Marlon Pruitt, 53, part-time beekeeper and full-time wild foraging guide in the Blue Ridge Mountains, had nursed a grudge against Lila Mae Carter for 12 years and 17 days, give or take. He’d spent the better part of those years assuming she’d turned him into the county health department for selling unlicensed raw honey out of his beat-up Ford F-150 at the weekly farmers market, a fine that cost him $2100 he’d been saving for a new hive lift. His ex-wife had insisted Lila was the snitch, and Marlon had never bothered to fact check, even after his ex passed from triple negative breast cancer three years prior. Since then, he’d kept to his 12 acres of oak and clover, only heading into town on Tuesday nights for the bar’s 50-cent wing special and a pint of cold IPA, avoiding Lila like she carried a particularly aggressive strain of foul brood.
He was halfway through his second pint and a basket of extra-spicy wings when the stool next to him scraped against the linoleum. Marlon didn’t look up at first, assuming it was one of the loggers who usually rolled in around 8, until he smelled jasmine hand lotion mixed with the faint, sharp tang of menthol cigarette. He glanced up, and his jaw went tight. It was Lila. There were four empty stools on the other side of the bar, but she’d chosen the one six inches from his elbow, her denim jacket brushing the sleeve of his grease-stained flannel when she leaned in to flag the bartender.
She ordered a bourbon on the rocks, then turned to him, dark eyes glinting under the neon beer sign above the bar. “You’re still wearing that stupid flannel with the bee patch on the shoulder,” she said, no preamble, a half-smile tugging at the corner of her mouth that made the faint crinkles at the corners of her eyes deepen. Marlon froze. He’d forgotten she’d stitched that patch on for him back when he and his ex were first dating, a housewarming gift when he bought his first bee hive. He’d spent so long picturing her as a stuck-up snitch he’d forgotten all the small, kind things she’d done before the fight.
He was halfway to making a snarky comment about her still working for the county when she held up a hand, cutting him off. “I didn’t turn you in, for the record,” she said, leaning in so her shoulder pressed firm against his bicep, voice low enough no one else could hear. “It was your ex’s cousin, the one who wanted free honey for his wedding and you told him to go to hell. He worked for the health department back then. I tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t return my calls.” Marlon’s throat went dry. He’d carried that anger for over a decade, let it fester so deep he’d blocked her number, crossed the street when he saw her at the grocery store, turned down every invitation to events he knew she’d be at. All of it for nothing.
He stared at her, at the thin scar on her left jaw from the bike crash she’d had when they were both in their 20s, the smudge of charcoal on the side of her thumb (she painted watercolors of local wildflowers, he remembered that too), the way her knee bumped his under the bar when she shifted in her seat. She didn’t pull away. When he told her about the hive that swarmed on a tourist’s minivan last month, she laughed so hard she snort-laughed, and her hand landed on his wrist, calloused from years of planting native pollinator gardens for the county, warm against his skin. He didn’t flinch. For a second, the anger he’d carried for so long melted clean away, replaced by something hotter, sharper, something he felt guilty for even noticing. She was his ex-wife’s best friend. He’d hated her for 12 years. He shouldn’t be thinking about how good her jasmine lotion smelled, or how her eyes lit up when he talked about the new wild blackberry honey he’d harvested the week before.
She brushed a stray bee stinger off the cuff of his flannel before he even saw it there, her fingers lingering on his forearm for three full beats, like she was counting the pulse under his skin. “I’ve been coming here on Tuesdays for six months,” she said, voice quieter now, no teasing left in it. “I was too scared to talk to you. I knew you hated me.” Marlon’s chest tightened. He’d spent so long being angry he’d never stopped to wonder if she’d missed him, too, if she’d carried the weight of that fight as long as he had.
He signaled the bartender for his tab, wiping hot sauce off his chin with a napkin. “You wanna come back to my place?” he said, before he could talk himself out of it. “The hives are slow at dusk. You can try the blackberry honey. It’s the best batch I’ve ever made.”
She smiled, the same half-smile she’d given him when she sat down, and slid off the stool, her hand brushing his when she stood. She grabbed her jacket off the back of the chair, and Marlon held the bar door open for her, the cool mountain air hitting his face when they stepped outside, crickets chirping loud in the brush next to the parking lot, the sweet smell of apple blossoms from the orchard down the road drifting through the dark. She laced her fingers through his, calloused palm against calloused palm, and didn’t let go when he walked her to his truck.
