My grandmother was a woman of contradiction. She went to church twice a month, baked an exquisite lemon cake with homemade icing for my birthday every year, and was currently wielding a pool stick at Myrt Crabapple.

Myrt had a good seven inches and fifty pounds on my grandmother. But her glass eye and arthritis evened the odds. She was trying to break a beer bottle off of the bar. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

Nicolette was calmly filling a pitcher of ice water to dump on them.

“Gram-Gram!” My voice snapped with authority. Unlike my father, Gram-Gram could usually forgive me for playing cop.

My grandmother dropped the pool cue.

“Shit. It’s the po-po,” Myrt yelled. Myrt thought she was whispering, but without her hearing aids she couldn’t hear a damn thing.

“Cassidy, sweetie! What are you doing here?” Gram-Gram asked sweetly. She was wearing her Bootleg Bingo sweatshirt, and judging from the bingo cards and overturned tables everywhere, the games hadn’t gone someone’s way.

“Who threw the stool?” I asked calmly.

Nicolette placed the pitcher on the bar and nodded to me. Bootleg senior citizens were an unruly bunch, but a good dousing was usually all it took to break up any altercations. They didn’t much care for their polyester outfits to get wet.

“What stool?” my grandma asked innocently.

“The one spinning around like a top in front of Trent McCulty’s pickup truck.”

“She did it,” Myrt hollered, pointing a gnarled finger at Gram.

The crowd around us erupted as everyone tried to explain all at once. I looked at them. White hair and crooked glasses. Flannel and ugly sweaters. A shoving match broke out between Old Jefferson Waverly and Marvin Lloyd. Granny Louisa and Estelle were trying to look innocent over by the jukebox.

“Knock it off, y’all,” I shouted over the din, reaching for the pitcher of water.

I could have given it another minute. Neither man had much energy and they were both already huffing and puffing like steam engines. But I’d had a rough night and I just wanted to go home and figure out whether or not Bowie and I had sex and what, if anything, that meant.

I threw the water in their faces and then tossed the pitcher on the ground. “Everybody better get real orderly or I will drag every single one of you downtown, and y’all know how uncomfortable the cots are in that cell.”

We had one official jail cell in town. And most of these fine citizens had spent at least a night in it at some point.

They all shut up real fast.

“Now, tell me who threw the stool so we can get on with it.” Bootleg Justice required the instigators of bar fights to participate in the clean-up as well as paying for any property damage.

“I’m tellin’ you! It was Gert!” Myrt shouted.

“I was mindin’ my own business, trying to climb up on that stool and it slipped right out from under me,” Gram-Gram insisted.

“It slipped out from under you through a plate glass window and into the parking lot?” I asked wishing to God it had been my father who responded to the call.

“Between you and me,” Gram-Gram said in a stage whisper, “the floors in here are real greasy. Just like the food. I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often.”

“Hey, now!” Nicolette said, taking offense.

Gram-Gram shot her a beaming smile. This was part of her street cred, lying to the authorities—usually her family—about whatever mess she’d stirred up.

“Okay, this is how it’s gonna go. Y’all are going to clean up every bingo card and broken shard of glass. Gram-Gram, since the floor is so slippery, you’re gonna mop it and then reimburse Nicolette here for the window. Then I’m going to drive you home and decide what kind of fine I’m gonna slap you with.”

Gram-Gram pouted prettily, adjusting her pink frame glasses.

“Anyone have any problems with that?” I demanded.

“No, ma’am,” they barked in unison.

“Good.”

The soggy and chastised elderly of Bootleg Springs hopped to, pulling out brooms and dustpans, righting tables, and straightening chairs. Nicolette handed my grandmother a mop. “You know where the bucket is.”

An hour later, with The Lookout sparkling clean, the window boarded up, and the geriatric population on its way home to bed, I plunked Gram-Gram in my back seat. It wasn’t a police cruiser, but she still had a reputation to uphold.

“When are you gonna stop causing trouble on Bingo Night?” I asked.

“When are you gonna start having something to do instead of fixin’ trouble on Bingo Night?” she countered.

“Tonight.”

She hmm-ed knowingly. “I thought you looked a little hot and bothered. Did you swipe right on a hot one?” she asked.

“We’re not discussing this.”

“Did he have a man bun?” Gram asked. “I love a good man bun! I wish Marvin could have one but his combover won’t reach.”

“It wasn’t a man,” I lied. “It was a bat. It flopped my face.”

Gram shifted gears into caring grandparent. “Poor sweetie! I hope it didn’t bite you.”

I turned onto Spirits Lane. “No. Bowie caught it in my gym bag and he and Jonah released it into the wild.”

“Bowie, huh?” Gram mused pointedly. “When are you two gonna quit dancin’ around it and get naked already?” Gram-Gram had two boyfriends and another in the hopper in case one of the other two became defective or up and died.

I dropped Gram off at her cute little brick-front row home. She waved to me from her front step like I’d chauffeured her to and from church.

Suddenly irretrievably exhausted, I headed home. I squeezed my car into the garage and trudged up the walkway toward my back porch.

“Everything okay at Bingo Night?” Bowie was leaning on a porch post on his side of the railing.

I paused on the step and climbed up to his level.

“Your door wasn’t locked,” he told me, crossing his arms over his chest.

“What door?” This was Bootleg Springs. My back door was never locked.

“The one between us.” His face was shadowed in the soft glow of the porch light.

I was tired. Too tired to play any more games. “It’s never been locked, Bowie.”

He swore quietly and toed one of the spindles between us. I knew that to him, tonight had been a mistake. One he didn’t want to repeat.

“So, that’s it then? That’s all it’s gonna be?” I pressed. I wanted him to say the words. “You’re just gonna go back to thinking about me as a little sister.”

We both knew there was nothing little sisterly about what had happened a few short hours ago. But I wanted him to lie to my face. To give me something to hate him for. A reason to give up on him again.

He didn’t answer me, so I stepped closer until the railing pressed against my hips. I grabbed him by the front of the sweatshirt he wore to ward off the chill.

He brought his hands to my shoulders, squeezed. “Cass, honey. We can’t.”

I was tired. That’s why I dropped my head to his chest. That’s why my heart did that stupid tumble when he rested his chin on top of my head. I’d been in his arms twice tonight. And both times had been thoroughly unsatisfying. I wanted more and I hated myself for it.

“I promised,” he said quietly.

“You promised what to who?” I demanded. Whom? Whatever.

“Ask your dad,” he said wearily.