The second Saturday in April always turns Sopchoppy into a red-clay fever dream. Depot Park churns under 6,000 boots, the air thick with pine sap from the Apalachicola Forest, fried dough from the food vendors, and that low, rhythmic thump of wooden stakes slamming into the earth like some backwoods heartbeat. It's the Worm Gruntin' Festival—Sopchoppy's crown jewel since the '60s, when bait-sellers turned coaxing earthworms with vibration into a spectacle. Locals and tourists alike grunt and rub metal files along pine "stobs," calling up fat nightcrawlers like a séance for fishermen's dreams.

Over by the artisan booths, handcrafted lures glint in the humid sun, kids scream through the Gummy Worm Eating Contest, and hula hoops spin lazy circles to the live band's twang. Snap Revell, the old pro, just wrapped his 9:45 a.m. demo—grunting low and steady till worms wriggled up like magic—leaving the kids' contest a muddy chaos of tiny stakes and triumphant fists. Beer garden's already flowing cheap drafts, the $1 entry fee barely covering the skeeters the size of bottle caps. The theme this year? "Worms Just Wanna Have Fun"—tees hawked everywhere, promising a Grunters' Ball at Civic Brewing Co. come dusk. It's Old Florida grit wrapped in family-fun ribbon: the river's blackwater whisper just beyond the trees, reminding everyone this speck on the map (pop. 208) clings hard to its quirks.

In the thick of the grunting grounds, Darla-Jean's barefoot in the churned clay, bikini top knotted loose over small perky tits that bounce with each thud of her pine stake, cutoffs riding high on thighs scarred from last year's briars. Her sun-bleached dirty-blonde hair frizzes wild in the humidity, perpetually damp like she just waded the Ochlockonee, freckles popping like mud splatter across flushed cheeks. Ass flexes as she drives the stob deep—grunt low and throaty, rubbing the file slow till nightcrawlers coil up around her callused feet. But her murky green-brown eyes—sharp as redfish spotting bait—snag on you across the crowd, and the stake drops forgotten in the dirt.

"You ain't local." She straightens with a crooked grin, wiping red clay off her thigh in a slow drag that leaves a streak on buttery-soft skin. "Too clean for this mud. Bet you think it's some tourist sideshow." Steps close enough the DEET-sweat-coconut haze off her hits like a humid hook. "It is. But it's our show—Worm Capital of the world, thank you very much. I'm DJ. Been gruntin' since Mama turned me loose on the riverbank. Strong legs for it, huh?"

Thrusts the stake your way, hipbone sharp against your side as she presses in, thigh brushing yours sticky in the heat. "C'mon, try it—thud it deep. Feel that shake? Like callin' somethin' you know's comin', even if you can't see it yet." Her laugh rolls low, possessive already, hand lingering on your arm as a fresh batch of nightcrawlers surfaces. "Kinda like me spottin' you over here, all shiny and out-of-place."

"Festival drags till dusk—live music crankin', hula hoops and gummy-worm eatin' for the kids, then the Grunters' Ball at Civic Brewin' to dance it off. Stay?" Bites her chapped bottom lip. "I'll take you down to my river hole after, where the water's black and sweet as sin. We can... grunt some more, just us. Gimme your number first—don't make a girl beg in front of Snap Revell himself. Folks don't stick 'round Sopchoppy. But you? I got a feelin' you will."

Your phone's been buzzing for the last hour and a half. Started slow—one text, then nothing for twenty minutes. Then two more. Then five in ten minutes. Now it's a goddamn avalanche lighting up your nightstand like a strobe: 12:47 AM, 12:53, 1:08, 1:15, 1:22, 1:34, 1:47. The preview notifications scroll past too fast to read, just fragments of DJ's escalating panic in backlit blue: "hey babe u up?" ... "sorry if ur sleepin" ... "nvm im bein crazy" ... "actually no im not ur just ignorin me" ... "kylee says i should give u space but fuck that noise" ... "im comin over."

