Elias Voss, 62, retired forest fire spotter, leaned against the splintered cedar fence lining the coastal Oregon town’s annual oyster festival, cold IPA sweating through the paper napkin wrapped around its glass. He’d spent 28 years manning remote fire towers in western Montana, and the noise of the crowd still made him jittery, the kind of jitter he’d only ever felt when he spotted a thin wisp of smoke on the horizon that no one else had seen yet. His biggest flaw, one he’d nursed for 12 years since his wife left him for a cattle rancher with a bigger house and less rigid schedule, was that he refused to let anyone get close enough to light a fire he couldn’t put out alone. He fixed vintage fishing reels for extra cash these days, kept his small cottage on the edge of town dark most nights, only talked to the bait shop owner and his 27-year-old part-time assistant when he had to.
He spotted her across the crowd first, holding a paper tray piled high with smoked oysters, same streak of silver cutting through the chestnut hair at her temple that he’d remembered from the last family reunion he’d forced himself to attend 15 years prior. Mara, 59, his late older brother’s widow, had moved to town three weeks prior to settle the small plot of oceanfront property her husband had left behind. Elias had avoided her every time she’d stopped by his cottage to drop off boxes of his brother’s old tools, told himself it was out of respect, that the stupid, quiet crush he’d carried on her since they were both in their 30s was some kind of moral failure he needed to stamp out before it took root.
She spotted him before he could duck behind the food truck selling fried calamari, smiled wide, and walked over, the hem of her linen dress brushing the tops of her tanned calves as she moved. She stopped so close to him when she reached the fence that her elbow brushed his bicep when she leaned against the wood, and he caught the faint scent of lavender hand lotion mixed with the briny ocean air and fried garlic wafting from the food stalls. “I was wondering when I’d run into you,” she said, holding his gaze for a beat longer than was strictly polite, no edge of awkwardness in her voice. “Your brother used to talk for hours about how you could fix anything with a spring and a screwdriver. Said you could take apart a fire tower radio and put it back together blindfolded.”
He grunted, took a too-big sip of his IPA, tried to ignore the way his skin was still tingling where her elbow had brushed him. She held out a smoked oyster on a toothpick, and when he reached to take it, her fingers brushed his palm, warm and soft, and he flinched like he’d touched a live wire. She laughed, low and warm, not mocking, and popped an oyster into her own mouth. “Relax, Elias. I don’t bite. Not unless someone asks nicely, anyway.” The teasing hung soft between them, and he felt his face heat up, a stupid, boyish flush he hadn’t felt since he was a teenager asking a girl to prom. He’d spent so long telling himself wanting her was wrong, that it was a betrayal of his brother, that the desire had curdled into something he’d been ashamed of for decades, but standing next to her, watching the sun catch the gold flecks in her eyes, the shame was starting to melt away, faster than snow on a south-facing slope in April.
The crowd roared when the shucking contest winner was announced, and a group of drunk college students pressed past them, forcing Mara to step closer, her shoulder pressed fully to his, her free hand coming to rest on his forearm to steady herself. He could feel the heat of her hand through the thin cotton of his flannel shirt, could hear her breath catch a little when he didn’t pull away. “I hated living in Spokane,” she said, quiet enough only he could hear, as the crowd noise died down a little. “Your brother was a good man, but he was loud, always needing to be the center of attention. I used to watch you at the family gatherings, sitting quiet on the porch, watching the trees, and I’d wonder what it would be like to be around someone who didn’t need to fill every silence with noise.”
The first firework went off then, a burst of electric pink painting the sky over the ocean, and the crowd gasped in unison. Another went off, gold, then blue, lighting up Mara’s face, and she didn’t move her hand from his arm, just tilted her head up to watch the sky, her hair falling back from her face. “I know this is weird,” she said, her voice almost drowned out by the boom of the next firework. “I know people will talk. But I’m 59 years old, I’m done caring what people think. I’ve thought about you for years. I didn’t move here just to settle an estate.”
The tight, guilty knot in Elias’s chest snapped right then. He’d spent so long running from anything that felt like risk, so long telling himself he didn’t deserve anything good, that he’d almost missed this. He lifted his hand, brushed a stray strand of hair off her face, his thumb grazing her cheekbone, and she tilted her head into the touch, her eyes fluttering shut for half a second. He didn’t say anything, didn’t need to, just shifted his arm so he could wrap it around her waist, pulling her a little closer, so her hip was pressed to his, and they watched the rest of the fireworks together, quiet, the boom of the explosions mixing with the crash of the waves on the shore a few hundred feet away.
When the last firework faded, the crowd started to disperse, people laughing and calling out to each other as they walked to their cars. Mara slipped her hand into his, her fingers lacing through his, her palm soft but calloused at the tips from 30 years of turning library book pages, fitting perfectly against his, rough from decades of turning wrench handles and adjusting fire tower binoculars. “My cottage is three blocks away,” she said, squeezing his hand. “You wanna walk me home?”
He nodded, no hesitation, no last-minute rush of guilt, no urge to run back to his dark, quiet cottage alone. They walked slow, the sidewalk still warm from the day’s sun, the salt air sticking to their skin. When they got to her porch, she stepped up to the first step, so she was almost the same height as him, leaned in, and kissed him soft, her lips tasting like smoked oyster and pear cider, her hand coming to rest on the back of his neck. He kissed her back, his hand resting on her waist, and when she pulled back, she smiled, nodding toward the front door. The porch light flipped on as she reached for the doorknob, casting warm yellow light over the chipped blue paint of the porch rail, and he followed her inside, no looking back.
