Elias Voss, 53, has spent the last 8 years as a wildland fire mitigation specialist operating out of Missoula, Montana, and the last 8 years avoiding any social situation that doesn’t involve his crew, his 22-year-old daughter’s weekly FaceTime calls, or the quiet of his 12-acre property at the edge of the Bitterroot Valley. His only real flaw, if you ask his old high school friend Mike, is that he’s stubborn as a mule, convinced he’s too set in his ways to bother with new people, let alone anything resembling romance, ever since his ex-wife left him for a digital nomad travel blogger in 2015. That’s why Mike had to practically drag him to the annual Missoula Honey Festival beer garden that September evening, shoving a cold IPA into his calloused, pine-sap-stained hand and shoving him down at a sticky picnic table half an hour before sunset.
He was already mentally mapping out the brush he needed to clear the next morning when a pair of denim shorts brushed his scuffed steel-toe work boots, and someone slid onto the bench across from him. He looked up, first catching the scent of wild honey and lavender, then recognizing Lila Marlow, Mike’s 41-year-old younger sister, who he’d last seen three years prior at Mike’s 50th birthday party, when she was still married and living in Portland. She had a smudge of beeswax on her left wrist, and a half-empty glass of mead in her other hand, and she grinned when she saw him, tapping her glass against his beer bottle. “You still wear those exact boots?” she said, nodding at his feet. “I swear you had those when you hauled my twin mattress up three flights of stairs for my first year at UM. I thought you’d have worn through the soles by now.”
Elias laughed, rubbing the back of his neck, the worn flannel of his shirt scratchy against his skin. “They still fit. Don’t fix what ain’t broken.” He tried not to stare, but it was hard; he’d known Lila since she was 12, when she’d followed Mike and him around on camping trips, begging to drive their four wheelers, but he’d never really looked at her before, not like this. He noticed the faint scar on her forearm from the time she’d crashed his four wheeler when she was 14, the way she tucked a strand of honey-blonde hair behind her ear when a breeze picked up, the smudge of beeswax on her jaw from selling her honey oat cakes at the festival booth earlier that day. When she leaned forward to point at a man in a lopsided bee costume tripping over a lawn chair, her forearm rested on his for three full seconds, warm through the thin fabric of his shirt, and he felt a jolt run up his spine, immediately followed by a twist of guilt. She was Mike’s little sister, for Christ’s sake. He was 12 years older than her. He had no business noticing how her sundress fit across her shoulders, no business thinking about how good she smelled.
“Funny thing,” she said, leaning back, taking a sip of her mead, “I used to tell my college roommate I was gonna marry you someday. She thought I was insane, said you were the grumpiest old man she’d ever met. I told her you were just quiet.” She grinned, and Elias felt his face heat up, his throat going dry. He opened his mouth to say something, but the first firework went off then, bright red, bursting over the valley, and the whole crowd around them stood up cheering. A group of drunk college kids stumbled past, one slamming into Lila’s shoulder hard enough that she stumbled forward into Elias, and he caught her by the waist, his hands splaying across her sides, firm, the fabric of her dress soft under his palms. She didn’t pull away, just tilted her head up to look at him, the fireworks painting her face pink and blue, the boom of each explosion echoing in his chest. “I never really grew out of it, by the way,” she said, her voice low enough only he could hear it over the roar of the crowd. “The crush. I stop by the edge of your property sometimes to watch the sunset. Saw you out in your apple orchard last week, had headphones on, didn’t see me.”
He blinked, his brain going completely blank, all the protests he’d been forming about how this was wrong, how he was too old, too set in his ways, vanishing completely when she leaned up and pressed her lips to his. It was soft at first, tentative, like she was waiting for him to pull away, but he didn’t. He tightened his grip on her waist a little, kissing her back, and he could taste the sweet mead on her tongue, the faint tang of cherry lip balm, and for a second he forgot where he was, forgot Mike was somewhere in the crowd, forgot all the excuses he’d made for 8 years about why he was better off alone.
When the last firework faded, the crowd started to disperse, people hauling coolers and folding chairs, kids passed out on their parents’ shoulders. She pulled back, grinning, wiping a smudge of her lip balm off his chin with her thumb. “I live three blocks from here,” she said, nodding toward the row of small cottages at the edge of the festival grounds. “Got a fresh batch of honey ice cream in my freezer. If you want to come over.” Elias stared at her for a beat, then nodded, picking up her canvas tote bag full of leftover baked goods from the table and slinging it over his shoulder. He held out his hand, and she laced her fingers through his, her palm soft, a little calloused at the fingertips from kneading dough. They walked slow, past groups of laughing people, the smell of fireworks smoke hanging heavy in the air. The cool September air bit at his cheeks as they walked, and for the first time in almost a decade, he didn’t feel the urge to rush back to his empty house.
