Ronan O’Malley, 62, spent 38 years hauling king salmon out of Puget Sound before a bad winch injury left him with a scar slashing across his left forearm and a doctor’s order to stay off open water for good. Now he runs a tiny bait and tackle shop on Astoria’s waterfront, keeps his hours short, and avoids any situation that involves more than three people at a time. His niece badgered him into coming to the annual Astoria Seafood Festival for three straight weeks before he caved, mostly because she threatened to stop bringing him her homemade peach pie every Sunday. The air reeks of fried cod, salt brine, and cheap lighter fluid from the food booth grills, and crushed oyster shells crunch under his scuffed work boots with every step. He’s already mentally mapping his exit route when he spots her.
Clara Bennett, 57, widow of his old fishing partner Jake, who drowned when their boat hit a rogue log boom three years prior, is manning the crab cake booth for the local animal rescue. He’s avoided her for three years, partly out of guilt over surviving the accident that killed Jake, partly because he’s carried a quiet, unspoken crush on her since the first time Jake brought her to a crew cookout back in 2001. He’d spent two decades shoving that feeling down, convinced even looking at her twice was a betrayal of the man who’d saved his life twice out on the water. He turns to slip away, but she looks up right then, locks eyes with him, and waves so hard the plastic spoon in her hand flings a dollop of tartar sauce onto her denim apron. He can’t leave after that.
He trundles over, hands stuffed in the pockets of his oilskin jacket, and mumbles a greeting. She grins, wipes her hands on her apron, and leans over the booth to hug him, her shoulder pressing into his chest for half a second longer than polite. She smells like coconut sunscreen and fried garlic, and the silver streaks in her auburn hair catch the sun so bright he has to blink a few times to focus. She shoves a paper plate with two crab cakes into his hand, and their fingers brush when she passes it over. Her skin is warm, a little sticky from lemon juice, and he feels a jolt run up his arm that has nothing to do with the old nerve damage from his winch injury.
They make small talk at first, about the festival crowds, the stray tabby that’s been hanging around his shop napping on minnow buckets, the rescue’s new litter of foster puppies someone dumped by the boat ramp the week prior. He’s tense the whole time, fighting the urge to bolt, disgusted at himself for the way his chest feels tight when she laughs, for the way he keeps glancing at the faint smattering of freckles across her nose that he’d only ever caught quick glimpses of before. He’s halfway through his second crab cake when she tilts her head, that soft smile still on her face, and says she’s seen him stopping by the rescue every Tuesday to drop off leftover bait for the shelter cats, that none of the other volunteers ever connect the quiet guy who leaves the buckets by the door to the infamous Ronan O’Malley Jake used to tell wild stories about.
He freezes, for a second sure he’s been caught doing something wrong, but she doesn’t look mad. She leans against the side of the booth, her hip brushing his, and says Jake always told her if anything ever happened to him, he wanted Ronan to check in on her, that Jake knew exactly how he felt about her, even before Ronan did. He feels his face go hot, and he starts to stammer out an apology, but she shakes her head, reaches up, and taps the scar on his forearm with one finger. “I’ve been waiting for you to stop being an idiot and talk to me for two years,” she says, and there’s a tease in her voice, but her eyes are soft, no anger, no judgment.
He tucks a stray windblown strand of hair behind her ear, his calloused thumb brushing the soft skin of her cheek, and for the first time in a dozen years, he doesn’t feel like running.
