Clay Hollister, 58, retired smokejumper turned part-time firewood hauler, had only shown up to the neighborhood block party for the free craft IPA. He’d spent the last three weeks ranting to his buddies at the VFW about the HOA’s $120 fine for leaving a cord of oak stacked on his curb, so the last person he expected to lock eyes with across the folding hot dog table was Mara Jensen, 54, the new HOA president who’d signed the notice. He turned to slip away, beer sloshing over the edge of the flimsy plastic cup onto his scuffed work boots, but she waved, already weaving through the crowd of screaming kids and gossiping retirees to get to him.
She was wearing a faded sage linen sundress, no jewelry, a smudge of charcoal streaked across her left forearm where she’d been tending the grill. He caught a whiff of coconut sunscreen and charred onion when she stopped a foot away, closer than most people got to him these days, and propped one hand on her hip. “You’re the guy who left 10 posts in the HOA Facebook group calling me a power-hungry tyrant, right?” she said, grinning, so he couldn’t tell if she was mad. He shifted his weight, his bad knee twinging from standing too long, and grunted an acknowledgment. She laughed, a low, rough sound that didn’t match the stuffy HOA letterhead he’d crumpled up and thrown in his wood stove last week. “For the record, I tried to waive that fine. I knew that wood was for Jim, the vet down the street who can’t afford to heat his house in the winter. You never answered my email asking for confirmation, so the board made me issue it.”
Clay blinked. He deleted every email from the HOA unopened, had for three years. He opened his mouth to apologize, but she reached for his beer cup, her fingers brushing his for half a second, and took a long sip. He noticed the callus on her index finger, thick and rough, the same kind he had from swinging an axe for 40 years. “I build Adirondack chairs in my garage,” she said, noticing him staring, and wiggled her finger. “Sold 12 last year, donated half the proceeds to the veteran’s food bank.”
He sat down on the curb when she gestured to it, his jeans picking up dust from the asphalt, and she sat next to him, her knee pressing against his through the thin fabric of her dress. He should have moved. He’d spent seven years actively avoiding any situation that involved sitting this close to a woman who wasn’t his cousin or the cashier at the grocery store, still stinging from his ex-wife leaving him for a guy who sold timeshares and wore boat shoes every day of the week. But he didn’t move. He told her about the 2019 fire outside Sisters that he’d spent 14 days fighting, and she leaned in, her elbow resting on her knee, her face so close he could see the flecks of gold in her hazel eyes, no filter, no makeup caked in the fine lines around her mouth. She laughed so hard at his story about tripping over a root and landing face-first in a patch of poison oak during that fire that she snort-laughed, and clapped a hand over her mouth like she was embarrassed.
A sharp clap of thunder cut off his next story, and fat, warm raindrops started hitting the asphalt, sending the crowd scattering for cover. He grabbed her wrist without thinking, yanking her up and toward his beat-up 2008 Ford F150 parked 10 feet away, and they squeezed under the truck’s thin awning, chests almost touching, the rain drumming so loud on the truck roof he could barely hear the kids yelling from the bounce house down the block. Her shoulder was pressed to his, her sundress already damp from the rain, and he could feel the heat of her skin through the thick fabric of his old smokejumper hoodie.
“Full transparency,” she said, raising her voice over the rain, and pulled a crumpled piece of notebook paper out of her dress pocket. “I backed into your truck last month hauling lumber for the park chairs. Left a note under your wiper, but I’m guessing you threw it away with all the HOA mail?” He took the note from her, his fingers closing around hers for longer than necessary, and scanned it: her name, her phone number, a dumb joke about paying for the damage in beer and free Adirondack chairs. He’d missed it entirely, had assumed the new scratch on his door was from some kid riding a bike too fast down the street.
He looked up, and she was already leaning in a little, not pushing, just waiting. He didn’t overthink it, didn’t talk himself out of it like he had every other small, good thing that had crossed his path in the last seven years. He tilted his head down, and kissed her, soft at first, then a little firmer when she tangled one hand in the hair at the nape of his neck. The rain slowed to a drizzle after a minute, and they pulled apart, both grinning like stupid teenagers.
She wiped a drop of rain off his cheek with her thumb, then stepped out from under the awning, tucking a strand of wet hair behind her ear. “I’ll text you tomorrow morning,” she said, backing toward the grill, the damp fabric of her dress sticking a little to her hips. “We can get coffee, then go look at the lumber for the park chairs. And you can yell at me about the fine some more if you want.”
Clay leaned against the truck door, watching her wave at a group of kids as she walked away, and took a sip of his now warm beer. A faint rainbow stretched over the pine treeline at the edge of the neighborhood, bright against the gray leftover clouds. He tucked her crumpled note into the pocket of his hoodie, patting it once to make sure it didn’t fall out, already looking forward to waking up early the next day.
