Cole Bennett, 58, retired TVA lineman, has carried a grudge against the local Maplewood HOA for three years, ever since they forced him to take down the hand-carved bird feeder his late wife Linda had hung by their front porch the month before she died. He’d avoided every HOA-sponsored event since, only showing up to the October chili cookoff because his drinking buddy Earl begged him to enter his brisket chili, swore the $500 grand prize was worth putting up with the board’s nonsense. He showed up in his faded oil-stained work jacket, scuffed steel-toe boots, a tin of Skoal tucked in his back pocket, and set his crockpot up at the farthest table from the HOA check-in booth, fully planning to grab his winnings and bolt before anyone could give him grief.
The air hummed with the high-pitched squeal of kids on the bounce house, the sharp smell of smoked paprika and charred hot dogs drifting through the crisp October air, pine needles crunching underfoot when people wandered between tables. He was halfway through pouring a sample for a kid in a football jersey when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye, tensed when he saw Maren Hale walking toward him. Maren, 54, HOA president, the woman he’d called a stuck-up tyrant at least a hundred times over beers at the VFW, was wearing high-waisted dark jeans, a fitted gray long-sleeve that showed off the defined biceps she’d kept from her years teaching hot yoga, a red flannel tied around her waist, scuffed white sneakers instead of the fancy loafers he’d seen her wear to board meetings. She stopped so close to his table her shoulder brushed his bicep when she leaned in to sniff the chili, warm vanilla lotion hitting his nose before she spoke.
“I know you’re probably gonna spit dip at me if I ask for a sample,” she said, grinning, the corner of her mouth tugging up the same way Linda’s used to when she was teasing him, “but this smells too good to pass up.”
He stared at her for a beat, then grunted, grabbed a foam bowl, and scooped a generous helping, handing it to her. When their fingers brushed, he felt a jolt shoot up his arm, the kind he hadn’t felt since Linda first kissed him in the parking lot of the drive-in in 1987. He wiped his palm on the side of his jeans, suddenly self-conscious of the calluses, the grease stain under his fingernail. She took a bite, closed her eyes for half a second, and made a low, soft sound that wasn’t over the top, just genuine, like she couldn’t help it.
“Holy shit,” she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, “that’s the best thing I’ve eaten all year. I don’t even like chili.”
He couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at his mouth. They talked for ten minutes, her leaning against the edge of his table, their knees almost touching every time someone squeezed past between the tables. She admitted she hadn’t wanted to make him take the bird feeder down, that the old board had voted unanimously to enforce the stupid porch clutter rule, that she’d even stood in her driveway a few times to watch the red-headed woodpeckers that used to visit it, before he took it down. She told him her husband had left her for a 28-year-old realtor four years prior, that she’d taken the HOA president job just to have something to fill the time when the house got too quiet.
Cole felt his chest tighten, the grudge he’d carried for three years feeling smaller and dumber by the second, fighting the urge to lean in closer, to smell that vanilla lotion again. He kept glancing at her mouth, at the small scar on her left cheek from a bike crash when she was a kid, caught her looking at his mouth too, more than once, her cheeks pink when he caught her. When the emcee announced he’d won first place, he didn’t even cheer, just walked up to the stage where she was waiting with the check. She handed it to him, her palm lingering on his for three full beats, leaning in so close her breath smelled like cinnamon gum and his own chili, her lips almost brushing his ear when she spoke.
“I was rooting for you,” she said, quiet enough no one else could hear. “Wanna bring the leftover chili over to my place later? I’ve got a bottle of 12-year bourbon that’s been sitting on my shelf for two years, waiting for someone who doesn’t think I’m a total monster.”
He hesitated for half a second, thought about all the jokes he’d made to his friends, about how stupid it would be to hook up with the HOA president, how it felt like breaking some unspoken rule he’d made for himself after Linda died. Then he nodded, because the warm tingle in his chest was too loud to ignore, the desire to stop being angry for once outweighing the grudge.
He showed up at her house an hour later, Tupperware of leftover chili in one hand, the old bird feeder he’d kept in the back of his garage since he took it down in the other. She opened the door wearing soft gray sweatpants, an old Willie Nelson tee, no makeup, laughing so hard her eyes crinkled when she saw the feeder. She reached out, her hand wrapping slow and warm around his forearm, stepping to the side to let him in.
He stepped across the threshold, and the cool October wind snapped the screen door shut behind him.
