Roy Pacheco, 62, retired wildfire hotshot crew foreman, had spent the last eight years treating romantic interest like a brushfire he needed to stomp out before it spread. It was a flaw he’d never bothered to fix, not when the alternative felt like betraying the wife he’d lost to ovarian cancer two weeks after their 30th anniversary. He’d showed up to the VFW’s annual fire department fundraiser cookout only because his former crew had begged him to man the grill, the only job they trusted no one else to mess up.
The sun beat down on the back of his neck, sweat soaking the collar of his faded fire academy t-shirt, the air thick with the smell of charcoal, charred bratwurst, and cheap domestic beer. He turned to grab a fresh pack of buns off the folding table behind him, and his bicep collided with a soft shoulder covered in washed linen, the impact sending a half-full bowl of potato salad teetering. A woman’s laugh, warm and throaty, cut through the noise of kids yelling and a country song blaring from the speakers, and her hand wrapped around his wrist for half a second to steady him before she grabbed the bowl and set it right.
He knew who she was immediately, even though he’d only seen her a handful of times over the years. Lena Mendez, 58, his late wife’s second cousin, the woman who’d brought homemade empanadas to every chemo appointment, who’d sent him a handwritten condolence card that he’d kept in his glove compartment for six months before he could bring himself to read it. She’d moved back to town two months prior after her divorce, he’d heard through the family grapevine, but he’d deliberately avoided any family gatherings where she might be, too caught up in his own routine of solo fishing trips and fixing up old pickup trucks to risk messing with the quiet he’d worked so hard to build.
She held eye contact a beat longer than casual, the corners of her hazel eyes crinkling like she knew exactly what he was thinking. “You still burn the edges of every brat on purpose, don’t you,” she said, not a question. He huffed a laugh, wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand, and realized he hadn’t felt this off-balance since he’d been a 22 year old kid trying to ask his wife out for the first time.
They ended up perched on the edge of a rotting picnic table at the far end of the lot, away from the crowd of relatives who kept trying to set him up with the local librarian and her relatives who kept nagging her to “stop wasting her prime years alone.” They talked about his wife first, easy, safe stories about her terrible singing in the shower and how she’d once chased a bear off their property with a broom, and then the conversation shifted, slow, to her divorce, to his years on the hotshot crew, to the little cottage on the edge of the national forest she’d inherited from her grandma. She mentioned the rotted deck stairs that she couldn’t fix on her own, and he offered to help before he could think better of it, a twist of guilt curling in his gut like he’d just lied to the woman he’d buried eight years prior. She told him she’d pay him in carnitas tacos and iced tea brewed with mint from her garden, and he couldn’t say no, even if he’d wanted to.
He showed up at her cottage the next Saturday at 9 a.m., tool belt slung over his shoulder, a cooler of beer in the back of his truck just in case. The stairs only took three hours to fix, the two of them working side by side, her holding the lumber while he drilled, their elbows brushing every few minutes, the smell of her lavender lotion mixing with the pine from the trees surrounding the property. When they finished, they sat on the porch step, passing a jar of iced tea back and forth, the sun dipping low enough to paint the sky pink and orange, crickets starting to chirp in the underbrush.
She leaned over to grab a plate of chocolate chip cookies off the porch rail, and her thigh pressed fully against his, warm through the worn denim of their jeans, and he froze, every muscle in his body tensing like he was waiting for a blow. She didn’t pull away, just turned to look at him, her face soft in the golden light, and said, “I know this feels wrong. I’ve felt guilty for three weeks, ever since I saw you at the cookout. But she would’ve kicked your ass if she knew you were spending every Saturday night alone eating frozen burritos and watching old westerns.”
The words hit him so hard he almost forgot to breathe. He’d spent eight years convincing himself that wanting anything other than the quiet, lonely life he’d built was a betrayal, that the flicker of desire he’d felt when he’d bumped into her at the cookout was something to be ashamed of, something to stamp out. But looking at her, at the flecks of gold in her eyes, the faint scar on her left eyebrow from when she’d fallen off a horse as a kid, the way she was biting her lip like she was nervous he’d get up and leave, he realized the only betrayal was wasting the rest of his life being lonely when he didn’t have to be.
He reached over, slow, like he was approaching a skittish deer, and brushed a strand of silver hair off her forehead, his thumb brushing the soft skin of her cheek for half a second. She leaned into the touch, her hand coming up to rest on his forearm, and he didn’t pull away.
They didn’t rush anything. They ate the cookies, then she made the carnitas, just as good as he remembered, and he told her stories about his crew, about the time a rookie had accidentally set his own boot on fire during a controlled burn, and she laughed so hard she snort-laughed, which made him laugh too, loud enough that the birds nesting in the oak tree next to the porch flew away. When he left that night, he kissed her on the cheek, slow, his lips brushing her skin for just a second, and she squeezed his hand, told him to come back the next day to help her hang the new porch swing she’d bought.
He drove home with the windows down, the cool pine air blowing through his hair, the smell of her lavender lotion still lingering on his shirt sleeve. He turned onto his street, saw the dark, empty house he’d lived in alone for eight years, and reached for his phone to text her that he’d bring the extra drill bits she’d mentioned she needed for the swing install.
