Manny Rios, 62, retired commercial beekeeper, hadn’t set foot in McGee’s Tavern on a weeknight in almost a decade. His neighbor had all but dragged him out the door, claiming Manny’s three-legged hound Buzz was tired of being his only trivia partner, and Manny had caved mostly to avoid the lecture about “isolating himself” he’d heard three times that month. He leaned against the sticky pine bar, swirling a glass of bottom-shelf bourbon, the faint scar across his left knuckle throbbing a little where a particularly aggressive yellow jacket had stung him two summers prior. He’d planned to stay for one round, then slip out before the final category started.
That plan went out the window when Elara Voss pushed through the tavern’s screen door. Manny’s throat went tight first. He’d not seen her in person in 12 years, not since the Christmas dinner where his late wife Linda had screamed at Elara for leaving Linda’s older brother Jake for a pottery instructor bound for Costa Rica. Linda had cut Elara off entirely after that, and Manny had abided by her rule, even after Linda died of breast cancer eight years prior, even after Jake remarried and moved to Florida six years ago. Elara was 58, now the town’s new head librarian, her dark hair streaked with silver pulled back in a loose braid, a smudge of blue ink on her left wrist from stamping library books, wearing a chunky cream sweater that swallowed her shoulders. She spotted the empty seat next to Manny when the bartender yelled that trivia teams were being assigned, and walked right over.
They were put on a team of two, no one else wanting to pair with the quiet beekeeper and the new librarian everyone already gossiped about. Manny’s knee knocked hers under the small high-top table the second she sat down, and he mumbled an apology, staring at his bourbon so he didn’t have to meet her eyes. She laughed, a low, rough sound that carried over the Johnny Cash track playing on the jukebox, and said he didn’t need to be polite, she’d already knocked over three bar stools that week. When the first category rolled around—native North Carolina wildlife—she leaned in so close to whisper her guess about the state’s most endangered pollinator that Manny could smell lavender hand cream mixed with the faint, sweet scent of pear hard cider on her breath. Her shoulder brushed his, warm through his faded plaid flannel, and he froze for half a second, his brain short-circuiting between the old loyalty he’d clung to for years and the sharp, unexpected jolt of desire that ran up his spine.
The tension built slow, no big gestures. She nudged his arm when he got a 90s country trivia question right, her palm warm through the thin fabric of his shirt. He handed her a peanut from the bowl between them, their fingers brushing for a beat longer than necessary, and he noticed her nails were chipped, painted a soft sage green. He felt guilty, at first, like he was doing something wrong, like Linda was watching from somewhere and shaking her head. He’d not felt any kind of attraction to anyone since she died, had written off romance entirely as a waste of time, a betrayal of the 32 years they’d had together. But Elara was sharp, she made fun of his terrible bee-related puns without being mean, she knew the name of every wildflower that grew along the Blue Ridge Parkway, and she kept holding his gaze a beat longer than she should, like she knew exactly what he was thinking and didn’t care.
They won by three points, the final question about regional honey production a layup for Manny, and split the $50 bar tab prize without arguing. When she asked if he wanted to walk with her down to the lake to see the harvest moon, Manny hesitated for ten whole seconds. He thought about the town gossips, about the old grudge Linda had carried to her grave, about how fast the rumors would spread if anyone saw them walking together after dark. Then she tucked a loose strand of silver hair behind her ear, and the streetlight through the tavern window hit the gold flecks in her hazel eyes, and he said yes.
The air outside was crisp, sharp with the smell of fallen maple leaves and wood smoke from the cottages along the street. They walked slow, their shoulders brushing every few steps, no rush. When they reached the old wooden dock at the edge of the lake, a cold wind blew off the water, and Elara shivered a little. Manny slipped off his flannel without thinking, handing it to her, his fingers brushing hers when she took it. She wrapped it around her shoulders, the fabric swallowing her smaller frame, and stepped closer to him, so their hips were pressed together, looking out at the lake where the moon glinted silver off the dark surface. Manny laced his fingers through hers, his calloused beekeeper hands rough against her softer ones, and didn’t pull away when she leaned her head on his shoulder. When she tilted her face up to kiss him, he could taste the cherry seltzer she’d been sipping all night, and the faint, sweet tang of the wildflower honey he’d given away as a free sample at the market that morning.
