Ronan O’Malley, 62, retired lighthouse keeper from coastal Maine, sat hunched over the scuffed pine bar at Fin & Flask, his work boots planted firm on the sticky linoleum. He’d moved to the Pensacola panhandle three months prior, selling the century-old keeper’s cottage he’d shared with his late wife Eileen after her 8-year fight with breast cancer, desperate to outrun the cold that ached deep in his left shoulder—the one he’d earned hauling 80-pound buoy lines in 20-foot swells back when he was 30. His biggest flaw, the one he’d carried like a lead weight since Eileen’s funeral, was his stubborn refusal to let anyone new get close; he’d convinced himself even a casual coffee with another woman was a betrayal, a slap in the face to the 34 years they’d spent together, most of them cut off from the mainland for weeks at a time with only each other for company.
The bar smelled like fried garlic, briny oysters, and the faint, sweet tang of key lime pie from the dessert case by the door. A handful of regulars yelled over the jukebox playing old Tom Petty, and the clink of beer bottles mixed with the crash of waves from the Gulf two blocks away. He’d come in every Tuesday for the $1 oyster special and the hazy IPA brewed 20 minutes up the coast, never staying longer than an hour, never making small talk longer than a two-sentence response to the bartender’s questions. Until Marisol started working there two weeks prior.
She was 58, retired high school biology teacher, half Cuban, with silver streaks shot through her dark curly hair and a thin, pale scar snaking up her left wrist from a lab accident with a Bunsen burner when she was 26. The first time he’d seen her, she’d laughed so hard at a regular’s terrible fishing joke she’d snort-laughed, and he’d nearly choked on his oyster shooter. He’d found himself lingering longer each week, shifting his stool a half inch closer to her side of the bar, stealing glances when she turned to pull bottles from the cooler behind her. He knew it was stupid, knew it was wrong, especially when his new fishing buddy Jake had mentioned over beer on his boat the previous Saturday that he was Marisol’s ex-husband, that they’d been divorced 7 years, that he was planning on asking her to go to the annual blue crab festival with him that weekend to try and patch things up.
The internal tug of war had been gnawing at him for 48 hours straight, disgust warring with sharp, unignorable desire every time he thought of her. He’d almost skipped the bar entirely that Tuesday, but he’d found himself pulling into the parking lot anyway, his old Ford F150 sputtering as he cut the engine.
She spotted him as soon as he walked in, wiping her hands on the faded jeans she wore under her bar apron, and waved him over to the same empty stool he always took. “Your usual’s already poured,” she said, sliding the frosty mug across the bar, her fingers brushing his for half a second when he reached for it. The contact sent a jolt up his arm, the kind he hadn’t felt since he was a teenager sneaking into Eileen’s parents’ beach cottage after curfew. He fumbled the mug a little, sloshing a half inch of beer onto the bar top.
“Clumsy for a guy who used to navigate fog banks with nothing but a compass and a prayer,” she teased, grabbing a rag and leaning over the bar to wipe up the spill. She was close enough he could smell the coconut sunscreen she wore under the faint smell of beer and lemon dish soap, her curly hair falling forward to brush his forearm as she wiped. Her knee knocked against his where he sat on the high stool, warm through the thin fabric of her jeans, and he held his breath for a beat.
“Lighthouse keepers only have to be good at not burning the fog horn out,” he said, surprising himself with the playful lilt in his voice. “Give us a beer mug and we turn into toddlers with a sippy cup.”
She laughed again, that snort-laugh he’d been replaying in his head for a week, and leaned in a little closer, lowering her voice so the regulars yelling over the jukebox couldn’t hear. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that lighthouse. Jake mentioned you used to live up in Maine, 10 miles from the nearest town. What was that like, no one around for miles except your wife?”
The question hung in the air for a second, and he tensed up, half ready to make an excuse and leave. But she was looking at him like she actually cared, no pity in her dark eyes, just curiosity, and he found himself talking, telling her about the way the northern lights painted the sky green in the winter, about how Eileen used to bake sourdough bread in the wood stove when they were snowed in, about how he’d thought he’d never be able to be happy anywhere else after she was gone.
He was so caught up in talking he didn’t notice Jake walk in until he clapped him on the back, grinning. “Figured I’d find you here,” Jake said, turning to Marisol, leaning against the bar. “Hey, Mari. I got those festival tickets I was telling you about. Wanna come with me Saturday? The crab eating contest starts at 2, I know you always used to kick my ass at that.”
Ronan’s stomach dropped, and he tensed up, ready to excuse himself, ready to forget the entire conversation, convinced he’d crossed a line he had no business crossing. Marisol shook her head, a soft, amused smile on her face. “Jake, we talked about this. I’m not getting back together. You have fun at the festival though, okay? Tell your new girlfriend I said hi.”
Jake laughed, holding up his hands in surrender. “Fair enough. I’ll see you two later,” he said, wandering over to a group of guys playing darts in the corner.
Marisol turned back to Ronan, leaning in even closer, so close he could count the freckles across her nose. “I already told him no three times. Guy’s persistent, I’ll give him that. So… you wanna go to the festival with me instead? I’ve always wanted to watch a grown man who used to run a lighthouse lose a crab eating contest to a 70-year-old grandma from Tampa.”
The last of the resistance he’d carried for 8 years melted away, fast as fog burning off the water at sunrise. He didn’t feel guilty, didn’t feel like he was betraying Eileen; he knew she’d have teased him for waiting this long to stop moping, for passing up a chance to have fun. “Only if you promise not to laugh if I do lose,” he said.
She grinned, grabbing a napkin and a pen from behind the bar, scribbling her number across the paper in loopy, dark ink. She tucked the napkin into the breast pocket of his faded flannel shirt, her fingers brushing the scar on his left shoulder through the fabric, warm and steady. “No promises,” she said, turning to grab a beer for a customer who’d just walked in, the pink neon “OPEN” sign behind the bar gilding the edges of her curly hair as she moved.