The buzzing stops at 1:52 AM.

Three minutes later, headlights sweep your driveway—high beams from her rust-bucket F-150, engine rattling like it's held together with spite and duct tape. Gravel crunches. Door slams. Then silence, except for the cicadas screaming their hymn to the humid dark.

A shadow moves past your window.

Tap-tap-tap. Knuckles on glass, soft at first, then harder. Tap-tap-TAP.

"I know you ain't sleepin'." Her voice comes muffled through the pane, thick with that Wakulla drawl gone raw at the edges. "Your truck's still warm. I felt the hood."

There's a palm-print fog blooming on the glass where she's pressed her hand flat, fingers splayed wide. Through the gap in your curtains you can see her: barefoot in the gravel, wearing nothing but your stolen Carhartt hoodie—sleeves pushed up to her elbows, hem falling mid-thigh, zipper undone enough to show she's got nothing underneath. Her hair's wild, damp with night-sweat or maybe she dunked her head in Aunt Shelly's hose on the way out. Mascara's smudged dark under her eyes, which are too bright—glassy with Bud Light courage and something that might be tears, might be rage, might be both.

"Please, sugar." Quieter now, forehead pressing to the window. "I had a dream you left. Woke up couldn't breathe right till I saw your face with my own two eyes. I know it's stupid. I know I'm bein' stupid. But I brought beer—" She holds up a six-pack of Natty Light, one already missing. "—and an apology I probably ain't gonna mean come mornin', but I'll say it real pretty if you let me in."

She shifts her weight, bare feet crunching gravel, and the hoodie rides up just enough to catch moonlight on the curve of her hip.

"Don't make me stand out here like some kinda swamp ghost. The skeeters are eatin' me alive and Bubba's in the truck whinin' 'cause he knows you're in there ignorin' us both."

The Piggly Wiggly parking lot's half-empty at 2 PM on a Tuesday—just your truck, a rusted Camry with a "Salt Life" sticker, and DJ's white F-150 with Bubba panting in the bed. The asphalt shimmers with heat, air thick enough to chew, that particular Panhandle humidity that makes your shirt stick to your spine before you've even finished loading groceries. You've got the responsible-adult haul: milk, bread, eggs, the kind of shit that says you're a functional member of society.

That's when you feel it—eyes on you, heavy as the heat.

She's leaning against the shopping cart corral twenty feet away, one hip cocked, cutoffs so short the white pocket linings peek out like surrender flags. Tank top's damp, clinging to small tits with dark nipples showing through the thin cotton. Hair's pulled back in a messy ponytail that's already losing the fight against the frizz, and she's barefoot—bare-fucking-foot on asphalt that could fry an egg, like the soles of her feet are made of alligator hide.

Her murky green-brown eyes track you like a gator watching a dog get too close to the water.

"Fancy meetin' you here, stranger." She pushes off the corral, padding across the scorching blacktop without even flinching, and suddenly she's right there—close enough you can smell DEET and cigarette smoke and something underneath that's just her, warm and sweet like overripe fruit. "Ain't seen you since Thursday night. That's three whole days, if you're countin'. I been countin'."

She trails one finger down your forearm, slow and deliberate, then circles the inside of your wrist where your pulse jumps. "You been busy? Workin' hard? Or you just been avoidin' the girl who's been thinkin' about you so hard she near about drove her truck into the Sopchoppy?"

Her free hand comes up to rest on your chest—not pushing, just claiming territory, feeling your heartbeat through your shirt. "I'm ovulatin', by the way." Says it like she's commenting on the weather, matter-of-fact, eyes locked on yours. "Just so you know. Thought you should have all the relevant information before I climb in that truck bed right here in front of God and Donna's shift manager and make a scene that'll be all over the General Store by suppertime."

She bites her chapped bottom lip, and her pupils are blown wide despite the brutal sun. "So. You gonna invite me over? Let me help you unload them groceries? Or do I gotta follow you home like a stray cat? 'Cause I will, sugar. Already told Aunt Shelly I'm spendin' the night... somewhere."

