As Katie and I entered The Crossroads, the jukebox played “Riders on the Storm” by The Doors. The song seeped into the room, low and damp. The air smelled of old beer, lemon cleaner, and something faintly metallic. Several men sat at the counter, nursing their drinks.

  Three boys, likely no older than sixteen, stood around the pinball machine near the wall. One worked the buttons with frantic devotion, bouncing the silver ball through the maze while the other two cheered him on.

  Over by the pool table stood a young woman with curly red hair and a man about her age who was tall, broad-shouldered, and wore a John Deere cap that looked like it had seen more sun than rain. The girl spotted Katie right away. She waved, all smiles and easy familiarity, and motioned for us to join them.

  On the way over, I passed the Pale Horseman I had seen pull up outside. He was alone at a table, one arm draped over the back of his chair, fingers twitching as he gestured for the waitress’s attention. His eyes slid over me. I decided it was better to pay him no mind, lest he decide I seemed like an easy target.

  There's a killer on the road…

  His brain is squirmin' like a toad…

  The lyrics slipped past my defenses, worming it way into my ear.

  “Kate!” said the red-haired woman as she wrapped her arms around her. “So good to see you again.”

  “Morgan,” said Katie as she returned the embrace.

  The young man offered his hand to shake hers. “Welcome back.”

  She returned the gesture, grasping his fingers firm in her own. “Hello, Pete.”

  I hovered a few paces back, unsure of my place in the picture. That hesitation lasted until Katie reached back, took hold of my wrist, and pulled me closer. Her grip was warm and confident, and I surrendered to her guidance.

  “Guys, I want you to meet Alex,” said Katie. “My father hired him on as a helping hand while I was away at college.”

  Into this house, we're born…

  Into this world, we're thrown…

  Like a dog without a bone…

  Pete looked me over, sizing me up with a practiced eye, then gave an approving, close-mouthed grin. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  “Umm… No,” I said.

  A brief silence settled in, thin but noticeable. It was the kind that invited assumptions. Katie broke it before it could grow teeth.

  “You’ll have to forgive him. He’s a little shy. Nice guy, though.”

  Recalling my father’s words about how young women did not appreciate men who were “too nice,” a small, sharp sting caught me in the chest. I swallowed it down and kept my face neutral.

  But that’s a good thing, isn’t it? Nothing can happen between the two of you anyway.

  Morgan glanced at me sideways. “Well, it’s good to meet you Alex. Will you be playing pool with us?”

  “Yeah.” I headed over to the rack of pool sticks and took one for myself, applying chalk to the tip. “Yeah, I suppose I will.” I had no idea what the chalk did, but I had seen pool players do it a thousand times before, so I figured it must have some purpose. Ritual mattered in places like this.

  “You any good?” asked Pete.

  I shrugged. “Not really.”

  Katie gave me a wide smile. “I can show you a few things if you like.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “He’ll be on your team, then,” said Pete.

  “Yeah, that works out,” said Katie.

  Great. Now if I failed, I dragged her down with me. It was an extra layer of pressure I did not need, for the pretty girl to not only see me do poorly, but for my ineptitude to affect her as well.

  And so, our pool game began. Pete was the first to shoot, showing that he was no expert either when he broke the formation but did not land a single ball in a pocket. I assumed this was something he only did on these rare occasions when they gathered at The Crossroads.

  Katie was up next, and she pocketed two of the striped balls before missing a shot. She moved with an easy confidence.

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  As the game went on, Katie and Morgan chatted, their voices weaving in and out of the music. Katie answered questions about how college was. She lamented that her professors could be so political at times, but she was happy that she was learning a lot. There was one literature instructor who seemed to have a real strange way of reading everything.

  “I mean, the professor insisted that Gilgamesh and Enkidu were… you know…” She made an obscene gesture.

  Pete snickered. Morgan shook her head in disapproval.

  “Like, I get it,” said Katie. “People in those times had different values from us and everything. They didn’t get as hung up on what we consider ‘cultural norms,’ but when Shamhat seduced Enkidu the language was pretty explicit.”

  It was my turn, so I moved to the table to line up my shot.

  Katie continued, “I mean, you expect me to believe that when the text says Gilgamesh and Enkidu were ‘wrestling’ that this was code for gay sex when the text says the prostitute Shamhat ‘took hold of Enkidu’s penis and guided it to her’?”

  I made the mistake of trying to shoot while she was talking. Instead of striking the cue ball, my stick dragged a pale streak of chalk across the green felt, loud and wrong in a way that drew attention. Thankfully, I’d not torn the fabric.

