Summer Sweat (Spruce Texas)

Emmalea snorts. “Honey, I’ll cut your dang hair for free.”

“Lea, sweetie,” he sings back in a dainty voice, “I wouldn’t let you near my head with a pair of kiddy scissors.”

Just like that, the spotlight’s off me as everyone starts arguing and taking sides about Miguel’s hair, with Lea waving her knife around. I keep to myself after that, still not quite convinced that everyone at the table doesn’t have some bone to pick with me.

Long before I’m ready to sleep, I’m in the mudroom sitting on my creaky cot, with the night sky, stars, and big moon visible through the screen door. I lean against the wall and stare at it, my foot propped up on the washing machine door, annoyed at my phone. The service out here sucks. I asked the group earlier if Gary has Wi-Fi, and everyone just laughed, Emmalea included.

I’ve got more than just a view of the moon and stars through the screen door; I can also see a nearby small cabin with a porch. Is that where Harrison stays? There’s a light on in one of the front windows, but I don’t see any movement.

Maybe he’s got Wi-Fi.

After some mental preparation, I push myself off the bed and slip through the screen door. It’s just a hundred or so feet between the bunkhouse and Harrison’s cabin, so he sure wasn’t kidding when he joked about keeping an eye on me—assuming that was a joke. If I ever overslept, you’d better bet he’ll be banging on the screen door with a fist and scaring the shit out of me.

I reach his porch and knock on the front door. As I wait, I notice a particularly stylish rocking chair on the porch joined by a small, unique-looking table. I can’t imagine finding any table like that at Mort’s, let alone anywhere else in Spruce. And the rocking chair, too, which has an artful look about it, with a tall back that has cool, detailed, crisscrossed etchings in the middle. I wonder if Harrison has some secret spot in Fairview where he does his shopping, or else inherited these from Gary Strong himself.

I sigh and give the door another knock, then start slowly pacing along his porch. After a while, I approach the rocking chair, studying it again. I have an old rocking chair on my patio, but it’s nothing compared to the artistry of this one. I take a seat in it. Damn, it’s comfy, too. As I gently rock, my eyes dance up to find a string of lights tracing the roof of the porch. A wind chime, which is perfectly still on account of the complete lack of wind, hangs in front of me, made of an assortment of dangling shells.

I squint at it as I wait.

Seriously, this rocking chair is ridiculous. Its arms feel like a hug. The back cradles my head and body perfectly. I damned well could fall asleep in it right now if I just close my eyes and relax. I’d be tempted to do just that if this wasn’t a certain someone’s porch.

There’s a distant crash joined by a grunt.

I lift my head from the rocking chair and turn. Where did that come from? I hear another forceful grunt following by a smacking noise, then another, then another. I get up and descend the porch steps, then come around the side of the cabin, following the noise.

I arrive at the backyard, where I come to a stop. There’s a back porch too, uncovered, and all over the yard in front of it are a bunch of workbenches, two-by-fours, wood, knickknacks, metal, paint, finishings, tools, and all sorts of other stuff. And nearest to the back door, I see an unfinished table, something that looks like a cabinet, a stack of drawers, and some other large furniture piece I can’t identify.

And at the center workbench is Harrison in just a pair of jeans and a tight, oil-and-grease-stained tank top, hammering wood. All of him and his work lit by a bright work light.

His muscles flex and contract with every slam. His giant arms, sweat-glistened, powerful. His face, scowling with determination and focus.

My eyes are glued, unblinking and wide. Did Harrison make all of this? Does he make furniture? Did he make that rocking chair I just half fell asleep in? I’m genuinely caught off-guard, watching with a mixture of curiosity and bafflement as Harrison works.

Then he stops and sets down his hammer. In one inexplicably demonstrative act of slow-motion, Harrison takes hold of his tank top and peels it off his body, revealing a mountain of warm brown muscle and sweat, chiseled in every place that muscle can possibly be chiseled. He’s painted all over his chest and arms with tattoos I didn’t realize existed until now. He wipes his forehead off with his tank, then chucks it at a chair behind him without even looking before resuming his work.