Clay Bennett, 58, retired state park ranger, propped his boot on the rungs of the bar stool and stared at the head of his Budweiser like it owed him money. He’d let his niece drag him to the town’s first ever pride parade that afternoon, figured he owed her after she’d bailed him out when his truck died last winter, but three hours of rainbow flags and pop music blaring from the town square speakers had left him grouchy, edges frayed. He’d spent 12 years pretending the whole subject of queerness didn’t exist, ever since his wife left him for a female librarian from Cleveland, told him she’d been lying to both of them for 22 years of marriage. He’d told every one of his old ranger buddies he thought the whole thing was nonsense, that people should keep their business private, but the real truth was he’d never gotten over the humiliation, the way the whole town whispered about it for a year after she left.
The bar stool next to him scraped against the sticky linoleum, and a warm shoulder bumped his bicep through his faded forest-green uniform shirt. He looked up, ready to snap, and froze. It was Jules Marlow, 42, the new head librarian who’d moved to town six months prior, the one who’d organized the parade he’d just complained about for an hour to the bartender. She had a rainbow bandana tied around her wrist, cutoff flannel rolled up to her elbows, freckles dusted across her nose, and she smelled like pine resin and lemon seltzer. “Sorry,” she said, leaning in so he could hear her over the jukebox blaring Johnny Cash’s *Folsom Prison Blues*. “Every other bar in town is packed with parade stragglers. I won’t bother you long.”
Clay grunted, but didn’t move away when she knocked her knee against his under the bar, accidental, casual, the heat of her skin seeping through the hole in the knee of his work jeans. He’d avoided her for six months, had even canceled his library card when he heard she was pushing to add a bunch of inclusive kids’ books to the children’s section, or whatever his buddy Ron had ranted about over breakfast the week prior. But she didn’t launch into a lecture about the parade, didn’t ask him why he’d been scowling at her across the grocery store produce aisle every time they ran into each other. She just ordered a seltzer with lime, laughed when the bartender spilled a little on her wrist, and said, “I saw you at the parade, by the way. Holding that tiny kid in the dinosaur costume so your niece could dance with her girlfriend. You didn’t look nearly as mad as you’re pretending to be right now.”
Clay’s ears went hot. He’d forgotten anyone was watching. He mumbled something about the kid being his great-niece, that he was only there for her, that the whole parade was still too much fuss for a town that couldn’t even fix the potholes on Main Street. Jules nodded, like she actually believed him, like she didn’t think he was a bitter old man. She told him she’d moved here from Portland after her mom died, to take care of her grandma’s 40-acre farm on the edge of the park he used to patrol, that she’d been coming up to the overlook off Route 7 to watch sunsets since she was a kid. “I heard you used to be the only ranger who’d hike up there in the winter to pull dumb teenagers out of snow drifts,” she said, and her knee brushed his again, this time on purpose, he was pretty sure.
The part of him that had spent 12 years guarding his anger, that thought anyone associated with pride events was just rubbing his ex’s choice in his face, screamed at him to leave, to pay his tab and drive home and watch old westerns alone like he did every Saturday night. But the other part of him, the part that hadn’t had a real conversation with someone who didn’t want to talk about deer hunting or truck parts in years, hummed, warm and bright, when she smiled at him, like she could see every part of him he tried to hide. He surprised himself when he said, “I can take you up there tonight, if you want. The overlook. Sunset’s in 40 minutes. You’ll beat the crowds.”
Jules’s grin widened, and she slid off the bar stool, her hand brushing his forearm when she passed him her jacket to hold while she paid her tab. The drive up was quiet, windows rolled down, the smell of clover and cut hay drifting through the cab of his beat-up F150, crickets chirping so loud he could hear them over the engine. She rested her hand on the center console, her pinky brushing his where his hand rested on the gear shift, and he didn’t pull away. When they got to the top, the sky was streaked pink and tangerine, the whole town spread out below them, tiny as a model train set. She climbed onto the hood of his truck, patted the spot next to her, and when he sat down, she said, “I should tell you. My mom’s cousin is your ex-wife. I heard the whole story. I get why you’re angry. She hurt you. That doesn’t make you a bad person for not wanting to play nice with all this stuff right away.”
Clay’s throat went tight. He’d expected judgment, expected her to call him a bigot, expected her to get off the truck and leave. Instead, she leaned in, and he could taste cherry hard candy on her lips when she kissed him, slow, soft, her hand coming up to cup the side of his face, calloused from splitting wood on her farm, warm against his skin. For half a second he froze, thinking about what Ron would say if he saw him here, making out with the pride organizer, the woman related to the ex who’d left him for another woman, but then the thought faded, all the anger he’d carried for 12 years feeling lighter, like it had been lifted off his chest.
They sat on the hood for an hour after the sun dipped below the tree line, passing a can of lemon seltzer back and forth, talking about the park, about her grandma’s farm, about his great-niece’s obsession with plastic dinosaur figurines. When he turned to ask her if she wanted to stop for greasy diner burgers on the way back into town, she laced her fingers through his, her rainbow bandana rough against the back of his hand.
