Cole Bennett, 58, retired U.S. Forest Service ranger, has stood behind the volunteer beer tent at the Hillsborough County Fair for three straight nights, and he’s already counting down the minutes until he can drive home, kick off his scuffed work boots, and fall asleep in the recliner to a western he’s seen a dozen times. He moved to Tampa from western Montana 18 months prior, after his wife Jo passed from ovarian cancer, and he’s spent most of that time deliberately avoiding anything that feels like new connection. His worst flaw, Jo used to tease him, was that he’d rather hole up with his collection of vintage pocket knives and a jar of dill pickles than admit he was lonely. The tent reeks of pine cleaner and cheap lager, the hum of the crowd mixes with the twang of a 90s country track playing over the fair’s crackling speakers, and every so often a breeze carries the sweet, greasy scent of fried Oreos from the food stalls 50 feet away.
He’s wiping down the tap handle when a woman leans against the splintered wooden counter in front of him, and his breath catches for half a second before he places her. Lila Marlow, 41, Jo’s goddaughter, the kid who used to follow him around the family cabin every Fourth of July, begging him to teach her to bait a hook or climb the big ponderosa pine at the edge of the property. She’s not a kid anymore. Her auburn hair has a thick streak of silver running above her left temple, the same gap between her front teeth he remembers, her arms are toned from hiking, scuffed white hiking boots on her feet, a linen button down tied at her waist, the faint scar on her wrist from the time she fell off his ATV at 16 still visible. She grins, and her laugh is the same warm, throaty sound he remembers. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Cole.”
He fumbles the rag he was holding, drops it on the counter. She orders a hazy IPA, and when she reaches across the counter to grab the plastic cup from him, her knuckle brushes the sun spot on the back of his hand, warm and calloused from her work as a wildlife biologist, he realizes. He makes small talk, stilted at first, learns she’s in town for a 12-month project tracking local manatee populations, moved into a rental 10 minutes from his house three weeks prior. She asks if he’s off shift in an hour, says she’d love to catch up, walk the fair, maybe split a cotton candy. The first thought that pops into his head is that Jo would roll her eyes at him for even considering it, that the rest of the family would talk, that it’s wrong to look at the girl he used to buy unicorn birthday presents for and feel the tight, warm pull of attraction low in his gut. He opens his mouth to say no, then looks at the crinkles at the corner of her eyes when she smiles, and says yes instead.
The hour drags. When he’s finally done cashing out the till and handing over the tent keys to the night volunteer, he finds her leaning against the entrance to the fairgrounds, kicking a loose rock across the asphalt, holding a neon pink stuffed unicorn she won at the ring toss. She hands it to a passing little girl with pigtails on her way to the Ferris wheel, and the kid squeals so loud Cole laughs out loud, the first real laugh he’s had in months. They wander past the livestock barns, past the ride where teens scream as they’re flipped 30 feet in the air, split a bag of cotton candy so sweet it makes his teeth ache. She tells him about tracking manatees in the Everglades, about the time a 1,000-pound male nudged her boat so hard she almost fell overboard. He tells her about the last winter he spent in Montana, rescuing a pair of wolf pups that had gotten separated from their pack after a blizzard. The whole time, she stays close enough that her shoulder brushes his every few steps, her perfume smells like sandalwood and clementine, nothing like the sickly sweet body spray she wore as a teen.
They end up sitting on the hood of his beat up 2007 Ford F150 in the far corner of the parking lot, watching the fireworks burst red and gold over the fairgrounds. The boom echoes in his chest, and when she leans into his side, her shoulder pressed firm to his bicep, he doesn’t pull away. She says she used to have a crush on him when she was 17, thought he was the most mysterious, quiet man she’d ever met, used to make up excuses to hang around the cabin just to talk to him. He admits he’s been fighting the urge to kiss her since she first walked up to the tent, that he feels guilty, like he’s betraying Jo somehow, like everyone they know would call them wrong. She tilts her face up to look at him, the fireworks casting pink light across her cheeks, and says Jo always told her to chase whatever made her happy, no matter who thought it was weird.
He brushes his thumb across the silver streak in her hair, slow, and she leans into the touch. The kiss is soft at first, tentative, the faint taste of cotton candy and IPA on her lips, and when she laces her fingers through his, his calloused hands tangled in hers, he doesn’t feel guilty anymore. He feels lighter than he has in two years, like the weight he’s been carrying around since Jo died just lifted a little. They sit on the hood for another 45 minutes, talking, her head on his shoulder, as the crowd thins out, the fair lights turning off one by one, the hum of the generators fading into the quiet of the night. He drives her back to her small bungalow, walks her up to the front porch, and when she asks him if he wants to come in for a glass of iced tea, he nods. He steps across the threshold after her, and the door clicks shut soft behind them.
