Cole Bennett, 58, retired U.S. Forest Service ranger, leaned against the scuffed oak bar of The Rusty Tap, work boots caked with red Florida clay propped on the lower rail. He’d only shown up to the neighborhood recycling drive afterparty because his 72-year-old neighbor had begged him to haul three truckloads of scrap metal and broken appliances to the county facility that morning, and he’d been promised a free IPA for his trouble. Pine sap still crusted under his fingernails from trimming the live oaks in his backyard the day before, and he was already mentally drafting an excuse to leave before anyone tried to rope him into volunteering for the next community event. For three years, ever since his wife Elaine had died of ovarian cancer, he’d avoided these kinds of gatherings, sick of the pitying side glances and the “how are you holding up” questions that always felt like intrusions.
Mara Hollis, 52, who ran the native plant nursery three blocks from his house, slid onto the stool next to him without asking, a smudge of potting soil streaked across her left cheek, grass stains on the knee of her worn work jeans, hair pulled back with a frayed red bandana printed with sunflowers. She flagged down the bartender for a seltzer, then turned to him, elbow brushing his bicep when she shifted. “Thanks again for hauling that load. Half the people who signed up to help bailed an hour in, and we would’ve been stuck with a pile of rusted refrigerators by the park bench if you hadn’t showed.”
Cole grunted, took a sip of his IPA, condensation beading on the glass and dripping onto the callus on his thumb. “Don’t get used to it. Half the stuff you guys sorted’s gonna end up in a landfill anyway. Most folks don’t bother washing out their yogurt cups before they toss ‘em in the bin.”
He expected her to get defensive, to launch into the same preachy speech he’d heard a dozen times from the younger neighborhood activists. Instead, she laughed, a low, rough sound that caught him off guard, and leaned in a little closer, close enough that he could smell lavender hand soap and cut grass on her shirt. “You’re not wrong. But a few hundred pounds of scrap metal getting recycled is better than zero. You gonna stand here being grumpy all night, or you gonna tell me how someone who spent 20 years fighting wildfires in Montana ended up in suburban Tampa?”
Cole froze. He hadn’t told anyone in the neighborhood about his forest service career. He’d kept to himself, kept his head down, avoided conversations that ran longer than five minutes. He opened his mouth to make a snarky retort, then caught the scar snaking up her left forearm, thin and silver, just below the cuff of her t-shirt. “Chainsaw?” he asked, nodding at the scar.
“2018, fire crew outside of Bend. Tripped over a fallen log mid-felling, nicked myself bad enough I needed 17 stitches. Still have nerve damage in my left pinky.” She held out her hand, wiggled the pinky to prove it, her knuckles calloused, a thin silver ring shaped like a pine needle on her index finger. When she reached past him to grab a stack of napkins from the bar behind his shoulder, her forearm brushed his again, warm and solid, and he felt a jolt go up his spine he hadn’t felt since the last time Elaine had kissed him before her chemo started.
The feeling scared him. For three years, he’d told himself he was done with that part of his life, that wanting anything other than quiet days fixing up his house and fishing on the weekends was a betrayal of the 32 years he’d had with Elaine. He shifted away from Mara a little, took another long sip of his beer, tried to ignore the way his chest felt tight, the way he wanted to lean back in, to ask her more about her fire crew days, to tell her about the time he’d gotten stuck in a blizzard outside of Bozeman with three other rangers and a case of cheap whiskey.
The bar got more crowded as the sun went down, a group of college kids pushing through the door laughing, one of them bumping hard into Mara’s shoulder. She stumbled forward, right into his chest, and he reacted without thinking, putting his hand on her waist to steady her, his palm warm through the thin fabric of her t-shirt. He didn’t let go immediately. Their eyes locked, and he could hear her breath catch, the jukebox in the corner playing Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’” low under the hum of the crowd, the clink of beer glasses, the distant sound of kids laughing in the park across the street. For a second, he forgot about the guilt, forgot about the rule he’d made for himself to never let anyone get close again. All he could focus on was the way her hazel eyes had flecks of gold in them, the way she was smiling at him like she could see right through the grumpy act he’d been hiding behind for three years.
He didn’t shift away. He didn’t make an excuse to leave. Instead, he laughed, a rough, rusty sound he hadn’t heard come out of his own mouth in months, and said, “You gonna tell me you still have the chainsaw that did that, or did you throw it out?”
She grinned, stayed close enough that her shoulder was still pressed to his, and told him the story of how she’d kept the saw, named it “Bitey,” and still used it to clear fallen branches on her nursery property. They talked for another hour, swapping stories about bad fire seasons, about terrible camp food, about the way the mountains smelled after a rainstorm, and Cole forgot to check his watch, forgot to think about the excuse he’d planned to make to leave early.
When she finished her seltzer, she grabbed a napkin from the stack next to him, scribbled her phone number on it in blue ballpoint, drew a tiny lopsided pine tree next to the digits, and tucked it into the breast pocket of his worn flannel shirt, her fingers brushing his chest through the fabric. “I’m transplanting 20 longleaf pine saplings at the nursery tomorrow at 9. You know more about native pines than anyone I’ve ever met. You should come help. I’ll buy you breakfast first. Biscuits and gravy, from that diner down the street.”
Cole nodded, no hesitation, no second guessing the guilt he’d expected to feel. “I’ll be there.”
He walked out to his old Ford F-150 a few minutes later, the warm Florida night air soft on his face, the napkin crinkling in his pocket when he reached in to touch it, the ink already smudging a little from the heat of his hand. He flipped his headlights on, spotted Mara leaning against the nursery’s fence down the block, waving when she saw his truck. He lifted a hand to wave back, turned the key in the ignition, and pulled out of the parking lot, the radio cutting on to a Johnny Cash track he’d loved in college.
