Hank Rainer, 58, retired Auglaize County lineman with a scar snaking up his right bicep from a 2017 pole fire and a grudge he’d nursed for three months against the new county health inspector, leaned against a splintered pine picnic table at the annual fire department pig roast, condensation from his Pabst Blue Ribbon soaking through the knee of his grease-stained Carhartts, the tang of spicy barbecue sauce still on his tongue from the first sample slider he’d grabbed an hour earlier. He’d fixed the main grill that morning, tightening a loose gas line that would’ve blown half the tent sky high if left unattended, and had planned to drink exactly three beers, eat one pulled pork sandwich with extra sauce, and leave before the fireworks started to avoid the crowds. That plan dissolved the second he spotted her walking through the gate, sunflower tucked behind her left ear, cutoff denim shorts instead of the frumpy navy blazer she’d worn when she shut down his weekly VFW poker game for a moldy walk-in fridge violation.
He’d called her a pencil-pushing buzzkill to her face that day, told her she was ruining the only good thing half the retired guys in town had going for them, and had stormed out before she could explain that the mold strain she’d swabbed was toxic enough to put every one of his 70-plus poker buddies in the ER with respiratory failure. He’d avoided every public event for the next three months that he thought she might attend, too stubborn to admit he’d been out of line, too proud to apologize to someone who’d disrupted the rigid routine he’d built in the seven years since his wife Linda died from ovarian cancer. He’d told himself he was too old for new people, too set in his ways, that any man his age chasing after someone new was disrespecting the memory of the woman he’d been married to for 31 years.
She spotted him before he could slip toward the beer tent to hide, waved, and walked over, close enough that he could smell coconut sunscreen and the faint tang of dill pickle she’d just grabbed from the condiment table, her white cotton tee dotted with a few grease spots from the slider she’d eaten on her way in. “You’re the guy who yelled at me for closing the VFW poker night, right?” She grinned, crinkles fanning out at the corners of her hazel eyes, a thin silver scar cutting through her left eyebrow from a teen bike crash she’d mention later. “Figured I’d find you here. The fire chief told me you fixed the grill this morning. Saved the whole roast, from what I hear.”
Hank grunted, took a long sip of beer to avoid talking, acutely aware of how close she was standing, her shoulder almost brushing his as she leaned past him to grab a stack of napkins off the table, her forearm brushing the back of his hand when she reached. The contact sent a sharp, warm jolt up his arm, the kind of feeling he hadn’t experienced since Linda was alive, and he had to fight the urge to jerk his hand away like he’d touched a live wire. He was equal parts furious at himself for reacting that way and furious at her for showing up looking like a regular person instead of the stuck-up bureaucrat he’d painted her as in his head. He wanted to tell her to leave him alone, wanted to storm back to his truck and drive home, but he found himself pulling out the empty spot on the picnic bench next to him and gesturing for her to sit.
The fireworks started right as he sat back down, the crowd surging forward toward the field, and a group of teens running past knocked her sideways, her back pressing flush against his chest for half a second before she caught herself. He could feel the curve of her shoulder blades through her thin tee, the heat of her skin through the worn cotton of his work shirt, and when she tilted her head up to look at him, the red and gold light from the first firework exploding above them painting her cheeks pink, she didn’t move away. He hesitated for a beat, his knuckles brushing the side of her face as he brushed a loose sunflower petal off her cheek, and she smiled, leaning into the touch for half a second before she looked back up at the sky.
She asked him if the VFW had fixed the fridge yet, said she’d been meaning to stop by and check, that she’d always wanted to learn how to play poker and wouldn’t mind if he was the one to teach her. Hank laughed, told her the guys would give him hell for bringing the woman who shut down their game into the space, but he’d be there next Tuesday at 7, if she didn’t mind getting teased a little. She pulled a pen out of her pocket, scribbled her phone number on the back of a napkin, and tucked it into the front pocket of his flannel shirt, her fingers lingering on the fabric for a beat longer than necessary.
The temperature dropped as the last firework fizzled out, and she shivered, rubbing her arms. Hank pulled the extra worn wool lineman’s flannel he’d stuffed in his back pocket earlier that day out, draped it over her shoulders, the fabric still warm from sitting against his back for hours. He walked her to her beat-up Subaru, their shoulders pressed together the whole way, crickets chirping loud in the grass on the side of the path, and when she leaned in to hug him goodbye, she smelled like coconut sunscreen and wood smoke and the cherry lollipop she’d sucked on during the fireworks. He watched her pull out of the parking lot, the flannel sleeves too long for her arms, flapping out the driver’s side window as she waved.
