Soon enough, everyone is buzzing, ready to get on the road. They all vie for spots in front of the full-length mirror, pushing one another around for a moment to look at themselves and fuss with their hair, despite every one of them grabbing a hat on their way out the door.
Grace doesn’t have time to shower. That much is painfully obvious. Instead, she does what she can, changing into a pair of jeans that don’t reek and tugging on a T-shirt that has less noticeable pit stains than the rest. She doesn’t even want to look in the mirror, certain she’ll be disappointed and annoyed with herself for being so gullible, but God only knows the state of her hair right now. Sure enough, it’s sticking out in just about every direction. By some small miracle, the universe mercifully throws her a bone and she’s able to tame it into a somewhat presentable ponytail.
She pulls on her boots, looks around the room, and hopes none of them call attention to the fact that she’s going to look like a hitchhiker they picked up along the way. Caleb, the last of them in the bunkhouse, urges her with frantic hands to grab her things and get to the truck. “Let’s go, Grace,” he says. “Whiskey ain’t gonna drink itself.”
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
At sundown, an overcrowded truckfull of ranch hands rolls up to Moe Willie’s Tavern. A crooning country song blares loud enough to be heard from the parking lot as they tumble out of the cab in droves, hollering like a pack of wolves kept inside for too long. They cascade toward the entrance like a chaotic wave, a freckled man with a rust-colored beard hanging all the way down to his collarbones nodding them in. The walls are bedecked inneon and old Clint Eastwood movie posters. A trio of pool tables sits near the back, illuminated in fluorescence by dusty beer lamps. The group crowds up to the long bar, and the smell of cigarettes, sweat, and tequila invades Grace’s nostrils.
There’s an energy that comes over the place as they all move inward. Something like a shock wave—like their presence alone is sending reverberations of unease across the entire room. A stocky red-faced man appears behind the bar with a bus tub and heaves a deep sigh upon spotting them.
“Moe, Moe, Moe,” Raymond practically croons, leaning his forearms onto the bar. “You don’t look very happy to see us.”
Moe lets loose another sigh, tossing a rag over his shoulder. He reaches for a bottle of Jack Daniel’s with one hand and starts setting up a row of soap-stained shot glasses with the other. “Oughta shut this place down on the second Friday of the month,” he grumbles.
“You say that every month, Moe,” Caleb retorts from farther down the bar. With an encompassing sweep of his hand, he adds, “And yet.”
Moe points at Caleb, eyes narrowing. “The only reason I don’t is because y’all drink more in one night than my regulars do in a week. But I swear to God, Caleb, you go anywhere near the pool tables tonight, I’m calling the sheriff. Don’t evenlookat them.”
The group laughs, playfully shoving Caleb, who has gone red as a strawberry. Grace smiles awkwardly, unaware of the reason behind the ribbing.
Mikey notices and leans down toward her ear to say, “He got a little carried away with a gal on one of the pool tables last month. Thought he was being inconspicuous, but he was alsoseven shots deep. I’ll let your imagination paint the rest of that picture.”
Grace grimaces. “Gross.”
Mikey chuckles. “Moe caught him with his trousers halfway off and ran him out, but not before nearly breaking a cue over his bare ass.”
Caleb, still pink cheeked, waves everyone off, nodding his begrudging agreement that he’ll steer clear of the pool area.
Raymond whips out a wallet from his back pocket, slips out a card, then pushes it across the bar toward Moe with a conspiratorial smirk on his lips. He takes two of the shots Moe’s already poured and hands them to Mikey and Caleb, who then turn around and pass them farther back. In an impressively efficient maneuver, they all hold their own shot within seconds. Grace can smell it from where it sits in her hand, and it takes a good effort not to actually gag. In the rare event that she does drink, it’s usually beer, maybe a strawberry margarita if the occasion calls for it. Hard liquor has never been her first choice. But all the hands are smiling like kids on Christmas morning as they raise their glasses up. Loudly, proudly, and with a little extra twang added to his vowels, Raymond declares, “All right, boys and girls. Let’s get ha-ha-ha-hammered.”
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
A retro jukebox in thecorner of the bar runs through almost every kind of country song imaginable, from Garth to Kenny to Reba and Shania. Slow songs, two-stepping songs, twirling songs, line dances. The ranch hands filter on and off the dance floor between rounds of beers and shots, and by the third hour at Moe Willie’s, everyone seems to be perfectly toasted and relaxed.Grace stands at a high-top table and watches in awe as Pierce expertly twirls a woman around the dance floor to “Friends in Low Places.” The woman squeals in delight when he dips her, her dark curls scraping the floor. Mikey and Alec stand across from Grace, arguing about football, or maybe baseball—some kind of sports statistics she doesn’t care about. Caleb is standing dutifully on the opposite side of the bar from the pool tables, sipping a neat whiskey and playing darts with Harrison. Raymond—Grace searches the premises for a moment before finding him with a rope in one hand, a shot in the other, and a doe-eyed girl caught in his lasso. With the look she’s giving him, Grace can’t help but wonder if Raymond’s some kind of local rodeo celebrity.
The half-drunk Shiner Bock bottle weeps condensation while Grace idly picks at the label with her thumbnail, half listening to the guys droning on about RBIs and half scanning the rest of the bar. The alcohol has made her cheeks warm and her limbs a little heavy, and she knows it’s probably time to switch over to water, or she’s guaranteed to feel like absolute shit in the morning.
The song switches to something slower, a classic Randy Travis, and she’s stepping away to head to the communal water jug when a man sidles up next to her at the table. Her first impression of him is he’s got alotof cologne on—it isn’t bad; it might even be nice if it didn’t smell like he applied it with a garden hose. He’s tall but not hulking, and his smile seems genuine enough. White teeth stark in comparison to his suntanned skin, and a straw hat tucked over a head of neat, short hair. A Coca-Cola cowboy. Her least favorite kind.
“Hey there,” he says, tipping his hat to her.
Grace smiles flatly. “Hey.”
“Buy you a drink?”
Her eyes dart over to Mikey and Alec, who have both miraculously paused their heated conversation to intently,notsubtly, size up the visitor. Grace gives them a covert, tight shake of her head. They accept her signal, and she turns back to the stranger. “I’m switching over to water, actually.”
“I see.” The man nods. He looks older than her—there are little strands of gray in his beard. He’s undeterred by her initial denial, and his smile widens. “A dance, then?”
Grace hesitates. She’s danced with men before, and it’s never been too pleasant of an experience, especially when it leads them into thinking they’ve got some entitlement to her time afterward. But “Forever and Ever, Amen” is one of her favorite songs, and three shots of Jack Daniel’s are amplifying a voice in her head—one that sounds suspiciously like Maryann—telling her,Live a little, goddammit.
“All right,” Grace agrees. “But I’m leading.”
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
In the three-minute length ofthe song, Grace learns the man’s name is Vince. Vince is divorced, from Albuquerque, and he’s passing through town on his way to an auction. He has soft hands, and his boots are shiny enough that she can almost see her own reflection, but he’s a decent dancer, though he only lets her lead for a single verse before taking over. Grace stops herself from rolling her eyes as her feet start to shuffle backward instead of forward, and it’s right about then that she starts to tune out his unsolicited autobiography. Her eyes drift across the bar over Vince’s shoulder, clocking the starch-pressed, too-neat lines of his button-down. She searches the room, looking for nothingin particular, until she reaches the pool tables and does a double take.
Leaning against the corner of one, pool cue in hand, is Crew.
