Roy Pacheco, 53, has run his apiary 20 minutes outside Asheville for 11 years, ever since he quit his job as a high school biology teacher after his divorce. His biggest flaw is he’d rather rearrange his entire Saturday market schedule than make small talk with someone new, and he still holds grudges so tight his jaw aches most nights. Ten years prior, his then-best friend Jake had bailed on a joint honey and baked goods pop-up plan the night before launch, leaving Roy on the hook for $1,200 in booth fees and no product to pair with his raw wildflower honey. He hasn’t spoken to Jake since, and he’d avoided even passing mention of Jake’s wife, Clara, too, convinced the whole mess had been her idea to begin with.
The August air hangs thick as molasses the Saturday she sets up her scone booth directly next to his, no warning, no heads up from the market coordinator. She’s wearing a linen dress the color of wild clover, her dark hair pulled back in a braid streaked with the same silver he has at his temples, and when she hefts a tray of peach scones over the table divider, her shoulder brushes his bare bicep. He smells vanilla extract, fresh peach, and a faint whiff of lavender perfume he remembers from Jake’s old backyard barbecues, and his first instinct is to grab his cash box and pack up early. He doesn’t move, though, when she turns to him, one eyebrow raised, and holds out a scone still warm from the portable oven under her table.
“Figured you’d be mad to see me,” she says, and her voice is lower than he remembers, rougher, like she’s spent the last few years yelling over convection fans instead of PTA meetings. “Jake left three years ago. Moved to Fort Lauderdale with a girl he met on a fishing trip, 26, collects neon beer signs. Admitted he screwed you over on that pop-up, said he was scared you’d make more money than him and he’d look like an idiot.”
Roy blinks, the scone warm in his hand, sticky honey from his last customer smearing the crumbly exterior. He takes a bite, sweet peach oozing over his tongue, and can’t think of a single thing to say. The sky rumbles, dark gray clouds rolling over downtown, and the market crowd thins fast, people grabbing their goods and darting for cars. Clara laughs when a raindrop hits her cheek, wiping it away with the back of her hand, and he notices the tiny scar on her wrist from the 2012 motorcycle crash, the night he drove her to the ER because Jake was too drunk to get behind the wheel.
The rain hits hard ten seconds later, fat cold drops slamming against his pop-up tent, and they both scramble to yank their products under cover, his glass honey jars clinking, her scone bags crinkling as she shoves them into a plastic bin. He grabs a heavy canvas tarp from the back of his booth, spreading it over the gap between their tables to keep the rain out, and when they both kneel to tuck edges under the table legs, their knees bump, then their legs press together from ankle to thigh under the fabric. Her hand brushes his when they both reach for a sliding jar of wild blackberry honey, and neither pulls away for three full beats, her palm warm and calloused against his, the rain drumming so loud on the tent they can barely hear anything else.
“I’ve been signing up for this booth spot for three weeks,” she says, so quiet he almost misses it, leaning in so close her breath brushes his ear, sending a shiver down his spine he hasn’t felt since he was a teenager. “Waited for you to say something first. Knew you’d be stubborn.”
Roy snorts, shifting a little so their shoulders are pressed together too, the linen of her dress soft against his flannel shirt. He’s spent the last decade convincing himself wanting her was wrong, a betrayal of a friendship that never meant half as much as he thought it did, and all that anger melts away fast, like sugar in hot tea. They pack up once the rain slows to a drizzle, him carrying her heavy oven to his beat-up Ford F-150, her grabbing his stack of empty honey jars so he doesn’t drop them. He holds the passenger door open for her, and when she steps up to climb in, she tucks a wet strand of hair behind her ear, leans in, and presses a quick, warm kiss to his stubbled jaw before she sits down. He closes the door behind her, walks around to the driver’s side, and doesn’t spare a single thought for the weekend chores he’d mapped out that morning when he turns the key in the ignition.
