Javi Ruiz, 53, makes his living tending 42 hives scattered across southern Oregon’s coastal hills and selling raw honey out of the back of his dented 2008 Tacoma at farmers markets up and down I-5. He’s spent the last eight years deliberately keeping a low profile, ever since his wife packed a duffel and drove to Portland with a guy who sold custom skateboard decks, and he avoids the neighborhood’s annual summer block party like it’s a nest of murder hornets. He only showed up this year because the HOA rep cornered him at the post office two days prior, threatening a $175 fine if he didn’t trim the oak branches hanging over the sidewalk in front of his house, and he figured he could butter the guy up with a free jar of wild blackberry honey and bolt in 10 minutes flat.
He’s leaning against a splintered pine picnic table, holding a lukewarm Pabst that’s sweating through the paper coozie, when she walks up. He’s seen her before, his new next-door neighbor, moved in three months back, travels for work as an ICU nurse, he’s heard her come home at 2 a.m. some nights, kicking her boots off on her porch, humming old Fleetwood Mac songs loud enough to drift through the wooden fence between their yards. She’s holding a chipped ceramic plate stacked with peach cobbler, the edges oozing golden juice, and she stops so close to his elbow he can smell coconut sunscreen and the faint, sharp tang of antiseptic that still lingers on her scrubs, even though she changed into cutoff denim shorts and a faded Tom Petty tank top.
“Tried your honey at the Coos Bay market last Saturday,” she says, holding the plate out, and her knuckles brush his when he takes it, the contact light enough he almost thinks he imagined it, until she smirks, holding his gaze two beats longer than casual politeness requires. “Put it in my chamomile tea every night this week. Tastes like clover and rain, not that processed garbage they sell at Safeway. Figured I owed you a thank you.”
Javi nods, taking a bite of the cobbler, the crust buttery, the peaches so ripe they burst on his tongue. He can feel the group of retired schoolteachers at the next table staring, the way they always do when anyone so much as looks in his direction, the local gossips already chomping at the bit to make up stories about the reclusive beekeeper and the new nurse. He hates it, hates being a spectacle, hates the way his chest feels tight, like he’s doing something wrong just standing here talking to her, part of him screaming to make an excuse about checking his hives and bolt for his gate.
She leans in a little, like she can tell he’s uncomfortable, and her bare shoulder brushes his bicep when a group of kids runs past screaming, chasing a golden retriever with a popsicle stuck to its fur. “I saw that hot tub on your side of the fence last week, covered with that blue tarp,” she says, her voice low enough only he can hear, no trace of performative friendliness, just quiet curiosity. “Does it actually work?”
Javi blinks, surprised. He fixed it last spring, replaced the pump, drained the old algae-filled water, refilled it, and then never used it, couldn’t be bothered, didn’t have anyone to use it with. “Works fine,” he says, wiping crumbs off his work jeans, still smudged with bee pollen even though he changed after he finished tending hives that morning. “Haven’t turned it on in a couple months, though.”
She taps the side of her canvas purse, grinning, and he hears the clink of a glass bottle. “Got a bottle of reposado tequila in here, stole it from my brother’s wedding last month,” she says, and she’s so close he can see the flecks of gold in her hazel eyes, the faint smudge of charcoal eyeliner at the corner of her lash line. “My next shift doesn’t start till 7 p.m. tomorrow. We don’t have to make a big deal out of it. No one has to know. Unless you’d rather hang around here and listen to the HOA guy rant about weed killer for three hours.”
The conflict hits him sharp, two conflicting instincts warring in his chest: the part of him that’s spent eight years building walls, that’s disgusted by how fast he’s ready to throw them down for a woman he’s barely spoken to, that’s terrified of getting left again, of being the butt of the neighborhood’s gossip for the next six months. And the other part, the part that’s been lonely longer than he cares to admit, that likes the way she doesn’t treat him like a weird, broken relic, that likes the way her knee brushes his when she shifts her weight, the way she smells like peaches and sunscreen.
He doesn’t say anything for 10 long seconds, staring past her at the sun dipping below the fir trees, painting the sky pink and orange, the sound of the slip and slide’s sprinkler hissing in the background. “Give me 20 minutes,” he says finally, handing her back the empty plate. “I’ll pull the tarp off, get it heated up. Leave the side gate unlatched.”
She tucks the plate under her arm, winking, and turns to walk back to her porch, the tequila bottle clinking softly in her purse as she moves. Javi finishes his beer, tosses the empty can in the trash by the picnic table, and doesn’t even glance at the HOA rep as he walks back toward his house, the oak branches he was supposed to negotiate about hanging low over the sidewalk, the fine the furthest thing from his mind. He reaches the side gate, fumbles with the rusted latch, and can feel her eyes on his back the whole time, warm and steady, like she’s already sure he’s not going to flake.
