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.