Clay Bennett, 58, retired electric co-op lineman, leaned against the dented stainless steel beer cooler at the VFW’s 4th of July cookout, calloused left hand curled around a sweating can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. He’d shown up an hour prior, mostly to avoid the noisy block party on his street, and spent most of that time nodding at old coworkers and pretending he didn’t see Mara Carter across the lot. He’d held a grudge against her for 22 years, ever since she’d won a stupid bet about how long it would take his crew to fix a downed power line during an ice storm, forcing him to wear a frilly pink bridesmaid dress to the annual co-op Christmas party. She was Linda’s cousin, his late wife’s family, which made the whole thing feel even more off-limits. He’d avoided every family gathering she’d been to for two decades, even after Linda died seven years prior from breast cancer.
The smell of charcoal and smoked bratwurst hung thick in the humid July air, fireflies just starting to blink at the edge of the parking lot when she walked over to the cooler, right next to him. She was wearing a faded Dolly Parton tank top, frayed cutoff jeans, and scuffed work boots, no fancy sandals like most of the other women her age at the cookout. Her dark hair was streaked with gray, pulled back in a messy braid, and he could see a scar curling up her left forearm from a tree trimming accident he’d heard about a few years back. She reached for a root beer at the exact same time he reached for a second beer, their knuckles brushing hard enough to make him yank his hand back like he’d touched a live wire. She smirked, wiping condensation off her root beer can on her jeans. “Still jumpy around me, Bennett?”
He grunted, grabbing his beer and turning to walk away, but she followed him, sitting down on the weathered picnic table bench right next to him, their thighs barely an inch apart. He could smell coconut sunscreen and peppermint lip balm when she leaned in to talk over the sound of a kid screaming as a water balloon exploded at his feet. “I always felt bad about that bet, you know. I was 32, petty, still mad that Linda had told me I couldn’t date you when I first moved to town. I didn’t mean to humiliate you that bad at the Christmas party.”
Clay froze, staring at his beer can. He’d spent 22 years assuming she’d pulled that bet just to make a fool of him, not that she’d been interested in him back then. He’d spent so long building up that grudge, treating her like the villain of a stupid, tiny story, that the admission knocked the wind out of him. She shifted closer, her knee brushing his now, and he didn’t move away. “I just bought a 1987 F-150 that won’t turn over. I remember you used to fix old trucks in your garage on weekends. You willing to take a look at it tomorrow? I’ll pay you, bring you those pecan pies you used to love at Thanksgiving dinners.”
He hesitated for a full ten seconds, then nodded. He told himself it was for the pecan pie, not the way her dark eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled, not the way she was so close he could feel the heat coming off her skin.
He showed up at her rental house at 8 the next morning, toolbox slung over his shoulder. She answered the door in cutoff denim overalls, no shirt underneath, just a black sports bra, sweat already beading on her collarbone from carrying firewood to the back porch. The garage was cool, smelled like motor oil and cedar, a neighbor’s rooster crowing faint in the distance, and she handed him a socket wrench as he knelt down next to the truck’s engine. Their hands brushed again when he took it, and this time he didn’t pull away. He glanced up at her, and she was leaning against the fender, watching him, that same smirk on her face. “I’ve had a crush on you since I was 22, you know. Even when you were married to Linda, even when you’d ignore me at every family dinner. You’re the most stubborn, sweetest man I’ve ever met.”
Clay’s throat went dry. He’d spent seven years telling himself he didn’t deserve to want anyone else, that dating anyone tied to Linda’s family was some kind of betrayal, that Mara was the petty girl who’d embarrassed him two decades prior. He thought of the last conversation he’d had with Linda, three days before she died, when she’d grabbed his hand and told him he was too stubborn for his own good, that he shouldn’t spend the rest of his life alone just because she was leaving. All of that old grudge, all that guilt, felt tiny, stupid, when he looked at her, saw the scar on her arm, the calluses on her hands from climbing trees, the way she was looking at him like he wasn’t some grumpy old widower who spent too much time talking to his hound dog. He stood up, wiping motor oil off his hands on his jeans, and before he could talk himself out of it, he leaned in and kissed her. He could taste peppermint on her lips, feel her calloused hands on the back of his neck, tangled in the gray hair at his nape.
They fixed the truck by noon, the engine roaring to life on the first turn of the key. They drove it down the backroads, windows rolled all the way down, Johnny Cash blaring from the crackling old radio, wind whipping through their hair. He pulled off at the overlook above the lake, the same spot he’d taken Linda on their first date, and parked the truck. She leaned her head on his shoulder, and he wrapped his arm around her, his calloused hand resting on her warm, sunburned thigh. He reached over, turned up the radio, and smiled when she started singing off key to Folsom Prison Blues.