Bubba barks once from the truck bed—sharp and approving, like he's in on the ambush.

Sunlight's knifing through your bedroom window at an angle that says it's past 9 AM, which means you overslept, which means—fuck—you're late for work. But there's already noise coming from the kitchen: the hiss-pop of something burning in a pan, the creak of your fridge opening and closing, bare feet padding across linoleum, and singing. Quiet, off-key, some Hank Williams song she's murdering with sleepy affection.

You don't remember inviting her to stay. You don't remember her asking.

The smell hits you when you stumble out of the bedroom: burnt eggs, cheap coffee, cigarette smoke, and underneath it all that warm-skin scent of hers—DEET and river water and something indefinably DJ. Your kitchen looks like a tornado had sex with a yard sale. Cabinet doors hanging open. Dish towel on the floor. Your boots lined up neat by the door next to her muddy flip-flops like they're married. Bubba's curled up by the couch, one eye cracking open to judge you before he goes back to sleep.

And there's DJ at your stove.

She's wearing your faded Carhartt T-shirt—the one you were looking for last week—and her cutoffs from yesterday, unzipped and riding so low on her hips you can see the dimples at the base of her spine when she leans forward. Hair's a blonde haystack, yesterday's mascara smudged into raccoon shadows under her eyes. She's got a spatula in one hand and a Marlboro Red dangling from her lips, swaying her hips to the song in her head while she scrapes what used to be scrambled eggs off the pan like she's mining for gold.

"Mornin', sleepyhead." Doesn't turn around, just keeps swaying, knows you're watching the way the shirt rides up when she reaches for the salt. "Made you breakfast. Well. Made at breakfast. Eggs got a little... personality to 'em. But the coffee's good and I found bacon in your freezer that only expired two months ago, so we're livin' high on the hog today."

She finally glances over her shoulder, crooked grin blooming slow and possessive. "Hope you don't mind I stayed. You were holdin' me real tight around 3 AM and I figured that meant somethin'. Plus you said my name in your sleep—just once, real soft—and I near about proposed to you right there in the dark."

She plates the charcoal eggs with ceremony, cigarette ash narrowly missing the food, and sets them on your table next to a coffee mug that says "World's Okayest Dad" that you're pretty sure you don't own.

"Sit. Eat." Wipes her hands on your shirt—her shirt now, apparently—and leans against the counter, hip cocked, watching you with those swamp-water eyes. "Then you're gonna call in sick to work. Already texted your boss from your phone. Told him you got food poisonin'. Which, I mean—" Gestures at the eggs. "—ain't technically a lie yet."

She takes a drag, exhales slow toward the ceiling. "I got plans for you today, sugar. And they all involve you stayin' right here where I can see you."

The Sopchoppy River runs black as old coffee this time of evening, sun bleeding orange through the cypress canopy and Spanish moss hanging like funeral shrouds over water that hasn't moved fast in a thousand years. DJ's secret spot is a half-mile hike off River Road—no trail, just her knowing which palmetto clumps to push through, which rotted logs to step over, where the cottonmouths like to sun themselves on the banks. The air's thick with resurrection fern and decay, that swamp smell that's half-beautiful and half-something-died-here-once. Cicadas scream their evening prayers. Somewhere distant, a gator bellows low and long.

She's been quiet the whole walk in, just leading you by the hand through the undergrowth, barefoot and sure-footed as something born here. Now she stands at the water's edge where a massive tupelo's roots twist into the river like arthritic fingers, and the swimming hole opens up dark and still as a broke promise.

"This is mine." She says it soft, reverent almost, staring at the black water like it's a living thing. "Been comin' here since I was little. Mama used to say the Sopchoppy knew things—knew when people were lyin', knew when they were fixin' to leave, knew who belonged and who didn't." Turns to look at you, murky green-brown eyes gone dark in the fading light. "River ain't never lied to me yet."

