Roman Voss, 62, spent 38 years as a U.S. Forest Service hotshot crew boss before retiring to western North Carolina last spring to be closer to his 7-year-old granddaughter. His biggest flaw, as his adult daughter never tired of pointing out, was that he’d walled himself off from any kind of romantic connection after his wife died of ovarian cancer 8 years prior, convinced he was too set in his crusty, fire-scented ways to bother learning someone new. He fixed vintage chainsaws for extra cash in his garage workshop, hated dating apps with every fiber of his being, and only left his cabin three nights a week: once for grocery runs, once for his granddaughter’s soccer practices, once for the weekly bluegrass jam at the town’s only beer garden.
He was perched on the end of a splintered picnic table that night, nursing a lager out of the chipped ceramic camp mug he brought everywhere to avoid disposable cups, pointedly ignoring the table of recently single women in their 50s and 60s that kept glancing his way. The air smelled like fried green tomatoes and cut grass, the fiddle player was wailing through a fast-paced version of Foggy Mountain Breakdown, and he was half considering packing up early when the seat next to him scraped against the dirt.
It was the new part-time librarian, the one he’d seen restocking the nature section the week before when he’d dropped his granddaughter off for story hour. He’d heard through the town grapevine she was 58, freshly divorced after 32 years of marriage, her ex-husband had left her for a 28-year-old hot yoga instructor he’d met at a country club golf tournament. She was holding a sweating glass of peach hard cider, her dark hair streaked with silver pulled back in a loose braid, silver hoops catching the warm glow of the string lights strung above the tables. “Sorry,” she said, setting her glass down a little too hard and knocking his elbow, making a drop of beer slosh over the rim of his mug onto his flannel sleeve. “Every other table was full, and I didn’t feel like hovering by the stage.”
Roman grunted, dabbing at the beer with the back of his hand, ready to brush her off the way he brushed off every other person who tried to strike up unwanted small talk at the jam. Then her eyes locked on the thick, silvery scar snaking up his left forearm, the one he’d gotten in the 2018 Camp Fire when he’d run back to drag a 12-year-old kid out of a burning trailer. “That’s a wildfire scar, right?” she said, leaning in just close enough that he could smell lavender and old paper on her, her knee brushing his under the table when she shifted to avoid a kid running past with a snow cone.
He tensed up first, half annoyed that she was prying, half surprised that she could identify the scar instead of assuming he’d gotten it in a bar fight or a construction accident. He told her the story, short at first, then longer when she asked follow-up questions, didn’t interrupt, didn’t make that pitying face most people made when he talked about the fires. When he finished talking, a drop of condensation dripped off her cider glass onto his wrist, and she reached for a paper napkin off the table, her fingers brushing his when she passed it to him. Her hands were soft, calloused only at the tips from turning book pages, a stark contrast to his own rough, scarred palms.
He hated the warm flutter in his chest when their skin touched. He’d spent 8 years telling himself that wanting anything other than quiet, solitary days in his workshop was a betrayal of his wife, that dating at his age was pathetic, the kind of desperate garbage he saw his old crew buddies post about on Facebook when they bragged about matching with women half their age on Tinder. He was halfway to making an excuse to leave when the band slowed down, struck up a slow waltz, and half the crowd got up to dance, couples swaying back and forth in the open space in front of the stage.
“Wanna dance?” she asked, tilting her head up at him, her dark eyes crinkling at the corners when she smiled, like she already knew he was going to say no.
He almost did say no. Almost. Then he thought of his daughter nagging him that he was wasting the last good years of his life hiding from the world, thought of the way she’d listened to him talk about the fire like it mattered instead of like it was a sad story to pity him for. He stood up, wiped his palms on the front of his jeans, and held out his hand.
He was rusty, hadn’t danced since his 25th wedding anniversary, stepped on her toe twice in the first minute. She laughed every time, not the polite, fake laugh most people used when they were trying to be nice, a loud, snorty laugh that made him grin even when he felt stupid for fumbling the steps. Her hand rested light on the small of his back, he could feel the warmth of her through the thin linen of her blouse, her other hand curled in his like she’d been holding it for years. They didn’t talk much while they danced, just swayed to the music, and for a second he forgot all the rules he’d made for himself after his wife died, forgot the fear of being vulnerable, forgot the quiet guilt he’d carried for 8 years for even thinking about being with anyone else.
The set ended a few minutes later, the crowd cheering for the band, and they walked back to the picnic table to grab their drinks. The sun had gone down fully by then, the air cool enough that he shrugged off his flannel and handed it to her when he saw her shiver. She slipped it on, the sleeves too long, rolling them up to her elbows, and teased him that he smelled like pine and motor oil, which was better than the cologne her ex-husband used to douse himself in before golf trips.
He walked her to his beat-up 2008 Ford F-150 when the jam ended, the parking lot half empty by then. “You wanna come back to my place?” he asked, half expecting her to say no, half cringing at how forward it sounded until he added, “I got a collection of 47 vintage chainsaws I’ve been restoring. Most guys my age show off their golf clubs or their wine collection. I show off saws.”
She laughed, leaning against the side of his truck, her shoulder brushing his. “That’s the weirdest date invite I’ve ever gotten,” she said. “I’m in.”
He opened the passenger door for her, and for the first time in 8 years, he didn’t feel the familiar weight of guilt settling in his chest when she slid into the seat.
