Rafe Mendez, 52, spent 18 years as a U.S. Forest Service smokejumper before a blown knee and a 2017 blaze that killed three of his crew pushed him into early retirement. Now he runs a one-man wildfire mitigation consulting firm out of his Boise garage, spends most weekends splitting firewood or rebuilding his 1987 Ford F-150, and hasn’t been on a date since his wife left him seven years prior. He’s got a scar snaking 8 inches across his left bicep from a falling cedar limb, a permanent limp when the weather turns cool, and a bad habit of walking the other way when he spots his new next door neighbor in her yard.
The late September craft beer festival on the banks of the Boise River was the last place he expected to run into her. He was leaning against a gnarled oak, nursing a chocolate porter, watching a group of teens play cornhole, when he heard a laugh he’d memorized through the thin wall separating their duplexes. He turned, and there she was, 10 feet away, holding a plastic cup of hazy IPA, a smudge of green hops across her left cheek, flannel tied around her waist, faded jeans snug across her hips. She spotted him immediately, grin widening, and walked over before he could duck behind the tree.
The air between them smelled like cut grass, roasted almonds, and the coconut shampoo she used, the same scent that drifted through his open kitchen window when she watered her tomato plants at dawn. She stood close enough that his bad knee brushed hers when a group of drunk college students stumbled past, and her hand brushed the scar on his bicep when she caught herself from tipping into him. She paused, fingers light against the raised, pale skin, and asked how he got it. He told her, blunt as always, no flowery details, just the facts: 2019, blaze outside McCall, cedar limb broke loose mid-mop-up, caught him off guard. She didn’t wince, didn’t give him that pitying look most people did when he talked about his smokejumping days. She just nodded, asked if it still ached when the temperature dropped, and said she’d been meaning to bring him chocolate chip cookies for fixing her back fence last month when her ex brother-in-law bailed on the job.
He’d spent three months actively avoiding exactly this kind of interaction. He’d told himself neighbors were off limits, messy, that he was too gruff, too closed off, too marked by old losses to be anyone’s idea of a good time. He’d stared at her through his kitchen window more times than he’d care to admit, watched her haul grocery bags up the steps, dance in her living room to 90s country while she folded laundry, and every time he’d felt that sharp, hot twist of desire tangled up with disgust at himself for even looking. He’d assumed she was still married, had seen a thin gold band on her left ring finger every time he’d spotted her before, but when she lifted her cup to take a sip, he noticed the finger was bare. She followed his gaze, tucked a strand of chestnut hair behind her ear, and said she’d taken it off an hour earlier. Her husband had died eight months prior, pancreatic cancer, fast, and she’d spent the time since hiding behind the ring, scared to admit she was ready to stop grieving long enough to feel something that wasn’t sadness.
The noise of the festival faded to a low hum when he looked at her, the gold of the setting sun catching the flecks of green in her brown eyes. He didn’t say anything for a long beat, just stared at the hops smudge on her cheek, the faint freckles across her nose, the way her teeth pulled at her lower lip when she was nervous. A kid ran past, chasing a golden retriever, and she stumbled into him again, her chest pressing against his for half a second, and he could feel the heat of her through their t-shirts, the fast thud of her heart against his ribs. He lifted his hand, slow, like he was approaching a skittish deer, and wiped the smudge of hops off her cheek with the pad of his thumb. His hand lingered on her jaw for a beat, and she leaned into it, her eyes fluttering shut for half a second.
She asked if he wanted to get tacos at the truck down the street from their duplex, said she’d been craving al pastor all week, and he nodded before he could overthink it. He offered her his arm when they walked across the lumpy grass, his bad knee not aching nearly as bad as it had an hour earlier, and when they crossed the busy street, she laced her fingers through his, her palm soft and warm against his calloused one. The taco truck’s neon sign flickered pink when they rounded the corner, and she squeezed his hand, grinning up at him, when she spotted the line was only three people long.
