Javier Mendez, 53, has spent the last 12 years avoiding the annual Mountain Cider Festival in his tiny western North Carolina town. A beekeeper who runs a 10-acre apiary and sells small-batch honey at regional farmers markets, he’s got calloused palms crisscrossed with tiny stinger scars, sun-leathered cheeks, and a stubborn streak a mile wide—his biggest flaw, the thing that ended his marriage, the thing that kept him holding a grudge against Elara Voss for over a decade. The fight happened at his divorce party, of all places: Elara, his ex-wife’s cousin and the owner of the town’s most popular cider taproom, had called him a selfish prick for bailing on the family orchard he and his ex were supposed to run. He’d snapped back that she was a privileged city transplant who didn’t know the first thing about hard work, and they hadn’t exchanged a single word since.
He only showed up to this year’s festival because his 16-year-old niece begged him, said her entire friend group was obsessed with his lavender-infused honey and would pay triple for jars signed by the “bee guy.” He’d set up his stand at the far edge of the grounds, as far from Elara’s cider booth as he could get, and spent the day avoiding eye contact with anyone who looked related to his ex. By 8 PM, the crowd had thinned, rain was spitting cold and sharp from the gray October sky, and he was rushing to pack up his crates of glass jars before the downpour hit.
He fumbled a full jar of wildflower honey. It hit the mud at his feet, shattering into a dozen glistening shards, golden honey oozing into the wet dirt and over the toe of a scuffed brown work boot that wasn’t his. He looked up. Elara was standing 18 inches away, her auburn hair streaked with a single silver stripe he didn’t remember from 12 years ago, wearing a flannel the same deep green as the pine trees lining his apiary, holding a half-empty mug of spiced cider. She smelled like cinnamon and fermented apple and cedar, the same scent that used to drift through his ex’s family gatherings back when he was still welcome.
She knelt down at the same time he did, their shoulders brushing when they both reached for the largest shard of glass. Her knee pressed against his, warm through the worn denim of their jeans, and she held his eye contact for three full beats before she smirked. “Still as clumsy as you are stubborn, Mendez?”
He couldn’t think of a snarky comeback. All he could focus on was the way the faint scar on her left cheek crinkled when she smiled, a scar he’d first noticed at a family barbecue 15 years prior, when she’d told him she got it falling off a horse she’d stolen from her older brother. He’d thought she was the most interesting person in the room that day, and he’d pushed that thought down so hard he’d forgotten it existed until that exact second.
She handed him a stack of wet wipes to clean the honey off his hands, her fingers brushing his calloused ones for half a second longer than necessary, and offered him a warm mug of cider to wait out the rain in the back of her taproom, just a two minute walk from the festival grounds. He hesitated, every muscle in his body screaming that this was a bad idea, that he was supposed to hate her, that his ex would lose her mind if she found out they were in the same room alone. He said yes anyway.
The taproom was empty, the lights low, a crackling fire burning in the brick fireplace by the back couch. Rain hammered the tin roof loud enough to drown out every other sound, and they sat side by side on the worn leather couch, their knees still touching, as she told him she’d felt guilty about the fight for 12 years. She’d had a crush on him for six months before he married her cousin, she said, and she’d taken her anger about the marriage falling apart out on him, because she’d been stupid enough to think if he hadn’t married her cousin, he might have picked her.
The psychological whiplash hit him hard, disgust warring with hot, sharp desire: disgust that he’d wasted 12 years hating someone who’d felt the same quiet pull he had, desire that he could have this, something he’d never even dared to want, just because he’d finally stopped being stubborn enough to run away. She leaned in then, so close he could taste the cinnamon on her breath, and kissed him slow, no hurry, no pressure, her hand coming up to rest on the side of his neck where a bee had stung him three days prior, the skin still slightly tender.
He kissed her back, his hand cupping her jaw, his thumb brushing that same faint scar he’d never forgotten, and every stupid grudge, every replayed argument, every dumb rule he’d made for himself about staying away from his ex’s family melted away faster than honey in hot tea. When they pulled back, she was grinning, her lips shiny and swollen, and asked him if he wanted to stay for the venison chili she’d left simmering on the stove. He nodded, no hesitation, no overthinking.
He reached for her hand, lacing his honey-sticky, calloused fingers through hers, and let the sound of the rain hammering the roof wash away every stupid thing he’d been mad about for the last 12 years.
