62-year-old Elmo “Moe” Pritchard had skipped the Mount Gilead Summer Fest for 11 straight years, ever since his ex-wife left him for the county extension agent and paraded the guy around the beer tent like he was a prize heifer at the 4-H auction. He only caved this year because his granddaughter Lila begged him to stop by her cake pop stand, said she’d saved him a salted caramel one dipped in pretzel crumbs, the kind he could never turn down. He’d planned to grab the treat, slip back to his garage where he built custom cedar birdhouses for clients across the Midwest, and forget he’d been around crowds at all.
The humidity hung thick enough to stir with a spoon when he ducked into the beer tent to cool off after saying hi to Lila. He grabbed a cold local lager, condensation already beading down the aluminum can, claimed the last empty stool in the far corner, and pulled his ball cap lower over his forehead, hoping no one he knew would spot him. He lasted seven minutes before Marisol Ruiz sat down three inches away, her sun-warmed denim knee brushing his when she shifted to set her own beer on the splintered folding table.
Moe knew who she was. Everyone in town did. 58, widowed three years, ran the organic herb farm on the edge of the county line, sold basil and lavender and hot pepper jelly at the Saturday farmers’ market. Three weeks prior, some snot-nosed kid who’d bagged groceries with her son had hacked her private Instagram and leaked a photo of her sunbathing topless on her back porch, and every guy under 70 and over 18 in the county had either seen it or lied about not seeing it. Moe had overheard the crew at the lumber yard making crude jokes about it two days before, had left without buying the nails he needed because he’d been so mad at how they talked about her like she was a piece of meat, even as he’d felt a hot, stupid twist of desire low in his gut that he’d thought died with his marriage.
She smelled like lavender and cut lemongrass and a hint of cold citrus beer when she turned to him, her dark eyes crinkling at the corners like she knew exactly what he was thinking. “You’re the birdhouse guy, right? I saw you hauling 12-foot cedar planks out of the hardware store last Tuesday.” Her voice was low, a little rough, like she smoked a single cigarette every morning with her coffee, and Moe’s throat went dry. He nodded, took a long sip of his beer to buy time, his knuckle brushing hers when he set the can back down. He didn’t pull away.
He’d spent 12 years intentionally keeping every woman at arm’s length, convinced dating at his age was just a recipe for more heartache, more embarrassment, more people talking about his business behind his back. He hated small talk, hated the performative niceties of small town life, hated that everyone knew when you forgot to take your trash to the curb or spent an extra 10 minutes in the liquor store parking lot sitting in your truck. But Marisol didn’t push him to make small talk. She told him about the sparrow problem she had at the farm, how they were eating all the caterpillars that kept the aphids off her basil, said she needed a dozen elevated birdhouses mounted around the perimeter so the sparrows would have somewhere to nest instead of foraging in her beds.
He was halfway through agreeing to build them when she paused, tapped the side of her beer can with a chipped red nail, and said, “You’ve heard the gossip about me, right? The photo. Half the town’s calling me a slut for sunbathing on my own property.” Moe’s jaw tightened. He told her about the lumber yard guys, told her he’d told them to shut their mouths before he knocked their heads together, that he thought the photo was nice, that anyone who got mad about a woman enjoying the sun on her own land was an idiot. He didn’t admit he’d thought about that photo every night before he fell asleep for three weeks, didn’t admit he’d wondered what her skin felt like under his hands.
She laughed, a low, warm sound that made the back of his neck tingle, and leaned in close enough that he could feel her breath on his ear when she said, “I’ve been trying to get you to talk to me for months. You always look so grumpy at the hardware store, like you’d rather nail your own hand to a workbench than say hi to anyone.” She laced her fingers through his where they rested on the table, her palm soft but calloused at the fingertips from pulling weeds, and he didn’t pull away.
They finished their beers as the sun dipped below the treeline, the sound of the fairground band playing old Johnny Cash covers drifting through the tent walls. He told her he’d be out at her farm at 8 a.m. the next day, would bring the cedar planks and the nails and a set of plans he’d drawn up for elevated birdhouses years prior, had never gotten around to using them. When they walked out of the tent together, he spotted the lumber yard crew leaning against a pickup truck across the lot, staring, and Marisol squeezed his hand tighter, her shoulder brushing his as they walked past.
He didn’t even remember he’d left his granddaughter’s cake pop on the table in the tent until he was halfway to his truck, and he didn’t care.
