Elias Voss, 52, makes his living carving custom fishing rods for clients up and down the Outer Banks, and he’s spent the last eight years perfecting the art of avoiding social events that don’t involve a boat or a workbench. His only real flaw, if you ask his best friend Jimmie, is that he’s so stubborn about closing himself off to anything that doesn’t smell like epoxy or saltwater, he turned down three separate invitations to the town’s annual fire department chili cookoff before Jimmie showed up on his porch at 2 PM and practically dragged him there. He’d lost his wife to a 28-year-old surf instructor in 2015, and he’s operated under the assumption that any romantic connection in his small coastal town would come with more drama than a hurricane evacuation, so he’s stuck to casual, out-of-town one-offs that don’t require exchanging last names or follow-up texts.
He’s leaning against a splintered pine picnic table half-listening to Jimmie rant about the chili judge being biased against his extra-spicy habanero recipe when he steps back to dodge a 7-year-old darting past with a melting blue raspberry snow cone, and his elbow connects with soft, warm bare skin. The woman he bumped into jolts just enough that the mason jar of sweet tea in her hand sloshes over the rim, splattering dark amber drops across the forearm of his faded gray flannel. He starts to apologize, already reaching for a crumpled napkin in his jeans pocket, when he meets her eyes: hazel, flecked with green, crinkled at the corners like she spends most of her time smiling, her dark hair pulled back in a loose braid with a few strands stuck to the back of her neck from the late September heat.
“Easy there, cowboy,” she says, her voice low and warm, like she’s teasing him instead of annoyed. She pulls a paper napkin from the stack tucked under her own arm, steps closer to him so the crowd milling past doesn’t bump into either of them, and dabs at the wet spot on his sleeve before he can stop her. Her knuckles brush his wrist as she works, and he catches the scent of her perfume: cedar and vanilla, not the cloying floral stuff his ex used to douse herself in, and for half a second he forgets how to form a full sentence. She tells him her name is Lila, she’s the new part-time librarian at the town’s tiny branch, she moved here three months prior from Asheville to take care of her ailing 82-year-old grandma. When he says his name is Elias Voss, her smile widens, and she says she knows exactly who he is.
That’s when the conflict hits him, sharp and hot, tangled equal parts disgust and craving. She’s his ex-wife’s first cousin. He’d met her exactly once, at his wedding 21 years prior, when she was 27 and fresh out of library school, and he’d forgotten entirely what she looked like. The last thing he needs is to get tangled up with anyone related to his ex, who still talks about him like he’s a deadbeat who left her high and dry, who’d spread every ugly rumor she could think of about him around town if she found out he was even talking to Lila. He should make an excuse, leave, go back to his workshop and sand down the rod he’s building for a disabled vet in Wilmington, but he doesn’t. He finds himself asking her if she’s tried the chili from the volunteer fire station booth, finds himself leaning in a little closer when she talks, so he can hear her over the roar of the crowd and the old Toby Keith song playing on the speakers strung between the live oak trees.
When she says she’s always been curious about how he builds his custom rods, he doesn’t even think before he offers to show her his workshop, which is just two blocks down the street, tucked between the bait shop and the 24-hour laundromat. She nods, and they slip out of the cookoff without saying goodbye to Jimmie, their shoulders brushing every few steps as they walk down the cracked, shell-dusted sidewalk. The workshop smells like epoxy, cedar shavings, and the leftover black coffee he left in the pot that morning, and he flicks on the warm string lights strung above the workbench when they step inside, the door clicking shut behind them, cutting off the noise from the cookoff entirely.
He shows her the half-finished rod on his bench, the thread wrap woven with thin strands of blue and silver to match the charity logo for the vet’s organization, and she reaches out to run her finger along the smooth, varnished wood of the rod blank, her hand brushing his where he’s holding it steady. She tells him she’d thought he was handsome even at his wedding, that she’d watched him that night holding the door for the elderly guests and carrying his drunk groomsman to the car, and she’d always thought he was too good for her cousin, too quiet and kind to put up with her constant need for attention and chaos.
That’s the line he’s been scared to cross for eight years, gone in a heartbeat. He leans in slow, gives her plenty of time to pull away if she wants, and when she doesn’t, he kisses her. She tastes like sweet tea and cinnamon gum, her hand coming up to rest on the side of his neck, her thumb brushing the patch of gray stubble along his jaw. There’s no rush, no frantic fumbling, no sense that this is just a quick, meaningless hook-up. When they pull apart, she laughs soft, and says she knows his ex will throw a screaming fit if she finds out, but she doesn’t care, she’s been tired of her cousin’s petty drama for decades.
They spend the rest of the evening sitting on the old frayed couch in the corner of his workshop, sharing a bag of salted peanuts he kept in the mini fridge, talking about his rod builds, about the mystery novels she’s been stocking at the library, about the stupid, reckless things they’d both done in their 20s. He drives her back to her grandma’s pale yellow cottage at 9 PM, walks her to the screen door, and kisses her again on the porch, the crickets chirping loud in the oak trees lining the street. She tells him to pick her up at 7 AM the next day, she wants to go out on his small center console boat and see if the red drum are biting off the near shoals. He doesn’t even hesitate to say yes.