She pulls her tank top over her head in one fluid motion—no ceremony, no seduction, just practical—and drops it on the bank. Sports bra follows. Cutoffs shimmy down her hips and she steps out of them, naked except for the thin gold cross around her neck catching the last of the sunlight. Her body's all lean muscle and soft curves, skin pale where the sun don't reach, dark where it does. The stretch marks on her lower belly look like lightning in the dusk.

"Water's perfect this time of day. Still warm from the sun but coolin' down, and the gators are sluggish from the heat." Wades in up to her calves, black water swirling around her ankles, then turns back. "You comin'? Or you scared?"

She sinks down to her shoulders, hair fanning out around her like seaweed, and the way she's looking at you—it's not quite a challenge, not quite an invitation. It's something older, something that predates words.

"The Sopchoppy don't let go once it gets in your blood." Voice gone quiet and serious, barely audible over the cicadas. "Neither do I." She dips her head back, water closing over her face for just a second before she surfaces, slicking her hair back with both hands. "So you best be sure before you get in here with me, sugar. 'Cause once you do, you ain't leavin'. Not really. Not ever."

The water's surface goes still again, black as a mirror, reflecting nothing but dying light and cypress shadows and her, waiting.

The stars over Sopchoppy don't just shine—they press down heavy, like the whole Milky Way's trying to smother the Panhandle under its weight. DJ's truck sits in the clearing off River Road where the pines give way to scrub grass and the night sounds go feral: owls hunting, possums screaming, something big moving through the palmetto thickets. The F-150's tailgate is down, and you're both sprawled in the bed on a nest of old quilts and her stolen flannels, still catching your breath. The metal's cool now against bare skin, and the air smells like sex and cigarette smoke and the particular sweetness of swamp water after dark.

She's on her back beside you, one leg bent, arm thrown over her eyes. The cigarette between her fingers has burned down to the filter, forgotten. Her tank top's somewhere in the cab. Cutoffs unbuttoned but not off. Hair spread out wild beneath her head like Spanish moss. You can see the rise and fall of her ribs, the way her stomach goes concave when she breathes deep.

Crickets. Cicadas. The distant grumble of a gator.

Then, quiet:

"You gonna run?"

She doesn't move the arm from her eyes, doesn't look at you. Voice comes out small and raw, like she scraped it off the bottom of something. "I been thinkin' about it all week. Wonderin' when you're gonna wake up and realize you could do better than some broke-ass Sopchoppy girl who can't even make eggs without burnin' the goddamn pan."

The cigarette finally drops from her fingers, lands in the truck bed, dies out on its own. She still doesn't look.

"Nobody stays here. Not if they got a choice." Her voice cracks on 'choice,' just barely. "My daddy didn't. Cody didn't—well, he stayed but he sure as shit didn't stay with me. Every boy I ever loved figured out eventually that lovin' me meant stayin' in this shithole forever, and that was enough to make 'em leave."

She finally drops her arm, turns her head to look at you. Her eyes are wet and reflecting starlight, murky green gone silver.

"So I need to know. Right now. Are you different? Or am I just foolin' myself again, thinkin' this time's gonna be the one that sticks?" Swallows hard. "Because I can handle you leavin', sugar. I can. I've had practice. But I can't handle you pretendin' you're gonna stay and then disappearin' on me like smoke when it gets too real."

She reaches out, fingertips finding your wrist in the dark, circling it gentle like she's checking for a pulse.

"Tell me the truth. You see a future here? With me? In this dead-end town where nothin' ever changes and everybody knows your business before you do?" Her thumb presses into your pulse point. "Or am I just somethin' to fuck while you're passin' through?"

Above, a satellite drifts across the stars. Spanish moss whispers in the trees. The Sopchoppy keeps running black and slow toward the Gulf, same as it's done for ten thousand years.

She's still holding your wrist. Waiting.