Rafe Mendez is 52, retired air traffic controller, two years removed from the Tampa tower where a last-second course correction kept two passenger jets from colliding on the tarmac. The panic attacks that followed pushed him to sell his condo, move to a damp little Oregon coastal town where the only things in the sky are seagulls and the occasional Coast Guard helicopter. He fixes fishing reels for the local bait shop three days a week, lives alone in a cottage overlooking the jetty, and has spent three months actively avoiding his next-door neighbor Lena. No one in town calls it rude. Everyone avoids Lena, still, 18 months after her commercial fisherman husband’s boat went down in a winter storm. They treat her like a cracked teacup, too fragile for casual conversation, too caught up in grief to want anything more than quiet.
He’s leaning against a splintered pine picnic table at the town’s Fourth of July block party, sipping an IPA gone just warm enough to be annoying, when a pack of rowdy teens chasing a golden retriever barrel past, shoving Lena straight into the open spot next to him. Her bare forearm brushes his, sun-warmed, and he catches the sharp, sweet smell of coconut sunscreen mixed with the clay she works with for her pottery business. She laughs, a low, rough sound he’s only heard through the thin wall between their cottages when she’s talking to her rescue cat, and swats a strand of auburn hair out of her face. Her knee knocks his under the table, denim against his worn work pants, and she doesn’t move it right away.
“Was wondering how long you were gonna hide over here by the potato salad,” she says, holding his gaze for two beats longer than casual conversation calls for. Rafe’s first instinct is to scan the crowd, look for an exit, the same muscle memory that made him check every radar blip twice kicking in. He’s spent so long guarding his own mess of a brain that letting anyone close feels like letting a plane wander into restricted airspace without clearance. The part of him that’s tired of eating frozen burritos alone for dinner wins out, though, and he smirks, taking another sip of beer. “Wasn’t hiding. Just keeping an eye on the port-a-potty line. Someone’s gotta make sure no one cuts.”
She snorts, and her knee presses a little harder into his. He can feel the heat of her leg through his pants, suddenly hyper-aware of every sound around him: the grill crackle 20 feet away, kids screaming on the bouncy house, a country song playing too loud on a portable speaker. Someone yells the fireworks are starting, and the whole crowd turns toward the empty lot at the end of the block, necks craned up. A little kid in a red-white-blue cowboy hat runs past, tripping over Lena’s sandal, and she lurches forward, grabbing his forearm to steady herself. Her fingers are cold from holding a lime seltzer for 20 minutes, and she doesn’t let go when she’s balanced again.
“I don’t like how everyone treats me like I’ll shatter if someone asks me to dinner,” she whispers, close enough that her breath brushes his ear. Rafe’s chest tightens. He’s spent two years with people treating him the same way, like the tarmac near-miss turned him into a broken toy that might snap if you push too hard. He doesn’t think, just laces his fingers through hers, feeling the rough calluses on her palms from wedging clay, the faint raised scar on her wrist from the fishing hook accident she mentioned when she borrowed his ladder last month. She doesn’t pull away. She squeezes his hand, once, soft.
The first firework bursts overhead, red and gold, painting the sky bright enough that he can see the faint freckles across her nose, the way her smile doesn’t have that sad edge he’s always seen before. They don’t talk for the whole 20 minute show, just stand there holding hands, shoulders pressed together, watching the sky light up. When the finale hits, a cascade of blue and white sparks that makes the whole crowd cheer, she leans her head on his shoulder for three seconds, just long enough for him to smell that coconut sunscreen again.
When the last firework fades, the crowd disperses, people hauling coolers and folding chairs back to their cars. She turns to him, still holding his hand, and nods toward the row of cottages across the street. “I baked peach pie this morning. Still warm. You wanna come over?” Rafe doesn’t hesitate, for the first time in years, doesn’t run through a list of worst case scenarios before answering. He just nods, and they walk slow across the street, their shoulders brushing every other step, still holding hands. He kicks his scuffed work boots off on her front porch before stepping over the threshold, the sweet smell of baked peach and cinnamon wrapping around him before the door clicks shut behind them.
