Merv Hargrove, 63, custom fly rod builder and widower of eight years, hunches over his crockpot at the county fire department’s annual chili cookoff, dabbing a smudge of venison chili grease off the faded “World’s Okayest Fisherman” patch stitched to his Carhartt jacket. The air reeks of cumin, burnt hot dog buns, and the cheap lager the volunteer firefighters are passing out in red plastic cups, and he’s already mentally checking out, ready to load up his gear and head back to his isolated cabin before someone tries to set him up with their divorced cousin again. He’d only come because his neighbor begged him to enter his famous chili, and he’s never been good at saying no to people who bring him homemade peach pie as a bribe.
He’s twisting the lid back on his jar of pickled jalapeños when he sees her. Jolene Marlow, 57, his late wife Lila’s younger sister, the girl who used to sneak out on dawn fishing trips with them when she was still in high school, the one he’d spent two decades actively avoiding looking at for too long because of the stupid, unshakable crush he’d buried so deep he’d convinced himself it didn’t exist. She’s wearing high-waisted denim and a faded Merle Haggard tee, a flannel tied around her waist, sun-streaked brown hair pulled back in a messy ponytail with a streak of silver running through the left side that he doesn’t remember from the last time he saw her, at Lila’s funeral 12 years prior. She’s holding a crumpled paper plate in one hand, and when she spots him, she grins so wide the corners of her eyes crinkle, and she heads straight for his table.
She stops so close that her shoulder brushes his bicep when she leans in to sniff the crockpot, and he freezes, his fingers still curled around the jalapeño jar. “That’s your venison chili, right?” she says, and her voice is lower than he remembers, rougher around the edges, like she’s spent the last decade smoking too many cigarettes and singing too loud at dive bar karaoke nights. He nods, and she reaches for a sample spoon off the stack next to his crockpot, their hands brushing when he goes to pass her one, a sharp, warm jolt shooting up his arm that makes him yank his hand back like he touched a hot stove. He feels immediately stupid, feels a twist of guilt in his gut, like he’s betraying Lila just by standing this close to her sister, just by noticing that the faint freckles across her nose are still there, that she still chews on the side of her lower lip when she’s thinking.
She teases him for being as skittish as a wild trout, and he laughs despite himself, leaning against the table as they talk. She tells him she moved back to town three weeks prior, just finalized her divorce from the real estate broker she’d moved to Florida with 10 years ago, she’s renting the old cottage two miles down the road from his cabin, working part time at the bait and tackle shop downtown. He tells her about his fly rod business, about the 20-inch brown trout he caught on the French Broad last month, and every time she leans in to ask a question, her elbow brushing his, every time she laughs so hard she snorts a little, the guilt in his gut gets lighter, pushed out by a giddy, nervous flutter he hasn’t felt since he was 22 and asked Lila out for the first time. He tries to tell himself it’s wrong, that the whole town will talk if they see them together, that he’s too old for this kind of nonsense, but he can’t make himself walk away.
The sun sets while they’re talking, the string lights strung across the fire station parking lot flicker on, crickets chirping loud in the woods at the edge of the pavement. The judges announce the winners: Jolene’s spicy pork chili takes first, his venison takes second, and they carry their coolers and prize ribbons out to their trucks together, the air cool enough that Merv can see his breath fog in front of his face when he laughs at her story about accidentally dumping her ex-husband’s golf clubs in the Atlantic before she moved. She stops next to his beat-up Ford F-150, twisting the hem of her tee between her fingers, and asks him if he’ll take her fishing on the river this weekend, says she still has the fly rod he built her for her 21st birthday, the one with the blue thread wrap he’d picked because it matched her eyes.
He hesitates for half a second, thinking of Lila’s photo on the mantel of his cabin, thinking of the nosy old ladies at the church bake sale who’ll gossip so loud the whole county will hear, but then he looks at her, standing there under the string lights, waiting, and he says yes. She steps closer, her chest brushing his first, then she kisses him on the cheek, soft, and when he doesn’t pull away, she presses her lips to his, tastes like cinnamon and the spiked hard cider she’d been drinking all night, her hand coming up to rest on the back of his neck. He kisses her back, his hand settling light on her hip, and for the first time in eight years, he doesn’t feel a single flicker of guilt.
They make plans to meet at his cabin at 7 a.m. Saturday, coffee and breakfast sandwiches already in the cooler when she shows up. He stands by his truck watching her taillights fade down the dirt road, the crumpled second place ribbon digging into his palm where he’s clutching it, and he doesn’t stop smiling until he turns the key in his ignition and the radio blares the old Merle Haggard song they used to sing on fishing trips all those years ago.
