"Thanks, Donna." Beau pulled out his wallet, the leather looking too new against the scarred table. "Can I start a tab? And actually... whatever anyone orders tonight, put it on my tab."
The table next to us, full of local ranch hands, went dead quiet.
"Anyone?" Donna asked, pen hovering.
"Anyone in the bar. All night."
"Beau," I hissed. "You don't have to do that. That’s insane."
"I want to. Consider it me buying my way into the good graces of Pawhuska." He flashed a grin.
Cassie cackled. "Oh, I like him. He's buying goodwill with alcohol. Smart man. Tactical."
Within approximately thirty seconds, word had spread that Beau Sterling was buying drinks, and the atmosphere shifted from "suspicious of the rich kid" to "let's hear what he has to say."
The tequila shots arrived. Cassie held hers up. "To trivia night, to new friends, and to absolutely destroying everyone else in this bar!"
We clinked glasses and drank. The tequila burned perfectly on the way down.
"Alright, everyone!" Jerry, the host, tapped his microphone. "Welcome to Thursday Night Trivia! Y'all know the rules: six rounds,ten questions each, winning team gets a hundred-dollar bar tab and eternal glory!"
"We already have a bar tab," Beau pointed out.
"Yeah, but the glory's important," Cassie said seriously, slamming her shot glass down. "First round is pop culture! Focus!"
For the next hour, I remembered why I loved trivia night. The trash talk, the collective groans, the cheers. And Beau was surprisingly good.
"Question three: What year did the first iPhone come out?"
"2007," Beau said immediately, writing it down. "I was in middle school. It changed my life."
"Question seven: Who won Best Picture at the 2019 Oscars?"
"Parasite." He didn't even hesitate. "I went to the after-party. You pick things up."
By the end of the pop culture round, we were tied for first place with the Henderson brothers. I pointed a finger across the bar to where Jake and Matt Henderson were sitting, looking smug in their baseball caps.
Jake caught my eye and raised his beer in a mock salute, grinning like the devil himself.
"Oh, that smug son of a bitch," I muttered.
"Winnie's got a rivalry with them," Cassie explained to Beau. "It's been escalating."
"It's not a rivalry, it's a blood feud."
"It's trivia."
"IT'S PRINCIPLE!"
We traded blows for the next three rounds. The Hendersons took history by a hair (my bad, I blanked on the Teapot Dome Scandal), but we crushed them in Science thanks to Beau knowing the chemical symbol for gold ("Au," he’d said smugly, "from the Latin 'aurum'").
By the time we hit the final round—Random Facts—the bar was roaring. We were dead even.
"Alright, folks!" Jerry shouted over the noise. "It all comes down to this. One question to rule them all. Tie-breaker!"
The room went quiet. Even the jukebox seemed to lower its volume.
"This bar," Jerry said, gesturing around the Rusty Spur, "has been standing here a long time. The question is: In what year did the Rusty Spur officially open its doors?"
