Manny Ruiz, 57, third-generation beekeeper out of Dripping Springs, had just packed up his stall at the downtown Austin farmers market when his truck’s AC gave out halfway up South Lamar. Sunburn burned across the bridge of his nose, jeans dusted with pine pollen, boots caked in mud from checking hives at dawn. He’d planned to drive straight home, crack a lager on his porch, and ignore the stack of beekeeper association newsletters piling up on his kitchen table, but the 102-degree heat made that impossible. He ducked into the first dive bar he spotted, neon karaoke sign flickering in the smudged window, and slid onto the last empty stool at the far end of the bar. He nodded at the bartender, a two-year regular at his honey stall, and dropped his canvas tote on the floor between his feet, the glass jar of wildflower honey he’d set aside for her clinking softly against a stack of stainless steel hive tools.
The woman next to him smelled like lavender hand lotion and ripe peach, no heavy perfume, no fake floral garbage that made his sinuses act up after a day around hives. He glanced over once, casual, saw ink smudged across the side of her thumb, a stack of library hold slips peeking out of her crossbody bag, half-empty peach seltzer sweating on the linoleum bar top in front of her. She was watching the middle-aged guy on the tiny stage butcher Dolly Parton’s *Jolene*, grinning so wide the corners of her eyes crinkled, and when she reached for a napkin at the same time he reached for his just-poured beer, their forearms brushed. Her skin was cool, smooth, a sharp contrast to his own calloused, sun-warmed skin, and he flinched back like he’d touched a lit match. It had been three years since his wife passed, three years of him avoiding any contact that wasn’t transactional, any conversation that didn’t revolve around hive mites or honey pricing, convinced even a friendly smile was a betrayal of the 32 years they’d had together.
She apologized first, holding up her hands like she was calming a skittish dog, and he mumbled that it was fine, turned back to his beer, tried to focus on the off-key singing instead of the way she was still looking at him. Ten minutes later, she nodded at his tote bag, where the edge of the honey jar was peeking out, and asked if that was local wildflower. He nodded, pulled it out, turned it over so she could see the handwritten label, his scrawled handwriting, harvest date from two weeks prior. She said her 7-year-old niece had terrible seasonal allergies, the doctor recommended raw local honey, she’d been hitting every farmers market for a month and never found any that wasn’t cut with corn syrup. He pushed the jar across the bar to her. Told her it was on the house, no charge. She tried to argue, pull out her wallet, and he shook his head, said the only payment he needed was for her to boo extra loud when the guy up next announced he was singing *Sweet Caroline*.
She laughed, loud enough that a couple people at the next table glanced over, and shifted closer on her stool, her knee brushing his under the bar. Neither of them moved away. They talked through three more terrible karaoke sets, him telling her about the hives he kept up in the hill country, the time a black bear broke into one of his apiaries last spring, her telling him she’d just moved to town to run the public library’s new senior outreach program, had only lived in Austin three weeks, didn’t know anyone yet. Every time she leaned in to ask a question, her shoulder pressed against his, her breath warm against his cheek over the noise of the bar, and he didn’t flinch. He even found himself telling her about his wife, how she’d loved karaoke, how she’d sung *Islands in the Stream* at their wedding reception, off key, loud as hell, and she didn’t look at him with that sad, pitying expression everyone else did. She just nodded, said her first husband had hated karaoke too, used to leave the bar whenever she got up to sing, that she’d never understood people who didn’t love being a little silly in public.
When the *Sweet Caroline* guy finally finished, the bar erupted in half-cheers, half-boos, and she leaned all the way in, her lips almost touching his ear, to yell that she had a jar of homemade sour cherry jam at her apartment, made from fruit off her mom’s tree back in Michigan, would trade him for the honey if he wanted to walk the three blocks over with her. He hesitated for half a second, that familiar guilt twisting in his gut, the voice in his head telling him he should go home, stick to his hives, stop being selfish. But then she pulled back, looked him in the eye, no pressure, no expectation, just that same easy grin, and he realized he didn’t want to go home to an empty house and a stack of unread newsletters. He nodded, stood up, slung his tote over his shoulder, held out a hand to help her off her stool.
The night air was soft, still warm from the day, crickets chirping in the lantana beds along the sidewalk. He carried her crossbody bag for her when her arm got tired, and halfway to her apartment, their hands brushed as he passed her a crumpled napkin he’d grabbed from the bar to wipe a smudge of pine pollen off her cheek. She laced her fingers through his, her hand small and cool in his, and didn’t let go until they reached her front steps.
