Rafe Mendez, 59, wipes grease off his calloused fingers onto the knee of his frayed Carhartt overalls, leaning back against the cool aluminum skin of the 1968 Airstream he’d hauled into town for the annual Madison County street fair. He’d fought coming for three weeks—hates crowded events, hates small talk with people who ask about his ex-wife every other sentence—until his 12-year-old next door neighbor cried that all her friends wanted to tour the “shiny camper Uncle Rafe fixes up.” Now he’s been here six hours, fielding questions about tile options and battery life, a half-chewed wad of wintergreen Skoal tucked in his lower lip, the twang of a local bluegrass band humming through the sticky July air.
He spots her across the row of booths first, and his jaw tightens. Elara Voss. His ex’s former best friend, the woman he’d blamed for 17 years for spilling the beans about his weekend fishing trip that made him miss his stepdaughter’s 10th grade violin recital. He’d cut her off cold after that, hadn’t said more than two words to her in passing since the divorce. She’s leaning against the edge of her honey stand, sun freckles splashed across her nose, a faded linen sundress hitting her mid-calf, mud caked on the toes of her work boots from her bee farm up in the hills. She’s not wearing the heavy floral perfume she used to douse herself in back in the day; when she walks over, she smells like wild clover and lavender, sharp and sweet.
She stops a foot away, arms crossed, and smirks like she knows he’s been glaring. “Your cooler still stocked with that cheap Pabst you love? My ice melted an hour ago, and my samples are turning to soup.” Her voice is raspier than he remembers, like she’s spent years yelling over beehives and wind. He almost tells her to go to hell, but she snorts before he can open his mouth. “Before you get all huffy, I found out last month it was your ex’s cousin Randy who ratted about that fishing trip, not me. I never even knew you skipped the recital until she was screaming at you about it.”
Rafe blinks, the grudge he’s carried for almost two decades fizzling so fast he feels silly. He jerks his chin toward the Airstream’s open door. “Ice is in the back. Help yourself. Got a couple craft IPAs too, if you’re not still drinking that white wine spritzer garbage.”
She laughs, loud and genuine, and when she steps past him her shoulder brushes his bicep, warm through the thin cotton of his t-shirt. He’s suddenly hyper-aware of the sweat rolling down his neck, the way her dress swishes around her ankles when she moves, the sound of her rummaging around in the cooler behind him. She comes back out with two cans of IPA, passes one to him, and when their fingers brush his skin tingles like he’s been zapped with a low-voltage wire. He hasn’t felt that spark with anyone since the divorce.
They sit on the fold-out bench he set up outside the Airstream for customers, and for the next two hours they talk like no time passed at all. She teases him about still wearing the same beat-up cowboy hat he had back in 2006, he teases her about still sticking her tongue out when she’s concentrating on pouring honey samples for passersby. When a couple asks a question about custom cabinet layouts, she leans in to listen, her knee pressing against his, warm and solid through the denim of his work jeans. He finds himself telling her about his stepdaughter’s new job as a park ranger in Oregon, about the 1972 Winnebago he’s restoring for a retired teacher from Florida, about how he still misses having someone to cook breakfast for on Sunday mornings.
By dusk the fair is winding down, the bluegrass band packing up their instruments, fireflies blinking in the grass at the edge of the parking lot. Rafe lifts the heavy wooden sign he made for his restoration business to load it into the bed of his beat-up F150, and Elara steps in to grab the other end, her chest pressing against his back for half a second when they adjust their grip. He freezes, then turns around, and she’s standing close enough he can count the silver strands in her dark hair, her eyes dark in the golden glow of the string lights strung between the booths.
“I had a crush on you for 10 years when you were married,” she says, no hesitation, like she’s been holding it in so long it just slipped out. “Never said anything. Figured you hated me too much to care.”
Rafe huffs a laugh, setting the sign down on the truck bed so he can look at her properly. “I thought you hated me. Always thought you were the hottest of your friend group, though. Would’ve asked you out the day the divorce papers were signed if I didn’t think you’d pour honey all over my head.”
She snorts, swatting his arm lightly. He grabs her wrist for half a second, just to feel the soft skin there, before letting go. He nods toward the highway, where the neon sign for the 24-hour taco stand is glowing pink and green a mile down the road. “You hungry? They do carnitas tacos so greasy they drip through the paper. I’ll even let you drizzle that fancy wildflower honey of yours on ‘em, if you promise not to tell anyone I let people put sweet stuff on my tacos.”
Elara grins, climbing up into the passenger seat of the truck when he opens the door for her. She swipes a crumb of fried oreo off his cheek with her thumb before she pulls the door shut behind her.
