Rafe Mendez, 53, has spent the last seven years avoiding the town’s annual apple harvest festival like it’s a particularly stubborn leak in a 1968 Winnebago. The vintage camper restorer still has grease crusted under the edges of his fingernails from a 12-hour day on a rotting Airstream shell, and he only showed up tonight because his buddy Jeb owed him 220 bucks for a custom water pump, and he didn’t want to wait till Monday to collect. He leans against the rough cedar pop-up bar, boots planted on sawdust sticky with spilled cider, nursing a cheap draft and counting the seconds till Jeb shows so he can bolt back to his quiet cabin on the edge of town.
He’s halfway through his beer when he spots her. Lila Marlow, the 48-year-old pastor who moved to town 18 months prior, is leaning against the opposite end of the bar, no starched collar, no frumpy cardigan, just a faded denim jacket over a plain black tank, holding a spiked cider and laughing so hard her shoulders shake at something the local elementary school teacher just said. Rafe’s jaw tightens. He’s spoken to her exactly twice: once when she dropped off a casserole after his dad’s funeral last spring, once when she asked him to quote a repair for the church’s beat-up old van. He’s avoided her since, partly because small town gossip already had them paired up before he’d even said three words to her, partly because he’d spent the entirety of both conversations staring at the freckles across her nose and forgetting how to form a full sentence.
She spots him before he can duck behind a group of drunk college kids here for the orchard tours. She grins, picks up her drink, and weaves through the crowd toward him. She stops so close he can smell her apple cider shampoo mixed with the cinnamon stick sticking out of her drink, and when a guy carrying a platter of fried oreos jostles past her, her shoulder presses firm against his bicep for three full seconds before she steps back just a little. “I was wondering if you’d show up tonight,” she says, holding his gaze like she’s got no reason to look away. “I stopped by your shop yesterday to ask if you could look at the Airstream parked down by the river, the one the homeless vet’s living in? The heater’s out.”
Rafe nods, his throat suddenly dry. He’d dropped off a space heater there two days prior, hadn’t told anyone. “Already fixed it,” he says. She raises an eyebrow, and he swears her smile gets warmer. “Figured you’d beat me to it,” she says, reaching across the bar for a stack of napkins. Her hand brushes his when she grabs one, and he feels the rough callus on her index finger, the same one he’d noticed when she’d shaken his hand at the funeral, from playing guitar at Sunday services. He fights the stupid urge to turn his hand over and lace his fingers through hers. The gossip mill would eat them both alive if he so much as brushed a strand of hair off her face here. Half the town still thinks he’s a deadbeat because his ex left him, the other half thinks Lila’s practically a saint. The combination would be front page of the town newsletter by sunrise.
“You gonna ask why I’m not wearing my collar?” she says, tilting her head like she can read the conflict written all over his face. He shrugs. “Figured you had a night off,” he says. She snorts, takes a sip of her cider, and a tiny drop of it sticks to her lower lip. “Quit last week,” she says. “The church board threw a fit because I let the vet sleep in the fellowship hall for three weeks when the temperature dropped to 20 last month. Said it ‘set a bad precedent’.”
Rafe blinks. He’d heard rumors about that, hadn’t thought they’d actually fire her over it. “What’re you gonna do now?” he says. She smirks, jerking her head toward the dark wooded trail behind the festival grounds, the one that leads down to the creek. “Wanna come see something first?” she says. “The bioluminescent fungi popped up after all the rain last week. Glows neon green in the dark. Everyone’s been sneaking down there to look, but I know a spot where no one will bother us.”
He hesitates for half a second, thinks about the gossip, about the way he’s spent seven years hiding from any situation that might make people talk. Then he looks at her, at the way she’s biting her lip like she’s half-afraid he’ll say no, at the smudge of cider on her cheek, and he nods.
They walk the trail side by side, the sound of the festival’s cover band fading behind them, the air crisp enough that their breath fogs in front of their faces. When she almost trips over an exposed oak root, she grabs his forearm to steady herself, and he wraps his hand around hers to keep her from stumbling again. She doesn’t let go when she finds her footing. The trail opens up to a small clearing by the creek, and the entire forest floor is dotted with the glowing green fungi, bright enough that he can see the freckles on her nose even in the dark.
She turns to face him, their chests almost touching, and she doesn’t say anything before he leans down and kisses her. She kisses back immediately, her free hand tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck, and the cold seeping through the knees of his jeans where he’s kneeling on the moss doesn’t even register.
They stay there for an hour, talking quiet, leaning against an oak tree, her head on his shoulder, before they start walking back toward the festival parking lot. She still hasn’t let go of his hand, and when they pass a group of deacons from the church heading down the trail, she laces their fingers tighter, like she’s daring them to say something. Rafe doesn’t even bother looking away from them. He’s spent seven years hiding from small town nonsense, and he’s got zero interest in doing it anymore. He unlocks the passenger door of his beat-up Ford F150, holds it open for her, and when she slides into the seat, she tugs him down for one more quick kiss before he closes the door behind her.
