Dale Hargrove, 58, retired high school shop teacher with a scar splitting his left knuckle from a 2013 table saw mishap and a habit of holding grudges longer than he holds a finish sand on a custom cutting board, slumps into a wobbly metal stool at the annual Suttons Bay cherry festival beer tent. He’s already three IPAs deep, the bitter hop residue clinging to his tongue, his work jeans still dusted with oak shavings from the woodworking booth he ran all afternoon. He’s avoiding the cluster of his ex-wife’s family three tables over, the same people he’d written off entirely 12 years prior when his divorce finalized, convinced every last one of them had fed his ex lies to bleed him dry of his retirement savings.
He goes to stand, ready to bolt to the other side of the fairgrounds, but she leans in, her knee brushing his denim-clad thigh when a group of drunk teens squeezes past the table, her voice raised just enough to cut through the music. “Don’t leave on my account. I never told her about the cabin, for the record. Told her she was being a greedy asshole going after your pension, too.”
Dale blinks, taken off guard. He’d carried that anger toward her for 12 years, had ignored every wave she’d given him at the grocery store, every time she’d left a free coffee on the porch of his workshop when she was in the neighborhood. He studies her, notices the faint silver threads woven through her dark brown hair at the temples, the chipped pale blue polish on her fingernails, the way her eyes crinkle at the corners when she grins like she knows she just knocked his entire worldview off kilter.
She nods at the half-empty IPA in front of him, and when he pushes it toward her, her fingers brush his calloused, teak-oil stained ones as she picks it up for a sip. The contact sends a jolt up his arm, the kind he hasn’t felt since he stopped dating entirely six years prior, sick of first date small talk with women who only wanted to talk about their grandkids or their upcoming cruises. She makes a face at the bitter taste, sets the cup down, and leans in again, her shoulder brushing his, her breath warm against his ear as she tells him she still uses the birdhouse he built her for her 17th birthday, hung it on the oak tree outside her rental house out on the peninsula.
The psychological whiplash hits him hard, half of him rearing back in disgust at the thought of feeling anything for a woman who’s technically family, who he’d watched grow up, who every gossiping old biddy in town would side-eye him for even talking to. The other half of him leans in, hungry for the way she laughs at his dumb story about the time his shop class glued the principal’s stapler to his desk, the way she doesn’t flinch when he complains about how expensive hardwood has gotten, the way she actually listens when he talks, doesn’t just wait for her turn to speak.
He doesn’t know how long they sit there, talking over the band, their knees pressing together when the crowd shifts closer to the stage, until she admits she’s had a crush on him since that day he fixed her Civic for free, didn’t charge her a dime, didn’t talk down to her like every other grown man in her family had her whole life. She says she’d avoided him for years, scared she’d make a fool of herself, scared he’d shut her out before she could even explain she never took her aunt’s side in the divorce.
The crowd roars when the band launches into their closing number, and Dale reaches out without thinking, swiping the dried cherry pie filling off her jaw with his thumb. She doesn’t pull away, just holds his gaze, her dark eyes soft, no trace of the awkward teen he’d remembered, just a woman who knows what she wants, who doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. He doesn’t overthink it, doesn’t run through the list of reasons this is a terrible idea, doesn’t worry about the gossip that will spread through town by Monday morning. He’s spent 12 years carrying anger that didn’t even belong where he’d stashed it, and he’s tired of being alone.
They leave the beer tent together, walking slow down the paved path to the lakefront, the gravel crunching under their sneakers, the air still warm and thick with the smell of cherry smoke from the food trucks. When they hit the sand, still warm from the day’s sun, she laces her fingers through his, her hand smaller than his, softer, the chipped edge of her nail catching on the scar on his knuckle. He doesn’t pull away. He squeezes her hand a little tighter as a firefly skims the surface of the water right in front of them.
