Rafe Marquez, 53, wiped sticky wildflower honey off the cuff of his oilskin work shirt, the faint itch of a bee sting on his left wrist throbbing in the October sun. He’d set up his honey booth at the county chili cookoff at 7 a.m., hauling 40 jars of infused hot honey, sourwood, and clover blend from the bed of his beat-up 1998 Ford F-150, and by 1 p.m. he’d sold half his stock, the air thick with wood smoke, cumin, and the twang of a local bluegrass band playing off the back of a flatbed trailer. His only persistent flaw, the one his late best friend Jase had ribbed him for for 30 years, was that he ran from anything that felt like it might leave a mark—had bailed on a perfectly good relationship with a forest service ranger 10 years prior, had turned down a national distribution deal for his honey two years before that, had all but ghosted Jase’s little sister Lila the night of Jase’s funeral 18 months prior, when she’d leaned in to him on her porch, breath warm with peppermint and bourbon, and he’d mumbled an excuse about checking his hives and bolted.
He spotted her across the crowd before she saw him, and his throat went tight. She was 42, recently widowed herself, had moved back to town three months prior to open a small bakery on Main Street, and he’d gone out of his way to drive the long route to his bee yards just to avoid passing her storefront. She was wearing Jase’s old Carhartt jacket slung over her shoulders, jeans with a hole at the knee scuffed red with local clay, and work boots identical to the pair he had on, carrying a paper bowl of chili in one hand. She cut through the crowd straight for his booth, like she’d been looking for him, and leaned her hip against the edge of his folding table, close enough he could smell lavender shampoo and smoked paprika over the noise and fumes.
“Been avoiding me, Marquez?” she said, grinning, and tapped the edge of a hot honey jar with her nail. “Tried to stop by your house twice last week to place a bulk order for the bakery, and your neighbor said you were ‘out tending bees’ both times. At 9 p.m.?”
He laughed, nervous, and wiped his hands on his jeans. “Bees are unpredictable,” he said, and when she reached across the table to grab a sample dipper, their fingers brushed, callus to callus, and he felt a jolt shoot up his arm so sharp he almost knocked over a full jar of sourwood. She didn’t pull her hand away right away, just held his gaze, the corner of her mouth tugging up like she knew exactly what she was doing.
“Jase always said you were the biggest coward he ever met when it came to things you actually wanted,” she said, soft enough no one walking past could hear. The bluegrass band switched to a slow, drawling cover of Folsom Prison Blues, and a group of kids ran past yelling, leaving the two of them in a little bubble of quiet. She shifted closer, their knees brushing under the table, and he could see the faint scar on her left eyebrow from when Jase had dared her to jump off the garage roof when she was 12, the same scar he’d helped Jase clean up and lie to their mom about.
He’d spent 18 months telling himself wanting her was wrong, that Jase had made him swear when they were 17 to never mess with his little sister, that she was grieving, that he was still carrying guilt over the forest fire that killed two of his crew when he was 32, that he didn’t deserve anything that felt this easy, this good. He’d cycled between disgust at his own impulses and a sharp, hungry desire that kept him up at night, scrolling through her bakery’s Instagram page just to see photos of her laughing behind the counter.
“I thought you were just upset that night,” he said, quiet, and reached out before he could think better of it, brushing a strand of chestnut hair off her face, his thumb brushing the soft skin of her cheek. She leaned into the touch, her eyes fluttering shut for half a second, and he felt the tight knot in his chest loosen for the first time in years.
“I’ve been upset about you being an idiot since I was 16,” she said, opening her eyes, and he could see the heat in them, no hesitation, no grief, just want. “Used to hang around Jase’s garage for hours just to watch you work on that stupid truck of yours. Thought you’d never notice.”
He laughed, loud enough that the guy running the chili booth next to him glanced over, and he grabbed a full jar of wildflower honey off the table, pressed it into her hand, their fingers lacing together for a beat before he let go. “I noticed,” he said. “I was just too much of a coward to do anything about it. You wanna get dinner after this? New taco place down on Oak Street. I can bring a jar of the hot honey to drizzle on the carnitas.”
She grinned, twisting the jar in her hand, and wiped a splatter of chili off the front of his flannel with a napkin, her hand lingering on his chest for a long, warm second before she stepped back. “Only if you promise to stop driving the long way around my bakery,” she said, and turned to walk away, tossing a wave over her shoulder. “I’ll be back when you close up. Don’t run off this time.”
He watched her weave through the crowd toward the band, the bee sting on his wrist fading to a faint throb, and twisted the lid off a sample jar of hot honey, dipping a finger in to taste it, sweet and sharp, no bitter aftertaste for the first time all day.
