He plonks himself onto a bar stool while she makes a beeline for the coffee machine behind the counter. She pours herself a fresh cup, blowing on it before taking a sip. He watches her as she skims the crowd, expelling a breath as her eyes settle on the crowd. Everyone is either line dancing or nursing a drink at the bar.

Liv's got to be at least fifteen years younger than him. She's young, beautiful and he feels like a dirty old man staring at her ass like that. Her brown skin gleams with sweat under the dim lights and he thinks that it's been too long since he's been with a woman.

A country song streams through the jukebox, playing on a loop and the place is hot and crowded and everyone is harbouring some intention of getting laid. Liv's gaze glides over him as she serves him and something stirs in him. When she turns back to attend to another customer he does his damnedest not to stare at her ass and looks out to the dance floor instead. He spots Amanda swinging her hips and stomping her feet in line with the music. Every time she whirls she glances back over her shoulder and casts a coquettish look at him.

Fitz's eyes find Liv again. She's weaving between tables toting around a tray and the beer atop the tray keeps sloping over the edge of the glass. Later she comes to him, serves him whisky and trades his used glass for a fresh one. She slides his beer in front of him and their fingers touch for a hint of a second. Her fingers are warm, a tangle of fire against his skin. Then she's off again taking a call on the phone behind the bar and he strains his ears to listen in on her conversation.

"What the hell you want Jake?" she asks, her eyes flitting to Edson who's helping her tend the bar.

"I'm busy." She says again and Fitz slugs down his beer. It's so cold it makes his teeth ache.

"And how is it that I'm treatin' you exactly?" she's shouting now, her voice easy to hear over the music and then sensing the gazes that sail her way, she clasps a hand over the mouth, cupping the phone. She turns around so that her back is facing the audience, her face to the wall.

Fitz turns back to the crowd and spots Amanda. She struts towards him, a calculating glint in her eyes. She's wearing a midriff baring top, too much make-up and her hair's teased as big as life. She's the sketch of a middle-aged woman trying to recapture her youth. She works the cash register at the Marsh grocery store, a job she's held for six years since her husband bolted off to Atlanta with her best friend and there have been times that Fitz felt sorry for her.

"Hey Fitz." She leans against the bar, resting one elbow on the counter.

"Amanda." He greets.

"Miss me my ass." Liv shouts again before slamming the phone down. She disappears behind the bar, towards the kitchen and Fitz rotates in his stool once more to face Amanda. Her eyes look hungry as she scans him.

"Somethin happening between you and Libby?" she enquires and sets her drink down next to his.

'No."

"You sure?" she trails her pink fingernails along the back of his hand and Fitz quickly pulls away.

"Yup" he says around the mouth of his bottle. Eyes glittering, Amanda sets her small purse on the counter and retrieves a coin from it. She shows it to him and then closes her other hand over it.

"Come on, heads say I take you home tonight." Opening her hand again, she flips the coin, it spins in the air and lands on the sticky bar it comes up tails.

"Too bad." She shrugs, picking up her drink again. The smile she offers him is not the same smile she gives the thirteen-people deep line of customers at the grocery store, it's a smile only reserves for potential bed-mates. It's a hot promise of things to come.

"It's been a year Fitz-"she finally says when he says noting about her advances.

"Don't."

"Call me when you're ready." She mumbles and then she's off to prowl the floor again. Fitz hooks the neck of the bottle between two fingers and tips it toward her in salute before taking a big swallow.

..

A wave of searing heat clasps him as soon as he exits the bar. The rumble is distant like a shimmer of thin sheet metal and he smells the approaching storm.

"You hungry?" he calls out to Olivia whose standing by her car, fishing for the keys in her bag. The parking lot is crowded with pickups but there isn't a soul in sight, just the street lamps and the sound of moths striking glass. The music's muffled but its tune still carries out to them.

"Starving." Her lips twitch into a half-smile and Fitz chuckles, realizing that he'd been holding his breath.

..

They take his pickup. He closes the door for her and walks around the truck with the headlights illuminating him and then takes his position behind the steering wheel.

The windows are rolled down to drive the heat out of the car but warm thick air still filters in from outside, blowing across their faces as their hair dances against the breeze. The air carries the scent of azaleas and the distant sounds of traffic. She stares through the windscreen at the star flecked sky. The moon seems bigger tonight, tangerine-hot and hanging low like its listening in.

"How come you single?"

"As opposed to having a man take care of me?" there's an instant fierce metal in her voice and when he casts a glimpse at her he sees that her eyes are closed but there's the softest hint of a smile across her face.

"Don't think you need a man to take care of you darling. You can darn well take care of yourself." He shoots her a sly grin.

"I like being single." She looks at him with a directness that makes his smile grow bolder. She's so determined to make him believe this statement that she's been telling herself for far too long and perhaps she's right. She's happy being single.

"Who's Jake?" he asks and the question startles her.

"Jake?"

"Jake." He repeats.

"You listening in on my calls now?" she asks and with that he lets the conversation die.

The truck rolls up in front of the drive-thru window of chicken franchise. He orders a three piece combo for himself and she asks for a two piece with extra fries, hot sauce and corn on the cob. They pay at the next window, picking up their food. After pulling away from the drive-thru they drive in the direction of Jim Curtis's bowling alley.

The place is packed by the looks of the dusty parking lot. Fitz parks the truck and kills the engine. He drops the tailgate and climbs into the back to retrieve a six-pack from a cooler. They sit on the dropped tailgate of his pickup, pop open their beers and tear into their food. Fireflies ride their skin, hovering in the dense air and scraping their shoulders. A rumble of trucks echoes out on the highway. They sound like stinging hornets on a muggy afternoon and the heat whistles, squeezing up the air around them.

