Upset that Jacy is on a date with rich boy Lester Marlow, Duane accepts an offer from Jerry Framingham to ride along on a cattle haul to Fort Worth, and Sonny joins them. Before they leave, they talk with Sam the Lion at the café. Duane, worried he isn’t rich enough for Jacy, is stunned when Sam reveals that Jacy’s father, Gene, is likely not cash-rich at all. This news encourages Duane until Sam points out that a man losing his wealth would become even snobbier about his daughter’s suitors.

On the road, Sonny and Duane get drunk on beer while Jerry drives, happily reminiscing. In Fort Worth, they pool their money to hire a sex worker, but Jerry wins the coin flips and is the only one to have sex with her. The return trip is miserable; the truck’s heater breaks, and they suffer from the cold and hangovers. They arrive back in Thalia before dawn, where a kind Genevieve gives them coffee and a ride home. Though exhausted, Sonny feels a sense of satisfaction at having traveled to the city.

Thalia travels to Paducah for the season’s first basketball game and suffers a humiliating 121-14 defeat. The Paducah gym is abnormally small, their players openly tackle and block Thalia’s team, and the referee calls everything in the home team’s favor. Leroy Malone trips the gangly Paducah center, and Sonny runs in pursuit of the ball; someone trips him, and he hits the wall head-first, knocking himself out. Coach Popper forces him back in. Frustrated by the chaos, Sonny fires a shot that deliberately strikes the referee in the back of the head, making Sonny briefly celebrated among the Thalia players.

On the return bus ride, Sonny’s newfound status earns him limited romantic progress with a sophomore named Martha Lou. Jacy and Duane make out in the back seat, and their public sessions have become a ritual spectacle on the bus for the other students. Jacy is genuinely aroused specifically because she has an audience.

Later that night, Popper refuses to bring Ruth her pain medication, forcing her to stumble to it herself. The next day he baits Duane into quitting the team entirely over a public confrontation about Jacy, which Popper views as a convenient way to shed responsibility for the situation and avoid the wrath of Jacy’s parents.

Winter settles over Thalia, bringing low morale to the basketball team and grueling late-night butane delivery work for Sonny. Duane, having quit basketball, takes double shifts roughnecking and devotes his Saturday nights to Jacy. Jacy, still processing her mother’s earlier advice to sleep with Duane, responds by retreating from him, sensing a trap by her mother. She gradually allows Duane limited intimacy again.

At the annual Christmas dance at the Legion Hall, Lester invites Jacy to a late-night naked swimming party at a wealthy Wichita Falls boy’s home. Jacy decides she must attend to secure her social legend and deliberately spends the evening manipulating Duane to soften his reaction to her leaving with Lester. Jacy also witnesses her mother openly kiss Abilene at the dance; she lectures Lois about it, but Lois’s casual, dismissive response hurts Jacy’s feelings. Lois casually grants permission for her to go to the party in Wichita Falls, further unsettling Jacy.

Lester takes Jacy to Bobby Sheen’s mansion in Wichita Falls. The pool is full of kids who are already naked, and Jacy must walk out on the diving board and remove all her clothes while they watch. She wins the crowd over and spends the evening swimming naked with them, deciding to align herself with this faster, richer social set. The chapter closes with Jacy carelessly ruining the expensive wristwatch Duane gave her for Christmas, dismissing it as trivial by the standards of her new crowd.

Word spreads instantly at the Christmas dance that Lester has taken Jacy to a naked swimming party in Wichita. While waiting for the news to reach Duane, Sonny drifts into the refreshment room and encounters Ruth Popper cleaning up alone. She quietly suggests that Sonny look to her for companionship, and after a moment of silence, he offers to help carry trash outside. In the alley behind the Legion Hall, they share increasingly passionate kisses, and Ruth decides to arrange for Sonny to drive her to the hospital again on Tuesday. The encounter is a turning point for Sonny, the first kiss he’s had that feels as good as he imagined kissing could be.

After Duane finds out about Jacy, Sonny and Leroy steal vodka and take him to the pool hall. Several younger boys are there as well. The night deteriorates when Leroy leads the group to a stock pen to sexually abuse a blind heifer. The boys then decide to pay a local woman, Jimmie Sue Jones, to have sex with Billy.

Sonny voices objections for Billy, who doesn’t understand what is happening, warning the others about upsetting Sam the Lion, but he is overruled by the crowd. Jimmie Sue bloodies Billy’s nose, and Billy is confused and distressed. When the boys bring Billy home to the pool hall, Sam the Lion, discovering what happened, permanently bans the boys from his pool hall, café, and picture show. The punishment stuns everyone. Sonny goes to bed haunted by guilt over Billy and consoled only by the memory of Ruth.

Sonny and Ruth Popper begin a secret affair, but their first sexual encounter is awkward and unsatisfying. Plagued by nervousness and the constant squeaking of her marital bed, Ruth is unable to feel pleasure and ends up in tears. Despite her insecurity and his uncertainty, Sonny decides to continue seeing her. The affair remains strained until Ruth nervously suggests they make love on a quilt on the floor. This change allows them both to relax, and Ruth begins to experience real intimacy and moments of pleasure for the first time.

As Ruth falls in love, she struggles to achieve a full orgasm, causing a brief strain in the relationship. She explains her loneliness by comparing herself to a refrigerator never defrosted, with the ice only growing thicker over the years. The turning point comes after she has a vivid dream in which a baby removed from between her legs is Sonny, who then lies at her breast. During their next encounter, she pretends she is bringing Sonny out of her, and this image carries her to a powerful sexual breakthrough.

Afterward, their relationship becomes much more comfortable and close. By the end of the chapter, the town has discovered their affair, although Popper still doesn’t know about it. While Sonny is worried, a newly confident and happy Ruth is unconcerned, joking that her husband might shoot them and happily suggesting they buy a new quilt.