Clay Bennett, 58, retired U.S. Forest Service ranger, leans against a splintered pine picnic table at the local fire department’s annual chili cookoff, half-empty paper bowl of five-alarm chili in one hand, warm draft beer in the other. He’d only shown up because the fire chief was a snot-nosed 12-year-old he’d taken backcountry camping three decades prior, and the department was raising money to replace gear lost in the small brush fires that scorched 120 acres outside town two weeks prior. His boots are still dust-caked from mending a split rail fence on his property that morning, and he’s been deliberately avoiding small talk for 45 minutes, content to watch a ragged cover band fumble through Tom Petty deep cuts.
A woman’s voice, scratchy and familiar, pulls him out of his daze. “Clay? No way, Clay Bennett.”
He looks up, and for half a second he’s confused, until he spots the faint gap between her two front teeth, the smattering of freckles across her nose that never faded, even after she moved to Texas as a 22-year-old. It’s Lila Carter, his late best friend Joe’s daughter, the kid he’d driven to soccer practice for four years, taught to bait a hook when she was 7, helped hide a tattoo from her dad when she was 19. She’s 42 now, he does the math quick, a streak of silver cutting through the messy honey braid pulled over her shoulder, cut-off denim shorts showing off scarred knees from mountain biking, a faded fire department volunteer tee stretched tight across her shoulders. She leans in for a hug, her hip pressing firm against his where he’s leaning against the table, and he catches a whiff of coconut shampoo and fish bait, the same scent that clung to her when she’d hang around Joe’s bait shop as a teen.
She sits down on the bench next to him, no invitation needed, and their knees brush when a group of drunk college kids jostle the table on their way to the beer tent. She doesn’t move away. He fights the stupid, unwanted jolt of heat that crawls up his spine, berating himself for noticing anything other than the fact that his old friend’s daughter is in front of him. It’s wrong, he tells himself, he’s almost 16 years older than her, he’d watched her grow up, his late wife Diane had even helped her pick out a prom dress once. Any spark of attraction is a betrayal, of Joe, of Diane, of the quiet, lonely routine he’s built for himself since Diane died three years prior.
They talk for 20 minutes, and she holds eye contact the whole time, no quick, polite glances away, like she’s studying every line that’s crinkled around his eyes since the last time she saw him. She tells him she moved back to town three weeks prior to take over Joe’s old bait shop, had seen his beat-up 1997 Ford F-150 in his driveway when she drove past his house, but had heard he kept to himself these days, didn’t want to intrude. Their knees keep brushing, intentional now, he realizes, when she shifts closer to yell over the band announcing the chili contest winners. She grabs his wrist to yank him out of the way of a 7-year-old sprinting past with a full cup of root beer, her palm warm and calloused from reeling in fish and hauling tackle boxes, and she doesn’t let go for a full three seconds after the kid is gone.
“I remembered something,” she says, leaning in so close he can taste the lime of her margarita on the air between them. “When I graduated college, you promised me we’d take that week-long fishing trip out on the Gulf, the one Joe kept bailing on. I moved to Austin two days later, so we never went. You still have that extra fishing pole you bought me?”
Clay freezes. He does have that pole, still in its plastic wrapping, tucked on a shelf in his garage next to Diane’s old gardening supplies. He’d almost thrown it out a dozen times, thought it was a stupid relic of a life he didn’t get to live. He nods, before he can think better of it.
“Good,” she says, grinning, brushing her knuckles against his when she takes her beer back from where he’d been holding it for her. “I’m free at dawn tomorrow. Don’t be late.”
She stands up to go help the other volunteers pack up the donation booth, pausing to hug him again, her arms wrapping a little tighter around his neck this time, her cheek pressed to his. He can feel her heartbeat through the thin fabric of their shirts, fast and steady. He watches her walk away, weaving through the crowd, and texts her his address before he can talk himself out of it.
