Javi Mendez, 59, has run his small wild honey operation out of his half-acre Asheville lot for 12 years, ever since he took an early buyout from his construction foreman job to help his late wife Elena tend the hives she’d brought home as a 2020 project. The hives are the last meaningful piece of her he has left, so when the new HOA president started slapping him with $200 fines for “unpermitted agricultural use” six months prior, he’d dug in harder than a tick on a hound dog. He left a jar of sour, half-fermented honey on her porch step at 2 a.m. after the first fine, and refused to answer any of her certified letters.
The October sun was warm on his neck at the town fall festival, where he’d set up his honey booth between a kettle corn stand and a guy selling hand-carved walking sticks. The air smelled like fried apple pies and pine, and the bluegrass band at the end of the square was grinding through a slow cover of Folsom Prison Blues that made his scuffed work boots tap against the pine plank floor of the booth he’d built himself. He was stacking jars of tupelo honey when he saw her walk up, and his jaw tightened immediately. He recognized her from the HOA meeting two weeks prior, sitting right next to the president, her sister, taking notes while the woman ranted about “unsightly beehives lowering property values.”
She leaned against the edge of the booth, her plaid flannel sleeve brushing the stack of sample jars, and he braced for a lecture. Instead, she nodded at the jar of sourwood honey closest to her and grinned. “My sister’s been bitching nonstop about your hives. I told her she’s being an idiot. I grew up tending hives at my grandma’s place outside Knoxville. Know good honey when I smell it.”
Javi blinked, thrown off. He’d expected snark, not agreement. He nodded at the sample dish of wildflower honey set out with toothpicks. “Help yourself. Sourwood’s the best we’ve got this year, if you like something a little less cloying.”
She reached for a toothpick, and her elbow brushed his hand where it rested on the booth edge. Her skin was warm, even through the thin flannel, and he pulled his hand back like he’d touched a hot stove, suddenly flustered. He hadn’t let anyone get that close to him on purpose in years, let alone someone related to the woman who was trying to take the only thing that still felt like Elena away from him.
She popped the toothpick in her mouth, hummed low in her throat, and the sound sent a jolt up his spine. “That’s even better than my grandma’s. Jesus, that’s good.” She leaned in further, her knee brushing his where he stood behind the booth, and pointed at the jar of rare tupelo he kept tucked under the counter, only brought out for regulars. “What’s that one? I’ve never seen that shade of gold before.”
He hesitated, then pulled it out, set it on the booth between them. Their fingers brushed when he pushed it across the rough pine, and he didn’t pull away this time. “Tupelo. Only harvest once a year, down near the Georgia border. Doesn’t crystallize, tastes like pear and jasmine.”
She picked up the jar, twisted it in the sun, and the honey glowed through the glass. Her hair was streaked with gray, pulled back in a loose braid, and there was a smudge of cinnamon on her left cheek from the cider stand she’d stopped at earlier. He found himself staring at the smudge, wanting to wipe it off with his thumb, and was immediately disgusted with himself. This was his worst enemy’s sister, for Christ’s sake. He should be kicking her out of the booth, not flirting with her.
A kid in an inflatable dinosaur costume came barrelling past the booth, tripped over the leg of Javi’s folding chair, and knocked the tupelo jar off the edge before either of them could react. They both lunged for it at the same time, their hands wrapping around each other around the cool glass, their faces inches apart. A small dribble of honey leaked out the loose lid, running down their wrists, sticky and sweet. He could smell her perfume, something woody and warm, mixed with the cinnamon on her skin, and feel her breath on his cheek. He almost pulled away, almost made a dumb joke about her sister having his head if she saw them this close, but she didn’t let go of his hand.
“I’m Lila, by the way,” she said, quiet enough that only he could hear it over the bluegrass and the crowd noise. “I’m only in town for three more days, and I don’t want to spend all of them listening to my sister yell about zoning laws. I want to see your hives.”
Javi stared at her for a long beat, the honey sticking their wrists together, the faint hum of the three observation hives he kept in the back of his truck for display humming in his ears. He’d told himself he wasn’t going to let anyone new in, not after Elena, not when the only thing he had going for him was the hives and the quiet, predictable life he’d built. But the way she was looking at him, no pity, no agenda, just a sharp, playful glint in her eye, made that resolve feel as thin as a fresh honeycomb.
He grabbed a permanent marker from the cup next to the cash register, twisted the lid off the tupelo jar, and scrawled his address on the white lid, his hand a little unsteady. “Be here at 9 a.m. tomorrow. Wear closed toe shoes, no strong perfume, and don’t tell your sister where you’re going.”
She laughed, tucked the jar into the canvas bag slung over her shoulder, and winked at him before turning to walk back toward the crowd. Javi watched her go, the sticky honey still drying on his wrist, and wiped the smudge of cinnamon that had rubbed off on his thumb onto the thigh of his worn work jeans.
