He’s leaned up against a splintered pine support post, boots planted shoulder-width apart, when someone slams into his elbow hard enough to slosh beer down his front. He bites back a gruff curse, looks down, and blinks. The woman in front of him is laughing, holding a half-empty hard seltzer, sun-bleached honey blonde braid slipping over one shoulder, a faint smudge of dark soil high on her left cheek. She’s Lila Marlow, his ex-wife Carol’s younger cousin, the one he’d met exactly once 10 years prior at a family Christmas, when she’d showed up with a truck full of rescue dogs and stayed up until 2 a.m. arguing with him about controlled burn policy. He’d thought about her more than he’d ever admitted to anyone, back when he was still married, back when crossing that line felt like a cardinal sin.
“Shit, I’m so sorry,” she says, grabbing a handful of napkins from the stack on the post next to him, dabbing at the wet spot on his flannel before he can protest. Her hand brushes his forearm, warm through the thin cotton, and he can feel the calluses on her fingertips from digging in dirt, matching the ones on his own hands from splitting oak and welding fire pit rims. He tenses up, half ready to mumble an excuse and bolt, the old guilt coiling tight in his chest—Carol’s family, this is wrong, you don’t do this—before she looks up and meets his eyes, no awkwardness, no hesitation, and grins. “Elias, right? I’d know that scar anywhere. You fixed my grandma’s rocking chair that Christmas, remember? The leg was split clean through, you carved a new one out of scrap oak in the garage before anyone even asked.”
He blinks again, surprised anyone remembered that. Most people only see the scar, the gruff quiet, the guy who’d rather spend 12 hours alone in the woods splitting wood than make small talk at a cookout. The noise of the tent fades a little when she steps closer, shoulder pressing against his bicep so she can talk over the band, and he catches the scent of lavender hand soap and pine sap on her shirt, sharp and sweet under the sour ale and fried cherry fritter smell hanging over the tent. She says she runs the county native plant nursery now, has been trying to find someone to build a big custom fire pit for their volunteer bonfires all spring, and kept meaning to look up his business but got busy planting milkweed for the monarch migration.
The guilt nags at him again, and he’s halfway through saying he’s booked solid for the next two months, that he can’t take the job, when she tilts her head and raises one eyebrow, like she can see right through the lie. “Carol left you seven years ago, Elias,” she says, quiet enough no one else can hear, her breath warm against the side of his neck. “No one’s keeping score. I’ve been wanting to ask you out for 10 years, I just didn’t want to make a mess back when you were still married. The fire pit’s just an excuse.”
The tightness in his chest loosens all at once, like a knot he didn’t know he was holding finally snaps. He’d spent so long convinced he was too broken, too scarred, too closed off to be wanted for anything other than splitting wood or welding metal, he’d forgotten what it felt like to be seen. He reaches up without thinking, brushes the smudge of soil off her cheek with the pad of his thumb, the rough edge of his callus catching on her soft skin, and she doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pull away, just smiles, her eyes crinkling at the corners.
She grabs a crumpled receipt out of her jeans pocket, scrawls her cell number on the back in bright blue pen, folds it around a small, fuzzy wild lupine seed pod she pulls from her jacket pocket, and presses it into his palm. Her fingers linger on his for half a second longer than necessary, and he can feel the heat rising up his neck, under the scar that hasn’t itched this little in years.
His niece yells his name from across the tent, holding up a giant blue ribbon next to her crumb-covered cherry pie, and he tucks the receipt and seed pod into the front pocket of his flannel, patting it once to make sure it’s secure. He nods at Lila, says he’ll call her first thing tomorrow to come measure the spot for the fire pit, stay for a beer if she’s got time. She winks, turns to walk back to her group of friends by the beer stand, and he watches her go, the cold IPA in his hand suddenly feeling warm, the distant hum of the band sounding a lot less annoying than it did 10 minutes ago.
