Manny Ruiz, 61, has run his small apiary outside Asheville for 12 years, ever since his ex-wife packed up her vinyl collection and left him for a pharmaceutical rep who thought local honey was “a scam for crunchy hippies.” He’s stubborn to a fault, refuses to use any pre-made labels for his honey jars, hand-writes every batch number and floral variety in scrawled blue ink, and hasn’t let anyone who wasn’t his 10-year-old hound dog Gus stay at his cabin overnight since the divorce. He tells himself he likes the quiet, that the hum of 40 hives is better company than any person could be, and he almost believes it most days.
The late August farmers market is sticky and slow, the air thick with the smell of fried green tomatoes and cut clover, a stray wasp buzzing around the stack of wildflower honey jars at the edge of his stall. He’s wiping a smudge of honey off his calloused forearm when he sees her, and his chest tightens like he’s just inhaled a lungful of bee smoke. It’s Lila, his ex-wife’s younger cousin, the one who used to crash on their couch every summer when she was in college, the one he’d caught staring at his hands while he split hive boxes once, back when he was still married and would’ve cut off his own arm before he ever acted on the spark he’d felt then.
He expects her to keep walking, but she veers straight for his stall, grinning, wearing a yellow sundress that matches the golden honey in the jars, sandals slapping against the cracked asphalt. She’s 48 now, silver streaks in her dark hair, a smattering of freckles across her nose that he remembers from when she was 22, and when she leans in over the table to sniff a jar of sourwood honey, her shoulder brushes his, warm and soft through the thin cotton of his work shirt. He freezes, half ready to mumble a polite greeting and send her on her way, half curious enough to ask what she’s doing in town, why she’s not back in Charlotte where she works as a graphic designer.
She doesn’t mention his ex first, doesn’t bring up the messy divorce or the fact that her cousin still talks trash about him at family holidays. She asks about the bees, laughs when he tells her the new hive he installed last month is full of “drama queen workers” that keep stinging him for no reason, reaches out to tap the bandage on his forearm gently, her finger lingering for a beat longer than necessary. He can smell lavender on her, the same perfume she wore the last time she visited, and he’s suddenly hyper aware of the honey crusted under his fingernails, the hole in the knee of his jeans, the fact that he hasn’t flirted with anyone in over a decade.
His brain is screaming that this is a bad idea, that messing with his ex’s cousin is the kind of drama he’s spent 12 years avoiding, that everyone in their small mountain town will talk, that he’ll look like a pathetic old man chasing a younger woman who’s only being nice out of pity. But when she leans in further, her elbow brushing his as she points to a jar of tupelo honey in the back of the stall, her hair falling in his face, he can’t bring himself to step back. She says she still has the jar of sourwood honey he gave her for her college graduation, that she never opened it, kept it on her nightstand through three moves and two bad long-term relationships, because it was the nicest thing anyone had ever given her.
A kid in a baseball cap goes tearing past the stall, slamming his shoulder into the edge of the table, and the stack of honey jars at the edge teeters, ready to shatter all over the asphalt. Manny lunges, and so does Lila, their hands slamming down on the same half-gallon jar at the exact same time. His sticky, calloused fingers wrap around hers, and he can feel the small callus on her index finger from playing guitar, the same one he noticed 26 years earlier when she played him a song she’d written on their back porch. They don’t let go for three full seconds, the noise of the market fading out entirely, just the sound of their breathing, the distant buzz of a bee, the warm press of her skin against his. She looks up at him, no grin this time, her dark eyes soft, and says she’s staying in the old rental cottage at the edge of his property for the next two weeks, the one his ex used to rent out to seasonal workers, that she saw his truck parked in the driveway two nights ago and almost walked up to say hi.
He doesn’t overthink it, doesn’t talk himself out of it like he usually does. He grabs the last jar of small-batch sourwood honey he only reserves for regulars who’ve been coming to his stall for 10 years or more, scribbles his cell number on the lid in thick black permanent marker, shoves it across the table at her. Tells her the bees are calm at sunset, that if she wants to come up to the apiary after the market closes, he’ll show her the new hive, even let her hold a frame of comb if she’s not scared of getting stung. She tucks the jar under her arm, her fingers brushing his again when she takes it, winks, and turns to walk away down the market aisle.
Gus lifts his head from where he’s been napping under the table, huffs a gruff bark like he’s teasing Manny for looking like a flustered teenager, and lays his head back down. Manny watches the hem of Lila’s yellow sundress sway as she disappears into the crowd, the ghost of her touch still burning on his hand. He wipes a stray drop of honey that’s dripped onto his wrist with the back of his hand, already counting down the minutes until the market closes for the day.