"Folk used to worship you." She says quietly, wiping her hands with a napkin then offers him a cigarette from her pack. She watches as he pulls one out and then takes one herself. After lighting hers she hands him the lighter and catches the flick of his thumb behind a cupped hand. The light flares, striking the cigarette wedged between his lips and he takes a long pull.

"I saw you play once. I was thirteen and you were playing against the Houston Texans." She looks out over at the flashing neon sign outside the bowling alley as she speaks but she doesn't seem to be really looking, more like staring into space while she takes another pull from her cigarette. Smoke spirals out toward the star studded sky and she seems to float away along with it. Fitz remembers that season darn well, it was his last season before he retired. He recalls the pre-game jitters, the roar of the crowd on the bleachers, the cameras and the reporters. Jerry had been ten years old, Karen eight and Mellie was pregnant with her lover's child. Two games later he'd had the injury that ended his career even though he'd already been planning to retire. It was all over in a flash. He feels his knee with his hand then takes another swing at his beer.

Craning her neck to look up at the sky, Liv continues "The Falcons were down 20-13 but then you did a twenty yard run to touch down and it was fuckin amazing because you were just shy of four games to your retirement. You were magic out there; my pa called you Yawning's hero and the best quarterback he'd seen in a long time"

"What'd you think?" he asks.

"Thought your hands were too darn small." She shrugs her delicate shoulders and lifts her beer.

Fitz grins foolishly, beads of sweat on his lips comingling with those of the bottle as he takes another sip. They don't talk for a long time. They simply look out to the distance at the people filing in and out of the bowling alley and she tips up her beer and takes a long draw.

"Your pa still at the mill?" he finally asks, looking out at the blinking lights.

"Naw, he retired four years ago."

"And Harrison?"

"He's selling used cars up in Birmingham."

"You ever thought of hightailing it outa here?"

"Nah. Where would I go?" she shakes her head and takes another pull. She doesn't tell him that she peaked in high school, that she's been the cheerleader, the beauty queen, the homecoming queen, that she's dated the football players, had her one abortion, three miscarriages and that she's come to terms with the fact that high school was the best years of her life. She's thirty five and there's nothing left.

"Besides I'd miss that darn big open sky too much." She points with her cigarette, the cherry sparking against the sky like a red filament glowing inside a glass.

Turning her head, she finds him watching her, "What?" she asks.

"To big open skies." He taps his bottle to hers.

..

The sounds of balls rolling down the smooth alley are muffled by the boisterous sounds of Tim McGraw singing an up-tempo song. Every now and again she hears a loud crack followed by a roar of cheers as a ball knocks down pins. Fritz orders them a couple of beer and goes to procure a pair of bowling shoes and a lane for them.

He picks up a ball, inspects it then inserts his fingers before leaning forward at the waist to look down at the alley. He eyes the shiny pins at the end zone and releases the ball. With her eyes trained to his ass, she imagines the tautness of his muscles beneath her fingers and clenches the neck of the bottle.

Fitz looks up at her as he lifts another polished ball and gives her a little wink like he knows what she's been thinking. He steps forward and swings his arm back and releases the ball. It's a clean strike and when he swings back around he's got a foolish grin on his face.

Liv whistles with two fingers in her mouth then takes another swig at her beer. She taps her fingers against the bottle keeping time with the music. She draws slowly on her cigarette and looks her hands, studying the chewed stubs that pass for fingernails.

"Your turn" Fitz announces. She stubs out her cigarette in the ashtray in front of her and rises to her feet. She sticks her fingers inside a ball and looks at the pins down the shiny lane.

"Don't grip the ball too tightly." He moves behind her and sets his hands on her hips and the gentle ease of his powerful hands around her makes her breath hitch. Her heartbeat gallops like a thousand breathless rhinos. The heat of his body against hers elicits a delicious shiver down her back and she bites back a moan. He smells like sweet spicy woods, cigarettes and musk.

"It's got to feel comfortable, darlin." He purrs and his drawl is as slow and sweet as Georgia honey. His breath tickles the back of her neck, prickling the hairs there. She wonders what would happen if she would turn her head, their lips barely an inch apart, and his bristly chin grazing against her skin.

"Take your time." When his hands finally let go of her she sighs with relief. Without turning to look at him, she takes a few quick steps forward and rolls the ball down the lane until it strikes three pins.

"That aint too bad." He remarks with a smile.

"Naw, its horseshit. This bowling business is like catching lightning in a bottle." Liv shakes her head and runs a hand through her hair.

"You giving up?"

"Hell no."

..

Later, they're back outside the bar standing next to her car. The place has emptied some but a few cars still linger.

"You okay to drive?" she asks. The wind whips her hair into her mouth and they both look up at the sky just as the first fat drops of rain hit their faces.

Fitz drops his face and closes the distance between them but he keeps his hands in the front pocket of his jeans, "Stop tryin to look out for me, darlin. I've been lookin after myself for a good fifty years." His voice is a soft caress against her skin, the dampness of his breath teasing her lips.

"Caint help it." She replies, unblinking and unmoving. When the rain starts pelting their heads, she begins to move. An interruption caused by a force of nature. Mother Nature is stronger than gravity, stronger than the pull between objects, people, them. She's wiser too, Olivia thinks with a shrug as she opens her car door. What they were about to aint right. It aint right for her and it's too soon for him and folk will talk because folk always talked.

"Nigh, darlin." He says, pressing his hand against her window. It's raining harder now, water drenching his shirt and running down his face.

"Take care. Fitz." She waves, worried that he'll catch a cold out there. She starts the engine and pulls out of her parking spot.