Ronan O’Malley, 62, retired power lineman, had not willingly set foot in a VFW Friday fish fry in seven years. The only reason he was perched on the scuffed bar stool now was the favor he owed Joe, his former line crew partner, who’d patched the leak in his cottage roof three months prior when Ronan’s bad knee kept him off ladders. He picked at the overbreaded cod on his paper plate, sipped a lukewarm Pabst Blue Ribbon, and pointedly ignored the cluster of laughing women hovering by the pool table, all of them members of the local senior social club he’d dodged every invitation from since his wife Eileen passed in 2016. His biggest personality flaw, as Joe never tired of telling him, was that he’d built a brick wall around his life so thick even the neighborhood stray cats couldn’t slip through. He’d spent 38 years climbing power poles across western Ohio, still bore a thick, silvery scar slashing across his left bicep from a 2017 ice storm that knocked out power for 120,000 people, and he considered himself perfectly content fixing old lawnmowers for neighbors for free and reading worn Louis L’Amour novels on his porch every evening.
All the other bar stools filled up fast when the rain started lashing against the cinder block walls, so he wasn’t surprised when a woman tapped his shoulder ten minutes later. He looked up, and his throat went dry before he could stop it. She was 58, he guessed later, silver streaks threading through her chestnut hair pulled back in a loose braid, freckles dusting her nose and the tops of her cheeks, wearing a faded flannel shirt and scuffed white sneakers. “Sorry to bother you,” she said, her voice warm, like she spent all day talking to people who were happy to hear it, “every other seat’s taken. Mind if I squeeze in?” He grunted a yes, shifted over an inch on his stool, and went back to staring at his beer, determined not to be one of those sad old men hitting on every woman who talked to him.
She sat close enough that her shoulder brushed his when she leaned forward to flag the bartender, and the scent of lavender laundry soap and lemon furniture polish hit him, sharp and soft at the same time. When they both reached for the same stack of paper napkins at the same time, their knuckles brushed, and he flinched like he’d touched a live wire. Her skin was softer than any he’d felt in years. “Whoops,” she laughed, pulling her hand back, holding eye contact long enough that he could see the flecks of gold in her hazel eyes, “my bad. I’m Clara, by the way. I started working part time at the public library last month. I recognize you—you dropped off that box of old westerns two weeks ago, right? The first editions? The regulars have been fighting over them ever since.”
He blinked, surprised. He’d dropped the books off at 8 a.m. on a Tuesday, when the library was empty, had figured no one would even connect them to him. “Yeah,” he said, scratching the back of his neck, “Eileen, my wife, she bought them for me for our 30th anniversary. I’ve read ‘em all a dozen times. Figured someone else could get use out of ‘em.” He expected the usual pitying look, the awkward pat on the arm, but Clara just nodded, sipped her hard cider, and said she got it. She’d moved to town three months prior, after divorcing her high school sweetheart of 35 years, and she still had boxes of his old records in her garage she couldn’t bring herself to donate.
The entire time they talked, she didn’t pull away when their shoulders brushed, didn’t look away when he rambled about the ice storm that gave him the bicep scar, didn’t laugh when he admitted he still slept with Eileen’s old wool blanket on his side of the bed. He warred with himself the whole time, half of him disgusted that he was even entertaining the thought of liking her, like he was cheating on the memory of the woman he’d spent 34 years married to, the other half hungry for the sound of her laugh, the warmth of her arm pressed to his, the way she leaned in when he talked like every word he said mattered.
He hesitated for ten full seconds, then put his hand on her waist, the flannel of her shirt soft under his calloused palm. They swayed just barely, off beat, his knee creaking once when he shifted his weight, and she didn’t tease him for it. When the song ended, they were still standing that close, her face inches from his, and before he could talk himself out of it, he leaned down and kissed her. She tasted like spiced hard cider and cinnamon gum, and she kissed him back, her hand curling around the back of his neck, for three slow, quiet seconds, before he pulled back, flustered.
He didn’t know what to say for a minute, so he blurted the first thing that came to his mind: “I got a half gallon of peach ice cream in my freezer at home. My beagle Max sheds enough to make a whole other dog, so my couch is covered in hair. You wanna come over?”
Clara laughed, the sound loud and bright over the band’s next song, and grabbed her purse off the bar. “I love peach ice cream,” she said. He paid their tabs, held the door open for her, the rain had slowed to a soft drizzle that dotted the asphalt of the parking lot, and when they walked to his beat up 2008 Ford F150, she linked her arm through his, her hand resting light on his forearm.
