Ronan O’Malley, 62, spent 38 years mending commercial fishing nets out of Astoria before he retired to a tiny coastal town an hour north, where he spent most weeknights perched on the same scuffed bar stool at The Salty Spur, fixing bait reels for teen deckhands for free and avoiding any conversation that touched on his 2005 divorce. His biggest flaw? He held grudges like they were prize catches, never letting go even when the weight of them dragged down every good thing that came his way. For 18 years, the top of that grudge list was Marnie Hale, his ex-wife’s former best friend, who he’d been convinced ratted him out for fishing off-season during the divorce proceedings, costing him half his boat settlement.
The 4th of July potluck at The Salty Spur was as chaotic as expected: coolers of cheap beer sweating on the patio, a kid screaming after dropping his snow cone in the sand, a group of retired loggers yelling over a game of cornhole. Ronan was leaning against the bar picking at a plate of potato salad when he heard that laugh, bright and rough around the edges like she’d spent too many years yelling over wind and wave noise, and his jaw went tight. He looked up and she was three feet away, sun-bleached auburn hair streaked with gray pulled back in a messy braid, freckles scattered across her nose the same as they were the last time he saw her, flannel tied around her waist, rubber boots caked in mud from the tide flats. She ran a coastal bird rescue two hours south, he remembered, had since the late 90s.
She spotted him before he could duck into the bathroom, and her grin widened as she walked over, stopping so close the scent of lavender hand soap and fish guts wrapped around him, weirdly familiar, weirdly nice. He crossed his arms, kept his gaze fixed on the neon beer sign over her shoulder, but she didn’t take the hint. She reached past him for a jar of dill pickles on the bar, and her knuckle brushed the back of his hand, calloused from decades of hauling tangled nets and turning wrench handles, and he flinched like he’d been burned. “Still as jumpy as the day I caught you hiding a stowaway tabby in your wheelhouse in 2001,” she said, popping a pickle in her mouth, and he had to fight the urge to smile, even when his chest was tight with old anger.
He bit out that he had nothing to say to her, that she’d ruined a good chunk of his life for no good reason, and she paused, her smile fading, as she leaned her hip against the bar next to him, her knee brushing his through his worn denim jeans. She told him she’d been meaning to track him down for years, that she never ratted him out. His ex had gone through his truck while he was out on a three-day trip, found his off-season fishing logs tucked under the seat, and blamed Marnie to start a fight, because she’d known Ronan had always thought Marnie was too decent to hang around her. He stared at her then, for the first time really looking, and she didn’t look away, her hazel eyes steady, no trace of the lying manipulator he’d built up in his head for almost two decades.
He felt stupid, first, hot with embarrassment that he’d wasted so much energy hating her for no reason, then something softer, warmer, curling in his gut when she said she’d been scared to reach out before, scared he’d never believe her, scared he’d never want to talk to her if she admitted she’d liked him since the first time they met at his ex’s birthday party in 2003. He admitted he’d thought about kissing her once, at that same holiday party in 2004, a week before his ex served him divorce papers, that he’d walked away because he thought it was wrong, thought she was the enemy.
The bar went quiet for half a second right as the first firework went off outside, painting the windows red and gold, and she leaned in, her breath smelling like root beer and peppermint, close enough that he could count the tiny laugh lines around her eyes. He kissed her first, slow, not the messy rushed makeout he’d had with girls in his 20s, soft, like he was scared she’d disappear if he moved too fast. Some guy at the next table whooped and clapped him on the back, but he didn’t even notice, his hand resting light on her waist, her fingers tangled in the short gray hair at the nape of his neck.
They left the bar an hour later, her carrying a half-eaten plate of brownies, him carrying her work bag full of bird banding supplies, and they made plans to drive up the coast at sunrise the next day, so she could show him the puffin colony she’d been monitoring for the last five years, so he could fix the frayed netting around her rescue enclosures for free, no strings attached. When she tucks a stray gray hair behind his ear as the first pink burst of dawn creeps over the ocean, he doesn’t even pretend to be annoyed.
