Javi Mendez, 57, retired wildland firefighter crew lead, had spent the last three years avoiding every small town community event within 20 miles of his Traverse City cabin. His flaw, one he’d acknowledged after his third neighbor showed up at his door with a casserole and a phone number for their divorced cousin, was that he hated being perceived as a project. Eight years prior, his wife had died in a car crash on her way to meet him at a fire station post-shift, and every face in his old Colorado town had looked at him like he was half a person, so he’d packed up his tools, his collection of vintage snowmobile parts, and moved north where no one knew his name.
The chili cookoff, hosted by the local volunteer fire department, was the first event he’d caved to, only because his next door neighbor, a 72 year old retired nurse named Marnie, had threatened to stop bringing him homemade peach pie if he didn’t show up. He’d hidden by the beer cooler for 45 minutes, turning down three offers to join different tables, when he reached for a root beer at the exact same time as the woman who’d opened the used bookshop on Main Street two months prior.
Their knuckles brushed, cold from the layer of frost coating the inside of the cooler, and Javi pulled his hand back like he’d been burned. He recognized her immediately: Elara Voss, 52, ex-wife of the newly elected county sheriff, the man everyone in town warned you not to cross if you wanted to avoid random speeding tickets and unwarranted visits to your property. Everyone also whispered she’d left him after he’d gotten too comfortable putting his fists through walls during arguments, though no one said it to his face.
She held eye contact for three full beats, longer than polite, and grinned when he stammered out an apology. She smelled like pine soap and cinnamon gum, the kind that burns the back of your throat a little if you chew too much, and she was wearing a faded flannel that looked like it might have once belonged to a logger, scuffed work boots, no makeup. “Don’t sweat it,” she said, grabbing the root beer and popping the top for him before grabbing one for herself. “I’ve been hiding over here too. Everyone keeps asking me how I’m adjusting to single life in a small town, like I didn’t specifically move here to stop answering that question.”
They ended up perched on the tailgate of Javi’s beat up 1998 Ford F-150, passing a bowl of three-alarm chili back and forth, their forearms brushing every time one of them reached for the bowl. He noticed the thin, silvery scar wrapping around her left wrist, from a horse riding accident when she was 16, she told him, and she noticed the puckered burn scar covering three of his fingers on his left hand, from a 2019 fire outside of Durango that killed two of his crew members. She didn’t wince when he told the story, didn’t pat his arm and say she was sorry, just nodded and said that sounded like the kind of thing that sticks with you.
He knew half the town was staring. He could see the sheriff across the field, leaning against a patrol car, jaw tight, eyes fixed on them. A part of him screamed to leave, to go home, to avoid the drama, to stop letting himself feel anything other than the quiet numbness he’d gotten used to for 8 years. That part of him was disgusted he’d even let himself strike up a conversation with the sheriff’s ex, like he was asking for trouble, like he didn’t deserve to have something that felt this easy. But the other part of him, the part he thought had died when his wife did, was buzzing, warm, like the first sip of coffee on a below-zero morning.
The sheriff stalked over 20 minutes later, boots crunching on the gravel, and told Elara it was time to go home. She didn’t look at him, just took another sip of her root beer. “We’re divorced, Rick,” she said, flat. “You don’t get to tell me where to be.” The sheriff took a step closer, and Javi moved without thinking, shifting so he was half in front of Elara, his fingers brushing lightly against the back of her elbow, firm enough to let her know he was there, soft enough that he wasn’t assuming he had to fight her battles for her. “She said she’s staying,” he said, calm, the same voice he used to use when his crew was panicking mid-fire. “If you’ve got a problem with that, the fire chief is over by the grill. I’m sure he’d love to hear why you’re harassing a private citizen at a department fundraiser.”
The sheriff stared at him for 10 seconds, jaw working, then turned and stormed back to his patrol car, peeling out of the parking lot so fast gravel flew everywhere. The crowd that had been pretending not to watch went back to their own conversations, and Elara laughed, a loud, throaty sound that made Javi’s chest feel light. “You didn’t have to do that,” she said, turning to face him, her knee brushing his where they sat on the tailgate. “I could’ve handled him.” “I know you could,” he said, and he meant it.
The cookoff wrapped up an hour later, most of the crowd heading home, the sun dipping below the lake, painting the sky pink and orange. She helped him throw his trash away, and when they walked back to his truck, she leaned against the door and asked if he wanted to come back to her shop later. She had a first edition of *The Call of the Wild* she’d picked up at an estate sale the week prior, she said, and she thought he’d like it. He nodded, his throat too tight to speak for a second, and helped her load her leftover chili and a bag of cookoff prizes into the back of her sedan. When she squeezed his hand before climbing into the driver’s seat, he didn’t flinch, for the first time in 8 years, he didn’t feel like he was waiting for something bad to happen.
