Elias Voss, 52, wildland fire mitigation specialist, had been dragged to the Red Lodge summer beer fest against his better judgment. His coworker had insisted three weeks of 12-hour days prepping the national forest for fire season meant he owed himself a beer, but Elias hated the crowded small town events, hated the way people stared a little too long, like they were waiting for him to still be grieving his wife, who’d passed three years prior from ovarian cancer. He was perched on the edge of a splintered picnic table, scuffed work boots planted in the dust, half-drunk hazy IPA in one hand, when she bumped into his elbow.
They talked for 15 minutes by the food truck, her shoulder brushing his bicep every time a group of drunk teens stumbled past on the path. He told her about the prescribed burns he was scheduling for the fall, she told him about the summer reading program she’d just launched for the local foster kids, and he realized he’d never felt this loose talking to a stranger since his wife died. The scent of lavender and pine sachet from her hair wrapped around him, and for half a second he almost forgot the small town gossip he’d heard three months prior: she was the ex-wife of his new boss, Jake, who’d been hired to run the regional fire mitigation office, who already had a reputation for holding grudges against anyone who crossed him. Elias was up for a promotion to lead the state’s prescribed burn program, a job he’d been gunning for for seven years, and everyone knew you didn’t so much as look at the boss’s ex if you wanted to keep your job, let alone move up.
He was halfway to making an excuse to leave when she nodded toward the tree line at the edge of the park, said the band’s amp was giving her a headache, asked if he wanted to walk with her to get away from the noise. He hesitated, then nodded, following her across the dust-caked grass to the shade of a massive old ponderosa, far enough from the crowd that the music faded to a low hum, no one close enough to see them. She leaned back against the rough bark, crossing her ankles, and looked up at him, like she knew exactly what he was worrying about. “Jake doesn’t get a vote in who I talk to,” she said, soft, like she was sharing a secret. “I left him because he thought he owned every person in a 10-mile radius. You don’t have to be scared of him.”
Elias froze for half a second, then reached out, brushing a stray pine needle off the top of her shoulder, his calloused fingertips grazing the soft skin of her neck. She didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away, just tilted her chin up a little, her eyes flicking from his mouth to his eyes and back again. He leaned down, kissing her slow, the sweet tang of cherry lollipop and lemon seltzer on her lips, the rough bark of the tree digging into his back when she leaned in closer, her hand fisting lightly in the front of his worn flannel shirt. Somewhere above them a woodpecker tapped out a steady rhythm against the tree trunk, and the cool mountain breeze carried the faint smell of grilled brats and hops from the festival across the grass.
They pulled apart after a minute, both quiet, smiling like a couple of dumb teenagers who’d just snuck away from their parents. She pulled her phone out of her purse, tapped a few times, then handed it to him to put his number in, her thumb brushing his knuckle when he passed it back. He walked her to her beat-up Subaru at the edge of the parking lot, and she squeezed his hand before she climbed in, said she’d text him the next morning to meet for coffee, that she wanted his input on fire safe plants for the library’s new community garden. He stood there until her car turned the corner out of the lot, then took a last sip of his warm, flat beer, pulled his phone out to text his coworker he was heading home early, no need to wait for him. He kicked a loose rock across the asphalt, the corner of his mouth tugging up in a smile he hadn’t felt in years.
