Clay Bennett, 58, retired high school auto shop teacher, had entered the small Ohio town’s annual fire department chili cookoff every October for 22 years straight, even the year after his wife Linda passed, when he could barely stand to cook for himself. Stubborn to a fault, he’d spent the last four years turning down every half-hearted set up from friends at the VFW, convinced any kind of dating would erase the 32 years he’d had with Linda. That flaw had kept him holed up in his garage most weekends, restoring a beat-up 1969 Camaro he’d bought from a graduating senior the year he retired, only leaving for hardware runs and the occasional fish fry.
The crisp October air bit at his cheeks as he hauled his crockpot to his assigned folding table, heavy ceramic digging into the meat of his forearm where a 2019 table saw scar ran pale pink. The table next to his was draped in a frayed library fundraiser banner stacked high with cookie tins and pumpkin bread loaves, and he didn’t look up until he heard the clatter of a tipping tray, felt a warm, firm hand curl around his bicep to steady herself as she tripped over his chair leg.
He looked down first at her hand, nails painted deep burgundy, no frills, then up to her face, and recognized her immediately. Maren Hale, 52, ex-wife of Jax Hale, his star student from the class of 2002, the kid who’d rebuilt a 1967 Camaro from the frame up in Clay’s shop after school his senior year. Clay had only met her a handful of times back then, when she’d dropped Jax off for competitions or attended end-of-year banquets, but he’d heard she’d moved to town six months prior, divorced, working part time at the public library. He’d avoided running into her on purpose, some outdated, unwritten rule buzzing in his head that messing with a former student’s ex was off limits, no matter how long it had been.
She laughed, a bright, throaty sound that cut through crowd chatter, and didn’t pull her hand away right away, her palm warm through the thin flannel under his Carhartt jacket. “Sorry about that,” she said, grinning, the corner of her mouth tugging higher on one side, the same quirk Jax used to have when he lied about missing a shop assignment to go drag racing. “I swear these fairground lots are full of tripping hazards just waiting to take out a girl carrying a tray of snickerdoodles.”
He grunted a laugh, helped her right the tray, and when she handed him a cookie as thanks, their fingers brushed, sugar grit sticking to the callus on his index finger from decades of turning wrenches. He took a bite, cinnamon and butter melting on his tongue, and she leaned in, close enough that he could smell her perfume: vanilla and cedar, nothing like the rose scented stuff Linda wore every day of their marriage. “I remember your chili from the 2002 football banquet,” she said, her shoulder brushing his as a group of kids ran past between tables. “It was so spicy I drank three glasses of milk and still had heartburn for two days. You toned it down at all for this crowd?”
“Hell no,” he said, and she laughed so hard she snort-laughed, covering her mouth with her hand, eyes crinkling at the corners. He felt something tight in his chest loosen, a warm fizzing feeling under his ribs he hadn’t had in years, and immediately pushed it down. This was Jax’s ex. He shouldn’t enjoy talking to her this much, shouldn’t notice the way her jeans fit just right, the faint smudge of flour on her left cheek, the way she kept leaning in like every word he said was the most interesting thing she’d heard all week.
They talked off and on all afternoon, between people stopping to sample his chili and buy her baked goods. She told him she left Jax two years prior, after he cheated with a coworker in Dallas, moved here to be near her sister, loved the small town pace and the library’s monthly used book sales. He told her about the Camaro he was restoring, about Linda’s flower garden he still tended every summer even though he didn’t care much about flowers. When they announced he’d won first place, a cheap plastic trophy topped with a tiny chili bowl, she cheered louder than anyone else, pumping her fist like he’d just won the Daytona 500.
By the time the cookoff wrapped up, the sun was down, string lights strung across the fairground glowing warm orange, the air cold enough that he could see his breath when he exhaled. He was loading his crockpot into the bed of his beat-up 2008 F150 when she walked over, carrying the last of her baked good tins, and he offered her a cup of spiced cider he’d kept in a thermos in his cab. She took it, their fingers brushing again when she grabbed the cup, and they leaned against the side of his truck bed, sipping cider, watching the last fairgoers load their cars and drive away.
“I’ve been wanting to ask you out for coffee for three weeks,” she said out of nowhere, and he froze mid-sip, warm cider burning the back of his throat. “I was nervous you’d think it was weird, because of Jax. I know you two were close back in the day.”
He was quiet for a second, turning the thought over in his head. For four years, he’d told himself he didn’t need anyone else, that dating was a betrayal of Linda, that messing with a former student’s ex was a line he couldn’t come back from. But as he looked at her, standing there in the orange glow of the string lights, cheeks pink from the cold, half smile on her face, he realized none of those rules mattered anymore. Linda would have told him to stop being an idiot and stop being lonely, for Christ’s sake. Jax was 39, living in Dallas, hadn’t talked to Clay in eight years. The only person holding him back was himself.
“I don’t think it’s weird,” he said, and before he could say anything else, she leaned up, pressing her lips to his. It was soft, chaste at first, her lip balm tasting like peppermint, and when his hand came up to cup her jaw, the stubble on his cheek scratching her skin, she hummed, leaning into him a little more. He could hear the distant crunch of leaves under someone’s boots, the faint hum of a country song playing from a truck driving down the county road, the quiet thud of his own heart beating so hard he was half convinced she could hear it.
They pulled apart after a minute, both grinning like stupid teenagers, and she wrote her phone number on the back of a library receipt, shoving it into the pocket of his Carhartt jacket. They made plans to go to the Main Street diner for breakfast Saturday, 7 a.m., before the weekend crowd showed up, before anyone they knew could see them and start gossiping, not that either of them cared all that much anymore.
He stood there leaning against his truck long after she drove away, her taillights fading into the dark down the county road, the cheap plastic trophy in one hand, the half-eaten snickerdoodle she’d left him in the other. He pulled the receipt out of his jacket pocket, ran his thumb over the smudged ink of her phone number, and smiled, the cold October air stinging his cheeks.
