Rafe Marquez, 53, vintage camper restorer with grease permanently under his fingernails and a grudge he’d been nursing for 27 days, wandered the Hamilton County fairgrounds sweating through the collar of his faded Willie Nelson tee. He’d driven 20 minutes for the fried green tomatoes at the Mennonite stand, same as he did every August, and he’d been doing a damn good job of avoiding the 4-H honey booth three stalls down so far. The woman running it, Lena Hale, had left him the only 1 star review of his 12 year career three weeks prior, complaining he’d taken three extra days to finish her 1972 Airstream overhaul, no mention of the fact he’d replaced her rotted floor for free when he found water damage halfway through the job. He’d ranted about her to every customer who walked through his barn shop for a month, called her entitled, impatient, a pain in the ass he never wanted to cross paths with again.
Then the line for the tomato stand snaked right up next to her booth. He cursed under his breath, shifted his cold beer to his other hand, stared straight ahead like he didn’t see her leaning against the rough wooden counter, cutoff jean shorts showing tanned, freckled legs, a smudge of beeswax on her left cheek, hair pulled back in a messy braid streaked with sun from hours working her hives. He could smell the clover and wildflower honey stacked in mason jars behind her, sweet enough to cut through the stench of fried dough and cow manure drifting from the livestock barns. The kid in front of him ordered three servings of fried Oreos, and Rafe shifted his weight, his boot scuffing the sawdust-covered asphalt, when he heard her laugh.
“Marquez. Fancy seeing you here.”
He froze. Turned slow. She was leaning forward, elbows on the counter, chin propped in one hand, dark eyes glinting like she knew exactly how much he’d been avoiding her. The corner of her mouth was tugged up in a teasing smirk, no trace of the furious woman who’d yelled at him over the phone three weeks prior about missed camping reservations. He grunted, nodded, tried to turn back to the food stand, but she spoke again. “Heard you’ve been telling everyone I’m a Karen who left you a bad review for no reason.”
Rafe’s jaw tightened. He stepped closer to her booth, close enough he could smell the lavender shampoo she used under the honey scent, close enough he could see the tiny scar above her right eyebrow from when she’d tripped over a hive box last spring, a detail he’d only caught when she’d dropped off the Airstream. “You did leave a bad review for no reason. I told you the floor was rotted, I had to order special marine grade plywood, you said you understood.”
She held up both hands, palms out, still grinning. “I was an idiot. I posted that the night my old golden retriever had to go to the emergency vet for eating a whole jar of peanut butter laced with xylitol. I was stressed, I forgot I even left it until my sister mentioned she saw it last week. I already took it down, for the record. Left a 5 star one in its place, mentioned the free floor. Figured you’d see it eventually.”
Rafe blinked. He’d checked his reviews that morning, hadn’t seen the update. He opened his mouth to say something, when the kid behind the food stand called his name. He turned to grab his plate of fried green tomatoes, still steaming, dusted with paprika, and at the same time Lena reached for a small jar of honey to hand to a little girl in sparkly cowboy boots who’d walked up to her booth. Their hands brushed, knuckle to knuckle, and Rafe felt the rough callus on her index finger from working hive frames, the warmth of her skin through the sticky summer air. She flinched a little, but didn’t yank her hand away right away, held the contact for half a beat longer than she needed to, before she grabbed the jar and handed it to the kid.
The plate was hot in Rafe’s hand. He set it down on the edge of her booth, suddenly not hungry anymore. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Of course I did. I felt like garbage the second I remembered I posted it. I was gonna bring a jar of my best wildflower honey by your shop this week to apologize, but I kept chickening out. Figured you’d slam the door in my face.” She picked up a small plastic sample spoon, dipped it into an open jar of honey behind her, then paused, shook her head, dabbed a tiny dollop of the thick, golden honey on the back of her left hand instead, held it out across the counter to him. “Taste this. It’s from the hives I keep up on the ridge behind my house. Tastes like blackberry and clover. Best batch I’ve ever made.”
Rafe stared at her hand, at the honey glistening on her skin, at the faint smattering of freckles across her wrist. He knew he should tell her no, grab his tomatoes, go sit in the grandstands and watch the demolition derby like he planned. But the fair noise faded for a second, the roar of the carnival rides, the yelling of kids, the announcer calling out prize winners over the loudspeaker, all of it went quiet, and he leaned in, his lips brushing the soft skin of her hand as he licked the honey off. It was sweet, bright, just like she said, a hint of blackberry at the end, and he heard her breath catch, quiet, almost too quiet to hear over the chaos around them.
He pulled back, wiped a drop of honey off his lower lip with his thumb. “That’s good. Real good.”
Lena was blushing now, the pink rising up her neck to her cheeks, and she wiped the back of her hand on her shorts, still grinning, like she couldn’t believe she’d just done that. “I told you. I’ll bring a whole quart by tomorrow, if you want. I can even check out the Airstream while I’m there, if you’re not too busy. I heard you added those custom oak cabinets I was asking about, the ones for my camping mugs.”
“Tomorrow works. 10 a.m. Don’t be late.” Rafe picked up his plate of fried green tomatoes, nodded at her, and turned to walk toward the grandstands. He didn’t look back for 20 steps, and when he did, she was still leaning against the booth, watching him, wiping a smudge of honey off her chin with the back of her wrist, grinning so wide the dimples in her cheeks showed.
