Ray Voss is 58, a retired electric lineman with 32 years on the job, a thin scar slashing across his left knuckle from the 2017 ice storm when he slipped climbing a pole to restore power for a local nursing home. His biggest flaw, one he’s openly grumbled about to his golden retriever Marnie more times than he can count, is that he’s hidden himself away from every local gathering since his wife Jan passed three years prior, convinced any joy that doesn’t involve Marnie or his collection of 90s westerns is a betrayal of the 31 years they spent together. He only agreed to come to the town’s annual summer block party because his next-door neighbor all but banged on his door at 6 PM, saying the 4H booth was handing out peanut butter dog treats Marnie would lose her mind over.
He’s leaning against the weathered brick exterior of the corner bar, a sweating Miller High Life in his hand, watching Marnie beg a toddler for a handful of buttered popcorn, when he catches the scent of lavender and vanilla mixed with charcoal smoke from the nearby grills. He turns, and there’s Lila, Jan’s youngest cousin, who moved back to town three months prior to open the tiny specialty coffee shop on Main Street. He hasn’t seen her since Jan’s funeral, when she hugged him so tight her shoulders shook and left a tin of his favorite lemon shortbread on his porch the next morning before driving back to Columbus.
She’s 42, sun freckles spread across her nose, a faded cut-off flannel tied around her waist, white tank top smudged with a small coffee stain at the hem, the tiny sparrow tattoo on her wrist peeking out from a stack of dented silver bracelets. She waves, walks over, and when she leans in to hug him, his calloused hand brushes the small of her back, and he feels a jolt run up his arm that he immediately shoves down, ashamed. He’d known her since she was 17, sneaking sips of Jan’s pinot noir at family Thanksgiving, for Christ’s sake.
They talk for 20 minutes first about Jan, about the time Lila dyed her hair neon pink senior year and Jan drove her 45 minutes to a salon to get it fixed before her conservative parents found out, and Ray laughs, a real one, the kind he hasn’t let out in months. She leans in closer when a group of teens yelling as they run past with water guns, her bare shoulder pressed to his sun-warmed bicep, and she tilts her head up to look at him, her hazel eyes glinting in the string light glow. “I see you at the dog park every morning at 7,” she says, and he blinks, he never noticed her there. “I was too nervous to come say hi. Figured you wanted your space.”
She reaches for his beer without asking, takes a tiny sip, makes a crinkly-faced grimace, and her fingers brush his when she hands it back. “Forgot how bitter that cheap stuff is,” she says, grinning, and he can’t stop staring at the way her dimples pop when she smiles. The psychological tangle hits him hard, half quiet disgust at himself for noticing how her thighs look in her frayed cutoff shorts, half hot, unnameable desire he thought he’d buried with Jan. He remembers Jan laughing at him two months before she died, saying if she went first, he better not mope around the house eating frozen dinners and watching old John Wayne flicks forever, that she’d haunt him if he didn’t go find someone to make him happy.
The first firework booms overhead, painting the sky bright red, and a kid running with a dripping cherry popsicle slams into Lila’s back, sending her stumbling into him. His arm wraps around her waist automatically to steady her, and she doesn’t step back, just leans into his hold a little, tilting her head up so her mouth is inches from his ear to be heard over the noise. “I know it’s wrong,” she says, her breath warm against his jaw. “I’ve been feeling it since I moved back. I won’t say another word if you don’t want me to.”
He freezes for three full seconds, the boom of the next firework thudding in his chest, the heat of her skin seeping through the thin fabric of her tank top, Marnie nudging his ankle with her cold wet nose. He doesn’t say anything, just squeezes her waist a little, leans down so his mouth is by her ear. “I got a peach pie Jan’s sister dropped off Sunday sitting on my kitchen counter,” he says. “Got vanilla ice cream in the freezer too. Wanna get out of here?”
She grins so wide her cheeks flush, nods, texts her roommate to watch her corgi for the night, and they head for his beat up 2018 Ford F-150, Marnie trotting between them, her hand brushing his every few steps, him not pulling away. He opens the passenger door for her, she climbs in, reaches over to twist the radio dial to the old 90s country station he always leaves it on. He gets in the driver’s seat, turns the key, the AC blowing cold against his sun-warmed arms, and she reaches over to run a finger lightly along the scar on his left knuckle, saying she remembers him telling her he got it saving a stray cat stuck on a power line when she was 19. He pulls out of the crowded parking spot, driving slow down the tree-lined side street, the last of the fireworks exploding pink and gold behind them, painting the rearview mirror in soft, warm light.