  Pete laughed nervously, glancing around the bar at the patrons who had turned our way, curious about the nature of the conversation. “I don’t think this is the thing to talk about here.”

  Katie glanced my way, her eyes flicking briefly to the chalk scar I had left behind. “Right. Sorry. I guess that can be a bit distracting. My point is, though, why would they be so explicit about what Enkidu and the cult prostitute did but so prude and encoded about Enkidu and Gilgamesh if they were supposed to be a thing? It just doesn’t make any sense to me.”

  We rotated on to the next person’s turn, the game continuing.

  “You ever think of going to college?” asked Pete as he prepared to take his next shot.

  By that point, I had three semesters under my belt, but if I told him that it might lead him to ask me where.

  “It’s not for me,” I lied, and at once I recalled what Katie had told me earlier about how to seem less creepy. “What about you, Pete?”

  “Me?” Pete scoffed. “Nope. Don’t have the grades for it. Hell, I barely made it through high school without embarrassing my whole family. If I went to university those liberal professors would eat me alive.”

  Clack.

  Pool balls scattered across the table, colliding and rolling until they settled at last.

  “So, what do you do now?” I asked.

  “Help out on the farm,” said Pete. “I reckon people may not always need someone with a degree in ‘Women’s Studies,’ but they’ll always need to eat.”

  “That’s a fact,” I said. “Farming and ranching’s about as noble of work as a man can find, I say.”

  My turn came around again, and I stepped forward to line up the shot.

  Katie slipped in behind me and said, “Wait up a second. Don’t hold it like that.” She pressed her body against my back and took hold of my hands. “More like this, alright?”

  Her warmth radiated through me, and I considered pretending I didn’t understand just so she would hold me a bit longer. My ears burned, heat crawling up my neck as my heart pounded like it wanted out. “Like this, you say?”

  “Yeah.” She parted from me, strolling around to the other side of the table as if nothing unusual had happened. “Don’t stress it. Don’t even worry about winning. If you lose this game, so what? Not like we bet money on it. Just try to do the best you can. Breathe easy.”

  I tried to follow her advice, slowing my breath, forcing my focus onto the center of the cue ball. I made a few test motions, rehearsing proficiency I did not possess, then pulled back, ready to send the white orb into its banded brethren.

  Just as I was about to hit, Katie blurted out, “And try not to think about sex.”

  The stick glanced off the side of the cue ball, sending it spinning uselessly away from my target.

  Katie and Morgan burst into laughter, while Pete covered his mouth, shoulders shaking as he snickered.

  When Katie had drawn so close to me earlier, the burning in my ears and face had been desire made physical. Now it was something else entirely. Shame had a different temperature.

  “Sorry,” said Katie. “That wasn’t fair of me at all.”

  I chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of my head, which was swimming with ideas and images that were not at all welcome.

  “I wonder if that works on everyone,” said Morgan.

  Pete stepped up to the table, cue in hand.

  Morgan said, “Try not to think about sex.”

  His stick cracked against the cue ball, sending one of the others cleanly into the corner pocket. He smirked at her and said, “Why not? A guy’s gotta know how to handle his stick, right? That’s how the right thing ends up in the right hole.”

  Red rushed into Morgan’s face, and Katie laughed again, this time at her expense instead of mine.

  In time, we finished the game. I deduced that Katie might have won had she been paired with even a halfway competent partner, but she showed no sign that she minded losing. In fact, she insisted on a second game with the same teams, and at least three times she deliberately sabotaged me by reminding me not to think about sex. We lost that game too.

  After the second game, it was growing late. Morgan and Pete said their goodbyes, the former hugging Katie, the latter offering me a firm handshake. Once they left, Katie and I followed soon after.

  We drove in silence for several minutes before I asked, “Did you have a good time?”

  “I did,” she said with a smile. “Morgan and Pete are good people.”

  “That’s good,” I said. “Glad I could accompany you. Sorry I’m no good at pool.”

  She did not respond, but I noticed she took an early turn.

  “Isn’t the ranch that way?” I asked.

  “It is,” she said, guiding the car onto a winding road that climbed the mountainside. “But we’re not going home just yet.”

  “Oh?” I watched as familiar landmarks slipped away, swallowed by darkness. Up until that point, I had thought I trusted Katie, but when the pavement gave way to dirt roads, trust began to thin.

  At last, we reached a quiet spot surrounded by trees. She rolled down her window partway, letting the sound of crickets flow into the car. I followed her lead, lowering my own window and finding the nighttime chorus unexpectedly calming.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” said Katie. “We’re going to talk, you and I. Understand? And you are going to tell me something about yourself.”