet of his house that he’d gotten used to. He thought about the callus on her finger, the anchor tattoo, the way she held a pool cue like she wasn’t afraid to take a risky shot. “You hungry?” he asked. “I know a taco stand a couple blocks from that dive bar with the 1972 Brunswick table. Best al pastor west of the Mississippi. We can get tacos, then I’ll show you how to play proper 8-ball.”
Her smile widened, and she tucked her hair behind her ear. “Lead the way, cue guy.”
He slung the cue case over his shoulder, and they walked across the gravel lot together, their hands brushing every few steps. He shifted the case to his other arm, then laced his fingers through hers, not caring if any of the firefighters or his former students were watching.
