Manny Rocha, 62, retired air traffic controller turned part-time beekeeper, showed up to the Black Bear Beer Garden’s annual honey hefe release only to collect the $420 check the brewery owed him for 12 gallons of his fall sourwood honey. He’d planned to be in and out in five minutes, no small talk, no awkward run-ins with the group of widows who’d been leaving pecan pies on his porch every other week since he moved to western North Carolina three years prior. His Carhartt jacket still had smudges of beeswax on the cuffs, his work boots caked with pine duff from checking his 17 hives at dawn, and he could still smell the faint, sharp tang of smoke from the hive smoker clinging to his hair.
He leaned against the rough pine bar, waiting for the owner to finish ringing up a group of college kids, when a sharp jolt to his left shoulder sent half a pint of hazy golden beer sloshing over the rim, soaking both his jacket sleeve and the flannel shirt of the woman he’d just knocked into. He started to apologize, already bracing for the overly kind, pitying smile he got from every local who knew his backstory, but she just laughed, loud and throaty, and swiped at the wet spot on her wrist with the hem of her vintage Fleetwood Mac tour shirt. Her dark curly hair was streaked with silver, pulled back in a messy braid, and her hazel eyes had flecks of the same gold as the honey he harvested. She said she knew who he was, had bought a jar of his wildflower honey at the farmers market the week before, swore it tasted exactly like the honey her grandpa used to pull from hives behind his cabin in the Catskills when she was a kid.
Manny’s first instinct was to shut down, to mumble a thanks, grab his check, and bolt. He’d spent eight years convincing himself any attention from a woman his age came with an agenda, that he was better off alone with his hives and his old Merle Haggard records than dealing with the mess of dating in a town of 1,200 people where everyone knew everyone’s business. But she didn’t step back when he shifted his weight, her shoulder still pressed warm to his, and when she lifted her pint to take a sip, her elbow brushed his forearm, sending a little jolt up his spine he hadn’t felt since his wife Elena passed in 2015. The beer garden smelled like roasted peanuts and hop resin, the bluegrass band playing off to the side had a fiddle player killing a cover of Rocky Top, and the October air was crisp enough to make his nose run a little. She leaned in when he started talking about the black bear that broke into his apiary last spring, so close he could smell lavender shampoo in her hair, and she teased him so hard about running from the bear in his fuzzy wool slippers that he laughed loud enough that a couple people at the next table turned to look.
He almost made an excuse to leave when she mentioned she ran the new vintage vinyl shop three blocks over, the little voice in his head screaming that this was exactly the kind of trap he’d spent years avoiding, that letting someone in would only end with him grieving all over again. But then she said she’d found a sealed original pressing of Merle Haggard’s *Okie from Muskogee* at an estate sale the weekend before, and he found himself saying he’d walk with her to check it out before he could talk himself out of it.
The streetlights were flickering on by the time they left the beer garden, oak and maple leaves crunching under their boots as they walked down Main Street. Halfway to the shop, she slipped her hand into his, her palm soft from sorting records, his calloused from prying apart hive frames, and he didn’t pull away. The shop smelled like old paper and lemon polish when they walked in, and she flipped on a string of fairy lights strung above the record bins before she pulled the Haggard record out from behind the counter and set it on her turntable. The low crackle of the vinyl filled the space as the first track started, and she stepped close to him, her hand resting light on his chest right over his heart, the warmth seeping through his jacket. He leaned down and kissed her slow, tasting honey hefe and peppermint gum on her lips, and for the first time in eight years, the guilt that usually gnawed at him when he even thought about being with another woman didn’t show up.
They sat on the worn velvet couch in the back of the shop, listening to the whole record straight through, and she pulled a jar of his wildflower honey out from a drawer under the counter, dipped her index finger in, and held it out to him. He licked the honey off her finger slow, and she laughed, leaning her head on his shoulder. When the final track faded out, he rested his hand on her knee, and for the first time in eight years, he didn’t feel the urge to run.
