Rafe Marquez, 53, spent 18 years as a smokejumper before a 2019 blaze left a ropy, silvery scar snaking up his left bicep and convinced him to trade parachute runs for wildfire mitigation consulting work. He’d been single since his wife left him seven years prior, had grown used to quiet nights alone with his welding gear and old westerns, and had showed up to the West Boise neighborhood block party solely to drop off the custom steel fire pit he’d welded for the fire department’s silent auction, fully intending to slip back to his quiet, three-bed ranch house before anyone could corner him into small talk. The sun hung low, painting the tops of the ponderosa pines tangerine, and the air reeked of grilled bratwurst, charcoal, and citronella candles that did jack shit to keep the mosquitos away.
He detoured to the beer cooler first, because even five minutes of pleasantries required a buzz. His steel-toe work boot scuffed a bare, cherry-red painted toe as he stepped back, and he mumbled an apology before he even looked up. It was Clara Hale. Ex-wife of his old crew chief, Jake Hale, the man who’d taught him how to pack a parachute, how to read a fire’s wind shift, who’d once dragged him half-conscious out of a burning stand of fir outside McCall. They’d divorced two years prior, he’d heard, but he’d avoided every crew gathering since, too stuck on the stupid, unspoken code that said you didn’t so much as look at your boss’s ex for longer than two seconds, even if the marriage was ash.
She leaned against the cooler edge, cutoff denim shorts frayed at the hem, an oversized faded Boise State hoodie slipping off one shoulder, and held his gaze for three full beats, a half-smile playing on her mouth. He could feel his ears go pink, the way they used to when he was 22 and fresh out of training, catching her across the station parking lot while Jake yelled at the crew for leaving their gear scattered. She reached past him for a black cherry seltzer, her bare forearm brushing the raised scar tissue on his bicep, and he flinched before he could stop himself. She didn’t pull away immediately, her skin warm against his, calloused at the wrist from the pottery wheel he remembered she kept in her garage.
“Still jumpy?” she asked, her voice low enough that the twang of the country cover band playing at the end of the block drowned it out for anyone standing more than a foot away. He grunted, taking a long sip of his IPA, the bitter hop taste cutting through the smell of grease in the air. They talked for 20 minutes, first about the fire pit, then about the old crew, then about how Jake still burned every brat he ever grilled, just like he did back when they’d have cookouts after fire season. Every time a kid ran past, she’d lean in closer to avoid getting knocked, her shoulder pressing into his, and he’d have to fight the urge to wrap his arm around her waist to steady her. He kept waiting for the twist of guilt in his gut, the feeling that he was betraying the only man who’d ever had his back on a fire line, but it never came. All he could focus on was the way her hair smelled like coconut shampoo and campfire smoke, the way she laughed so hard she snort-laughed when he told the story about Jake falling face-first into a patch of poison ivy on a training run.
She asked him if he wanted to walk back to her place, two blocks over, said she had a bottle of 12-year bourbon he’d gotten Jake for Christmas 2018 that she’d never given him, stashed on the top shelf of her pantry ever since the divorce papers were signed. He hesitated for half a second, thinking of the empty couch waiting for him at his house, the stack of case files on his kitchen table, the stupid code he’d carried around for 20 years. Then he nodded.
They walked slow, the sidewalk still warm from the day’s heat under their feet, and her hand brushed his three times before she laced her fingers through his, her palm soft against the rough calluses on his. He didn’t pull away. When they got to her porch, she stopped, turned to him, and brushed a fleck of ash off his cheek with her free hand, her thumb lingering on his jaw for a beat before she kissed him, slow, the taste of cherry seltzer on her mouth.
He followed her inside, the cool air of her house wrapping around him, and she left him on the couch while she grabbed the bourbon and two lowball glasses from the kitchen. She sat down next to him, their knees pressing together under the coffee table, and poured him a finger of the amber liquid, her fingers brushing his as she passed the glass across. He picked it up, swirled it once, and took a slow sip, the burn of the bourbon sliding down his throat warm and familiar.
