Ronan Hale, 62, retired air traffic controller, had spent 31 years of his career making split-second, life-or-death decisions without a single waver, but he still froze up anytime a stranger struck up unplanned conversation. It was a stupid flaw, one he’d picked up in the years after his wife Elayne died, when he’d convinced himself any deviation from his rigid weekly routine was a betrayal of the life they’d built together. He went to the same corner pub every Friday at 6 PM for a pale ale, left at 7 sharp, bought oak planks from the same hardware store every other Tuesday, and had entered the pub’s annual fall chili cookoff 18 years running.
He’d almost skipped this year. Two months prior, he’d run into the town’s new part-time librarian at the hardware store, she’d asked him for help picking out pine planks for a built-in bookshelf for her cottage, and he’d blurted out a lie about being late for a doctor’s appointment before practically running for the door. He’d avoided every spot in town he might run into her since, even skipping his usual Friday pub trips for three weeks, but the chili cookoff was non-negotiable. His mom’s secret venison chili recipe, laced with a dash of dark chocolate no one ever guessed at, had won him first place seven times. He wasn’t about to sit it out over a silly, awkward interaction.
The pub was packed when he showed up, crockpot tucked under one arm, the air thick with the smell of chili powder, smoked sausage, and slightly burnt beer. He set his entry on the folding table by the door, grabbed his usual ale, and planted himself against the far end of the bar, where he could keep an eye on his crockpot and avoid small talk. He’d been there 12 minutes when she walked up beside him, boots caked with mud from the hiking trail on the edge of town, flannel shirt a size too big, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, a faint smear of chili powder on her left cheek. She reached past him for a napkin the bartender slid across the wood, her warm, calloused palm (rough at the fingertips from turning hundreds of book pages a week and hauling hiking gear up trails) brushing his forearm for half a second, and he flinched so hard he sloshed ale down the front of his well-worn navy flannel.
She laughed, low and warm, and handed him a handful of napkins. “You still jump that easy when someone gets within three feet of you? I thought I was the only one who left that hardware store feeling like I’d done something wrong.”
Ronan’s face burned. He’d replayed that interaction 100 times, cringing every time, and here she was, teasing him about it like it was nothing. He wanted to make an excuse, grab his crockpot, and leave, but she leaned in a little closer, the scent of cedar shampoo and cinnamon from her own chili entry curling into his nose, and said she’d tried his entry last year, when she’d first moved to town, and it was the best chili she’d ever eaten. “It had that weird, perfect hint of dark chocolate no one else’s entry ever has. I’ve been trying to replicate it for a year and failed every time,” she said. She’d been looking for him ever since to ask for the recipe.
The pub got louder as the voting started, a group of regulars yelling about who’d cheated by adding too much sugar to their entry, and someone stumbled into her from behind, knocking her forward into his chest. He caught her by the waist without thinking, his fingers pressing gently into the soft fabric of her flannel, and she looked up at him, her hazel eyes crinkling at the corners, a strand of auburn hair falling across her face. He almost reached up to tuck it behind her ear before he froze, his old rule-following instinct screaming that this was too fast, too unplanned, that he was betraying Elayne by even standing this close to another woman.
She didn’t pull away. “I don’t actually care that much about the chili recipe,” she said, quiet enough only he could hear over the roar of the crowd. “I was wondering if you’d rather help me build that bookshelf instead. I’m terrible with a drill, and you looked like you knew what you were doing with that lumber, even if you did run away from me.”
Ronan stared at her for three full seconds, the sound of the pub fading into background noise. He’d spent four years letting his fear of breaking routine, his guilt over even thinking about moving on, keep him locked up alone in his house, eating cold chili for dinner by himself, and here was a woman who thought his awkwardness was funny, who liked his weird chocolate-spiked chili, who didn’t care that he’d acted like an idiot two months prior. He nodded, before he could talk himself out of it, and even asked if she wanted to get coffee after the cookoff to talk about the shelf dimensions, if she had time.
The votes were announced ten minutes later. She won first place, her white bean and pork chili beating his by three votes, and he won second, the both of them getting oversized ceramic mugs as prizes, printed with the pub’s scuffed, 40-year-old logo. He carried her crockpot out to her beat-up pickup truck when she was ready to leave, balancing his own crockpot and his prize mug under his other arm. The air was crisp, crumpled orange and red maple leaves crunching under their boots, and the sky was turning soft pink and tangerine over the rolling hills at the edge of town.
When she leaned in to hug him goodbye before she climbed into her truck, he didn’t flinch this time, his hand resting lightly on the small of her back, and he realized he hadn’t looked forward to a Saturday this much in half a decade.
