Elroy Voss, 62, made his living restoring antique typewriters out of the converted garage behind his small Ohio ranch, and had not attended the town’s annual summer block party in 14 years. The last time he’d gone, his wife had announced she was leaving him for a 28-year-old realtor she’d met at an open house, and he’d spent the rest of the night hiding in his truck drinking warm beer until the crowds cleared. He only showed up this year because his 82-year-old next door neighbor had begged him to bring a few of his restored pieces for the local history booth, guilt-tripping him with stories of how the town’s kids had never even touched a machine that didn’t have a touchscreen.
He was standing by the folding table lined with Royals and Underwoods, sipping a lukewarm Pabst and pretending to ignore the group of teens prodding at a 1960s Smith Corona, when he saw her. Mara Hale, 54, his ex-wife’s younger cousin, who ran the beekeeping supply shop on Main Street. His first instinct was to duck behind the table. He’d avoided her for 14 years on principle, even when she dropped off jars of honey on his porch every Christmas, figuring any connection to his ex’s family was a line he couldn’t cross, no matter how many times he’d caught himself staring at her legs when she’d come over to his old house for family cookouts back when he was married.
She didn’t give him a chance to hide. She locked eyes with him across the crowd, grinned, and walked over, her linen sundress swishing around her calves, bare feet tucked into scuffed white leather sandals. She smelled like clover honey and citrus sunscreen when she leaned in to get a closer look at the 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe on the end of the table, her sun-warmed forearm brushing his as she pointed to the chipped paint on the shift key. “I used to sneak into your workshop when I was 20 to type terrible love poetry on that exact one,” she said, her voice low enough that only he could hear it over the blare of the county cover band playing by the food trucks. “Your ex would’ve thrown a fit if she caught me, so I’d wait till she left for book club.”
Elroy’s throat went dry. He’d spent so long walling himself off from anything tied to that part of his life that the rush of desire caught him off guard, sharp and warm, and he hated himself for it for half a second. This was his ex’s cousin. It was wrong. It was messy. It was the kind of small town gossip that would get people talking for months. But then she laughed, a low, throaty sound, when he told her he’d found half of her crumpled poetry drafts tucked under the typewriter’s dust cover a month after his ex left, and her knee brushed his when she sat down on the folding chair next to him to flip through the stack of typed receipts he used to test the machines.
He noticed the tiny calluses on her fingertips when she flipped the pages, rough from prying open hive boxes and handling metal hive tools, the faint white scar across her left wrist from a bad bee sting when she was a kid, the way she tucked a strand of honey-blonde hair behind her ear when she was listening to him talk about how he sourced replacement parts from old office supply warehouses across the Midwest. He forgot about the crowd, forgot about the kids prodding at his typewriters, forgot about the rule he’d made 14 years ago to never let anyone that close to him again.
The first firework went off overhead just as he was telling her about the 1920s Underwood he was restoring for a collector in New York, painting the whole street bright red, and the crowd surged toward the empty field at the end of the block. Mara grabbed his hand to yank him along before he could get separated, her palm soft but firm in his, his own calloused from decades of prying open stuck typewriter keys and tightening tiny screws. He didn’t let go when they found a quiet spot under the old oak tree at the edge of the field, far enough away from the crowd that they didn’t have to yell to hear each other.
She tilted her head up to look at him, the bursts of blue and pink and gold painting her face, and she didn’t mention his ex, didn’t mention the 14 years of him avoiding her, didn’t mention the small town gossip that would start if anyone saw them holding hands. “I’ve got a fresh batch of clover honey I just harvested yesterday back at my place,” she said, her thumb brushing the back of his hand slow, like she was testing to see if he’d pull away. “No pressure. No talk of old times if you don’t want it. I just think you’d like it.”
Elroy didn’t even hesitate. He’d spent 14 years playing it safe, sticking to his routines, avoiding anything that felt like a risk, and for the first time in over a decade, the thrill of the taboo didn’t feel like something to run from. It felt like something worth chasing. He squeezed her hand a little tighter, and they walked away from the field, the sound of fireworks fading behind them, the distant murmur of the crowd growing softer with every step.
The screen door to her porch was propped open with a cinder block painted to look like a bee, and he could smell the honey already, thick and sweet, drifting out through the door before they even stepped up the steps.
