Elias Voss, 53, vintage outboard motor restorer, hunches over a scratched bourbon glass at The Rusty Prop, the scuff of work boots on sticky linoleum blending with old Toby Keith tracks bleeding from the jukebox. The bar smells like fried cheese curds and old beer, exactly the way it did when he first moved to town, no frills, no pretense, which is why he keeps coming back even when the crowds are unbearable. He drove up to the bar after finishing a 12-hour day rebuilding a 1968 Evinrude for a guy who drives a semi from Grand Rapids, planned to down one drink then head back to his empty boathouse before the Fourth of July crowds got too rowdy. He’s avoided small-town fanfare since his divorce 8 years prior, stubborn to a fault about not making small talk with people who still ask after his ex-wife, who left him for a real estate developer with a lakefront mansion.
He’s reaching for his wallet to close out when the stool next to him scrapes across the floor, and a familiar coconut-sunscreen scent hits him before he looks up. It’s Mara, his ex-wife’s younger cousin, the one his ex used to call “a walking liability” for skipping family dinners to go water skiing with strangers and quitting her teaching job to sell handmade pottery out of a converted van. She’s 49 now, her dark hair streaked with silver at the temples, wearing a cutoff flannel shirt over a white tank top, a smudge of charcoal on her wrist from throwing pots that morning. She grins, and he feels his chest tighten, the way it used to when he’d catch her staring at him at family barbecues back when he was still married.
She orders a pear cider, and when she leans in to yell over a group of guys cheering a pool shot, her warm shoulder brushes his bare arm, the linen of her shirt soft against the sunburn he got working on the dock that afternoon. He should leave. He knows everyone in this bar knows who she is, who her husband is, the county commissioner running for re-election who’s been caught on camera making out with his 26-year-old administrative assistant three times in the last month. The gossip around town is thick enough to spread on toast, and if anyone sees him talking to her, let alone anything more, it’ll be all over the local Facebook group by sunrise.
He doesn’t leave. He asks her how the pottery business is going, and she laughs so hard at his terrible joke about lumpy clay mugs that her knee bumps his under the bar, warm and solid through her denim shorts. She holds eye contact with him longer than she should, her dark eyes glinting when she mentions she hasn’t talked to his ex in three years, that she never liked how she treated him, how she thought he deserved better than someone who cared more about granite countertops than the way he could fix anything with a wrench and a little patience.
The first firework booms outside, painting the window neon red, and the entire bar surges toward the back deck, people shoving past each other to get a better view. Someone slams into Mara’s back, and she stumbles forward, her hand flying to his chest to steady herself, her palm warm through the thin cotton of his work shirt stained with motor oil. He reacts before he can think, wrapping one calloused hand around her waist to hold her upright, the curve of her hip fitting perfectly against his side. They don’t move apart when the crowd thins out around them, the pop of fireworks echoing in his ears, the salt of the lake air mixing with the scent of her hair.
She tilts her head up, so close he can taste the pear cider on her breath when she whispers that she’s been thinking about him since the day he packed his bags and left the house he shared with his ex, that she’s been staying in a rental cabin up the lake for a week, that she saw his beat-up Ford truck in the bar parking lot and decided to come in. He doesn’t say anything, just laces his fingers through hers, the calluses on her hands from throwing clay matching his from turning wrenches, and walks her out of the bar, ignoring the few curious glances from regulars who know exactly who they are.
They walk the half mile down the dirt road to his boathouse, firework sparks lighting up the sky over the lake the whole way, crickets chirping in the tall grass lining the path. He unlocks the screen door, and she steps inside first, turning to grin at him over her shoulder, the light from the string lights he hung over the workbench catching the silver in her hair. He follows her in, kicking the door shut behind him, the sound of the fireworks fading to a low, distant rumble outside.
