Leo Marquez, 62, retired air traffic controller, had spent the last eight years perfecting the art of being invisible in his tiny coastal Oregon town. His flaw? He’d shut down every casual overture from neighbors and acquaintances after his wife died of breast cancer, convinced any new connection would feel like a betrayal. He’d only shown up to the annual town fish fry because his 80-year-old next door neighbor had left three jars of her famous pickled beets on his porch with a note threatening to hide his aviation tool set if he bailed.
He was leaning against a splintered cedar post by the beer tent, nursing a cold hazy IPA and ignoring the small talk invitations from the guys at the local fishing co-op, when a golden retriever zoomed past his legs, yanking a toddler on a leash behind it. He jolted, spilling half an ounce of beer down the front of his faded navy work shirt, and turned to grab a napkin from the stack on the post, bumping straight into the woman standing half a foot behind him.
His palm brushed the curve of her hip as he steadied her, and he flinched like he’d touched a hot stove. He hadn’t had any physical contact with someone who wasn’t a grocery store cashier handing him a receipt in longer than he could remember. She smelled like lavender and salt air, wore a faded linen button-down covered in tiny constellation prints, silver hoops catching the golden late afternoon sun. He recognized her immediately: Elara Voss, the new town librarian, whose ex-husband, the county sheriff, had been arrested two days prior for embezzling $120,000 from the town’s park fund. Everyone in town had been side-eyeing her like she’d helped him hide the cash, even though the local paper had reported she’d been the one who tipped off the state auditors.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, stepping back, already hyper-aware of the half dozen groups of people glancing their way from the picnic tables. His old air traffic control brain was firing on all cylinders, scanning for judgment, for whispers, for any sign he was making a mistake by even standing near her.
Leo blinked. No one had paid that much attention to anything he’d done in years, let alone a box of books he’d dropped off without even leaving a name. He leaned in a little, forgetting to scan the crowd for a second, the smell of fried cod and hushpuppies mixing with her lavender perfume. “You’re taking lessons? Out at the tiny airfield east of town?”
She nodded, stepping closer to avoid a group of teens carrying a stack of paper plates piled high with fries, her shoulder brushing his bicep. “Yeah. The instructor’s a 19-year-old kid who thinks he’s Maverick from Top Gun, so I’ve been mostly teaching myself from books. I saw your old Cessna parked in the far hangar last week, the one with the hand-painted shark nose art. Is that yours?”
He sat down on the edge of a nearby empty picnic bench, patting the spot next to him without thinking. She sat, their knees brushing under the table, and she didn’t shift away. He told her about flying cross-country with his wife in that Cessna for their 25th anniversary, about the time he’d had to make an emergency landing in a cornfield in Iowa, about how he’d stopped flying after she got sick. She told him about growing up in a tiny town in Idaho, about how she’d moved to Oregon three years prior to get away from her ex’s controlling behavior, about how she’d always wanted to fly since she was a kid watching bush planes land on the lake near her house.
He was so caught up in the conversation he didn’t notice the commotion at the entrance to the park until the snarl cut straight through the noise of the crowd. “Elara. You think you can move on that fast, you stupid bitch?”
He looked up to see her ex, in handcuffs, flanked by two state troopers, being led to a patrol car parked on the edge of the lot. He was red-faced, spitting mad, glaring straight at her. Leo didn’t even think, his old air traffic controller reflexes kicking in before he could overthink it, before he stood, stepping between Elara and the ex, his hand resting light but firm on the small of her back. “She’s with me.”
The crowd went quiet for half a second, then the troopers hauled the ex away, yelling insults over his shoulder. Leo didn’t care who was watching, didn’t care if the whole town was gossiping about them by morning. He turned back to Elara, and she was grinning, her eyes glistening a little.
“Wanna get out of here?” she said, nodding toward the road. “The diner down the street has peanut butter milkshakes that’ll make you forget you ever smelled fried cod.”
When she laces her fingers through his as they cross the parking lot, he doesn’t even hesitate to squeeze back.
