Page 8

Scuff Your Boots

Colt

W ell. She still likes to go straight for the jugular.

May sits back, either exasperated or smug. I could never tell which one was which. That, among other things, it seems, hasn’t changed.

I attempt a flawless recovery that doesn’t come off so flawless when I clear my throat awkwardly. ‘So. Your senior year.’

‘Yeah,’ she says tightly. ‘Last season here.’

‘That’s … big. Coach and I were talking.’

‘Great.’ Her tone is dry as the Sahara. ‘Isn’t this supposed to be your senior year?’

‘Doing an MBA.’ I gulp down a sip of beer. ‘I wrapped up my degree early once I got drafted.’

‘Nice.’ Another empty one-word May-ism. She crosses her arms with a sharp exhale. ‘I’m not here for chitchat. Go on.’

The whiplash this conversation is causing me throws me off for a minute, but once I register what she’s asking of me, the words tumble right out.

‘I meant it. When I apologized.’ I don’t have to pour every ounce of my effort into it, because it comes out anyway. It comes out whenever I talk to her. The hint of alcohol trekking through my body makes it even easier. ‘I am really, truly sorry, May. I really am. I know my words aren’t a reason for you to excuse the way I left. The way I left you . But—’

‘We were young. Shit happens.’ She thanks the bartender when he slides her drink to her and takes a liberal sip, turning her body towards him. ‘Good stuff, Cain.’

I find it funny that she says that. Shit happens, but at least to me, it’s still happening. Definitely still happening when I start to notice things like the way her jeans hug her thighs, cinched by the gold-buckled belt around her waist, the way her black tank top exposes her strong arms and clings to the curves of her torso, edges both soft and defined, the way dimples etch her cheeks when she smiles at the bartender – smiles at the bartender? The bartender ’s getting smiles? I tune into the conversation with a cut of my eyes.

‘… play Mayfair this year,’ he’s saying. ‘You’re going to kill it.’

‘Thank you!’ The smile again. Dimples. She raises her glass. ‘Here’s to it.’

‘You know it.’ He shoots her a sly grin. ‘On the house.’

‘Oh, I couldn’t—’

‘Gotta treat royalty right when you’re in the presence.’ A wink. He winks . Her smile broadens. My chest goes stiff. What? What?

They exchange parting nods as the guy rushes off to help another patron, and May turns back to me, the smile disappearing as quickly as it had crossed her face. ‘Anyway. Like I said. We were young.’

‘Yeah. We were, but …’ I sigh. Her exterior, frosty as it is, is proving impossible to crack. ‘May, did those years mean anything to you?’

‘What, other than the fact that we were two steers with our horns locked any time we got on the field?’ She chokes out a laugh, sweeping her ponytail off her shoulder. I spot an elaborate piece of ink, what looks like flowers, on the back of her arm. ‘It was a rivalry. That’s what it was.’

‘It was – yes, it was a rivalry. Something else was there, though,’ I blurt. May looks at me like I’ve sprouted the horns of the aforementioned steer. ‘Wasn’t it? And I left without a word …’

‘You had words,’ she corrects me. Her tone is biting, acidic. ‘Do you remember that text you sent me, Colt? That fucking paragraph?’

Ah. The paragraph.

‘I didn’t—’

‘“Hey,”’ May recites, voice a dull drone. ‘“Hope your senior year’s amazing. Been great playing with you all these years. Take care. Sending you strawberries from Mom’s garden. Keep in touch.”’

‘May …’ There’s so much I wish I could tell her. Like, ‘Do you ever feel like it’d be easier to cope with the fact that something will never happen by pretending the spark never existed?’ Or, ‘I’d never been more terrified to lose one of the most incredible parts of my life, so I just messed it up instead.’ Eventually, I can’t come up with my own words. I choose hers. ‘We were young.’

‘Sure. And the only person who benefits from that excuse is you.’ She takes a big swig of her rum and Coke. ‘Once someone runs you over, Colt, why the hell would you let them back up over you again?’

‘Please, May. I just wanted to talk.’

‘There’s nothing left to talk about.’ She smiles tightly, a much less open smile than she’d previously given the bartender. ‘Tell me about your illustrious career in New Haven or something. Anything. I just can’t stand to hear you rehash crap that’s been exhausted in my head for years. Nothing to talk about.’

Whoa.

