Javi Mendez, 53, leans against the rough cedar post of the small town Fourth of July beer tent, calloused fingers wrapped around a frosty Grain Belt Premium. He retired from wildland firefighting six years prior, now runs a one-man firewood delivery and forest restoration outfit out of a cinder block shop ten miles outside of town, and he’d only showed up to the festival because the organizer owed him three cords of oak for helping clear the park’s dead pines the month before. A faint silvery burn scar cuts along his left jaw, left over from the 2017 Boundary Waters blowdown fire, and the nerve just below his lower lip twitches when he’s nervous, a quirk he’s spent years hiding behind bushy facial hair and turned-away faces. He’s avoided any sort of romantic or even casual connection since his wife left him the week he got out of the burn unit, convinced his roughened hands, permanent scar, and tendency to disappear into the woods for three days at a time make him too much work for anyone to bother with.
The sun dips low over the pines, painting the sky streaks of tangerine and soft purple, and the string lights strung across the tent’s poles flicker to life, casting warm gold over the crowd of locals. He spots Lena Carter across the tent, the woman who runs the beekeeping supply shop on Main Street, carrying a quart jar of her famous wild raspberry honey, the first place prize for the annual cornhole tournament. He’s seen her at the farmers market every Saturday for the past six months, she always saves him a jar of the raw clover honey he uses for his morning coffee, and he’s always made a point to rush through the transaction, head down, no small talk, because the whole town still whispers that she’s married to Todd Carter, the former high school football coach who left town two years prior after a domestic violence arrest that got swept under the rug by the local sheriff’s department. Everyone acts like she’s still off limits, like talking to her for more than ten seconds is some sort of moral failure, and Javi’s never had the energy to fight small town gossip.
She spots him halfway across the tent, and a slow, lazy smile tugs at the corner of her mouth, and she walks straight for him, boots crunching over the scattered peanut shells on the grass. She stops so close he can feel the heat off her arms, can smell the lavender soap she uses and the faint, sweet tang of honey clinging to her skin, close enough that he can see the faint smattering of freckles across her nose and the tiny silver hoop through her left nostril. She’s wearing a faded cutoff denim shirt, unbuttoned one button too low, and he can see the faint outline of her nipple piercings through the thin fabric when the string lights hit just right. He freezes, the beer bottle halfway to his mouth, and his lip twitches so hard he’s sure she can see it.
“Been avoiding me, Mendez?” she says, her voice low and rough, like she’s spent the whole day yelling over the buzz of her beehives. She tilts her head, and her eyes flick down to the scar on his jaw, then back up to his eyes, no pity, no awkwardness, just that same lazy smile. She reaches up, and brushes a dry pine needle off the collar of his beat up Carhartt work shirt, her fingers grazing the edge of his scar for half a second too long to be an accident. The skin of the scar is still sensitive, even after all these years, and a shiver runs down his spine, the kind he hasn’t felt since he was a teenager sneaking into his girlfriend’s bedroom after curfew.
He glances over her shoulder, and spots the group of old VFW guys he used to drink with staring over at them, muttering into their beer cans, one of them shaking his head like Javi’s doing something illegal. He feels that familiar twist of conflict in his gut, the sharp pull of disgust at the small town bullshit that’s kept this woman isolated for two years, the hot, thrumming desire that’s been building in his chest every time he sees her at the market, every time she hands him that jar of honey and her fingers brush his. He’s spent 8 years hiding, letting other people’s opinions, his own stupid self-pity, keep him alone in that cabin, eating frozen dinners and listening to old country tapes by himself.
She holds up the jar of raspberry honey, and shakes it a little, the thick golden liquid swirling inside. “Todd signed the final divorce papers last week,” she says, so quiet only he can hear it, over the roar of the crowd and the distant hum of the fireworks setup crew’s generator. “Wanna skip the fireworks? I got a batch of blackberry mead I just bottled back at the honey house, it’s still a little green, but it tastes like summer.”
He hesitates for half a second, glances back at the VFW guys, one of them scowls at him, and he smirks, downs the last of his beer in three long swallows, sets the empty bottle on the cedar post behind him. He reaches out, laces his calloused, scarred fingers through hers, her palm is rough from lifting beehive boxes, warm, fits perfectly in his. He doesn’t say anything, just nods, and she laughs, a bright, loud sound that cuts through the noise of the tent.
They walk out past the crowd, hand in hand, and the first firework bursts red and gold over the lake behind them, painting the side of her face pink and gilding the edges of her hair. She squeezes his hand as they climb into her beat up rusted Ford F150, cranks up an old Johnny Cash tape so loud the speakers rattle, and he rests his left hand, the one with the faint burn scars across the knuckles, on her denim-clad thigh the whole drive back to her place.
