Page 12 of Smoked

"Ten-minute window," I say, holding up my hands. "Five minutes either side. Late is a zero. Doesn't matter if it's the best brisket in the state. If you hand it to the judges at 1:36, it doesn't count."

"That's brutal," she says, scribbling notes next to me, close enough that when I glance down I’m looking right into her cleavage.

Damn, why does she need to have such a sweet rack? It’s as if she’s built for a man with big hands. Just like mine. I swat that thought away quickly. What does it matter?

"The ‘cue crowd takes it all very seriously," I add, trying to distract myself. “And tonight we're running brisket. Ribs and chicken I've got dialed in—you tasted the ribs at the cookout. Pork's forgiving. Brisket's the category that decides whether you win or go home, and it's the one that bit me last year."

She nods along.

Then we talk about the stall. I usually have to explain it multiple ways since most people can't wrap their heads around a fire cooking a piece of meat for hours and then the internal temp just… stopping. It plateaus, sitting at 150 and not moving for what feels like forever, no matter what you do. But Tess gets it on the first pass.

She asks about evaporative cooling, and whether the plateau temperature varies by cut, writing everything down.

"What do you do during the stall? If the fire just needs checking—what do you do for four hours?"

"You wait," I say. "You can scroll Instagram, watch a show, play a game. Whatever."

“And you?”

“All of the above…and eat snacks,” I say, patting my stomach.

She smiles. “Got it.”

The three of us sit around and talk for a while. Mostly about Riley, and her classes, and soccer.

But by ten-thirty Riley's asleep, curled in the lawn chair with her hoodie pulled up and her mouth half-open. She fought it for an hour. Kept insisting she wasn't tired…that she wanted to see the wrap. And then she was out, the way only a teenager can go, powering down as if someone pulled the plug on her.

I pull her into my arms and carry her inside. She's getting too big for this, and one of these days she's going to be too tall, too old, and too embarrassed to let her dad haul her to bed like she's five. But tonight she hooks her arm around my neck without waking up and mumbles something about soccer tryouts, and I’m grateful for the chance to still do it.

I settle her onto her bed, pull the blanket up, and close the door.

When I come back outside, Tess is still in her lounge chair, face lit orange by the coals. Her notebook is on the cooler that we set up as a makeshift table. The string lights I hung last summer along the fence line and trees are twinkling like stars, and the fire ticking and settling in the dark is so peaceful.

"She's sweet," Tess says.

"She's a gremlin." I ease into the other chair and it creaks. "But yeah. She's the best thing I've ever made."

The brisket's holding at 152. We're deep in the stall now and there's nothing to do but check the fire every thirty minutes and sit here in the dark.

Tess pulls her hoodie on.

“I have a blanket if you’re cold,” I offer.

“My hoodie is enough. But thank you.”

I add a small split to the firebox, grab a bag of pretzels, and sit back down.

I hold out the bag to her and she takes a handful with a nod.

She looks around my yard, crunching.

"Is that what you drive?" she asks, tipping her chin toward the bulk of my eighteen wheeler parked off the side of the house on a dirt pad past the driveway.

"That's the beast. Peterbilt 389."

"Can I see it?"

"Sure." I stand and brush off my jeans.