I’m quiet for a minute. I fill the silence with a sip of my Bud Light. And once that’s done its job, I fill the silence with something so much worse than talking about high school.

‘I mean, if there’s nothing to talk about, there’s gotta be something to dance about.’

May blinks. She sets her glass down. ‘To what about?’

‘You know, dance. You used to throw down at these things.’ I gesture to the crowd laughing as they step along to the twangy music the DJ is spinning. ‘You knew every single dance forward and backward. Even those ridiculous ones where you used two walls or whatever they call it.’

Something flickers in her eyes, even if it’s just for a moment. That soft side to her that I haven’t seen yet, it’s hiding; I can see it. But it doesn’t come out. ‘You’re going to ask me to dance after all of that? Who—’

‘I’m not here to talk about myself.’ Now I feel my guard go up. It’s easy for everyone else to say that whatever I’ve done up in New England has been “illustrious”. I don’t love the topic. ‘I’m here to spend time with you, May, and if you want to put the past behind us, that’s fine. If you think what was going on between us ended a long time ago, I’ll take it, but man, we’re friends first and foremost, aren’t we? Aren’t I allowed to give a shit about you?’

Friends. The word should come out more mangled than it does. We had a complex connection from the very beginning. Maybe from an outsider’s perspective, it made sense to call it a friendship, but neither of us ever had.

May sighs, a sigh that I watch make its way through her entire body, wearing her out. ‘When you put it that way, I’d be a craptastic person to say no, you know that?’

‘Why else do you think I put it that way?’ I give her an impish grin that she returns with a roll of her eyes, but she hops off her barstool.

‘Let’s get it over with.’ She hums, but I can tell she’s itching for a dance. In Eagle Rock, where she’s lived as long as I’ve known her, there’s a tiny, cosy downtown, and that’s it. Your feed supply store, your farms, maybe a few scattered places just outside of Main Street. It was a shock the first time I saw it. Small-town kids run out of stuff to do pretty fast, and unless you’re a fan of cleaning the pen or kicking it on a four-wheeler for longer than an hour at a time, you’re probably going to end up at the dance hall.

The tune that starts up as we join the floor is one that’s familiar to almost anyone from down here: the bagpipe intro to ‘Copperhead Road’ by Steve Earle.

‘Oh, light work,’ I chuckle, and a little smile darts across May’s face. Finally . It’s just a fraction of what I know her face is capable of, but it’s more than enough for me.

‘Of course.’ She hooks a hand in her jeans pocket and sways as the music picks up, and we arrange ourselves behind the nearest dancers. Her dark hair swishes with her. I still remember when it was so short she couldn’t put it in a ponytail. Now, it falls all the way to her waist, the same waist my dumbass can’t keep my eyes off when the first step hits, and we kick with our right leg, then our left. She’ll tell you she’s not a dancer, but when she’s on the floor, her feet tell a different story. Her butterfly-embroidered boot-tips tap the wood floor with sharp clicks that follow the music perfectly.

‘You still remember it?’ she shouts over the bass. ‘City Boy?’

‘Who told you I didn’t?’ I shoot back with a wink.

‘Copperhead Road’ is the dance you grow up doing before you can walk. An easy sixteen steps that are heavily debated from region to region, it’d probably be a sin if I’d forgotten how to do it. New England didn’t screw me up completely.

I match May’s step tap for tap, my unmarked Tecovas boots in sync with her well-worn ones, careful not to kick so hard I aggravate my knee. She grins when she sees me peeking at her shoes. ‘You gotta scuff those up, you know!’

We dance the entire thing by each other’s side till the song comes to an end. We’re hunched over and laughing as the crowd cheers, raising their drinks as the DJ, a teenage guy controlling the AUX, yells that he’s looking for requests for the next dance. May beams as she holds out her hands. ‘Nice goin’, New Haven.’

It’s an unexpected show of amnesty from her, but I accept it happily, knowing how sparing these moments have been. I give her double high-fives, and for a brief moment, our fingers lock, our eyes meet, and something, some unsaid piece of the spark that I know was there in high school returns, an effortless warmth passing between us.

May quickly unlinks her fingers from mine with a sharp clear of her throat. ‘I think I’ll have a drink,’ she says brusquely. She beelines straight towards the bar, and honestly, she leaves me mystified. What the hell just happened … and what the hell am I gonna do about it?