Rudy Galvan, 58, who ran a custom baseball glove repair shop out of a converted garage behind his Akron, Ohio, home, had spent 12 hours that August day sanding stiff leather, relacing broken webbing, and reconditioning mitts for the local high school varsity team. His calloused hands ached, the scar across his left knuckle—left by a shattered bat during his 12 years as a minor league equipment manager—throbbed a little from the repetitive motion, and he’d driven straight to the annual Portage Lakes rib cookoff as soon as he locked up the shop, craving a dry-rub rib sandwich and an ice-cold root beer. He wore a faded 2019 Akron RubberDucks cap pulled low over his graying goatee, grease stains streaked the knees of his denim work pants, and he’d forgotten to change out of his scuffed steel-toe boots before leaving the shop.
He’d just grabbed his sandwich from the rib tent and was reaching for a stack of paper napkins on the shared condiment table when another hand brushed his. The skin was soft, faintly calloused at the fingertips, and he smelled lavender lotion mixed with clover and smoked pork before he looked up. Marnie Carter, 54, his ex-wife’s first cousin, stood there grinning, a jar of raw wildflower honey in her other hand, a smudge of beeswax on her left cheek, her gray-streaked brown hair pulled back in a messy braid. She wore cutoff jean shorts, a faded 1977 Fleetwood Mac tour tee, and scuffed cowboy boots, and for half a second, Rudy’s first instinct was to step back, mumble an apology, and leave. He’d spent 23 years married to Lori, who’d spent every one of those years insisting Marnie was “bad news,” a reckless flirt who couldn’t be trusted, and had forbidden him from speaking to her alone at any family gathering.
“Rudy, right?” She held his gaze longer than polite, her dark eyes crinkling at the corners, and she didn’t pull her hand away right away. “I saw your shop sign got a fresh coat of paint last month. You still do custom relacing for the little league teams over on Manchester Road?” He blinked, surprised she’d noticed, and nodded, his throat suddenly dry. He’d barely spoken to anyone outside of his customers and his older brother since Lori left him seven years prior for a luxury RV salesman she’d met on a trip to Florida, and he’d convinced himself he was too set in his ways, too stuck in his routine, to bother with any new connections.
She held out the honey jar toward him, and when he reached to take it, her forearm brushed his bare bicep, sending a jolt up his spine he hadn’t felt since he was a teenager sneaking into his first minor league dugout. “Try it. I harvest it myself from hives out by the lake. Pairs perfect with dry rub ribs.” He hesitated, the old Lori-induced voice in the back of his head warning him to walk away, that this was trouble, that he’d regret it. But the honey glowed gold in the late afternoon sun, and she was looking at him like she actually cared what he thought, not like he was just a piece of furniture someone forgot to move, the way Lori had looked at him for the last five years of their marriage.
He twisted the lid off, dipped a finger in, and tasted it. It was bright, floral, a little tangy from the clover and goldenrod growing around the lake, better than any store-bought honey he’d ever had. “Shit, that’s good,” he said, and she laughed, a low, warm sound that cut through the crackle of the rib smokers and the classic rock blaring from the food truck speakers. She leaned in a little, close enough that he could smell mint gum on her breath, and said, “Told you. Lori always said I was full of shit, but I know a thing or two about good things that are a little messy.”
He almost choked on the honey, surprised she’d said it out loud, and she grinned, unapologetic. “I need someone to fix the leather straps on my beekeeping suits, by the way. All cracked from sun exposure. I’ll pay you in as much honey as you want, plus a pot of my brisket chili. I make it with a shot of bourbon and a dollop of that same honey. Tastes even better than the ribs here.” The old voice in his head screamed no, that he was crossing a line, that talking to Lori’s cousin was a betrayal even though Lori had left him, even though Lori hadn’t spoken to him in three years. But then he looked at her, at the smudge of beeswax on her cheek, at the chipped pale yellow polish on her fingernails, at the way she was holding his gaze like she wasn’t going to run if he said yes.
“Okay,” he said, and she pulled a crumpled business card out of her pocket, the front printed with a hand-drawn bee and her phone number, and handed it to him. He tucked it into the breast pocket of his work shirt, right next to the leather punch he carried with him everywhere, and she gave him a small, warm smile before turning to walk back to her honey booth, calling over her shoulder that she’d text him the address of her farm that night.
He walked back to his beat-up 2008 Ford F-150, rib sandwich in one hand, the jar of honey in the other, the August sun dipping low over the lake, painting the sky pink and tangerine. He realized he was smiling, a real smile, not the half-assed polite one he gave customers, and he couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. He popped the lid off the honey jar, dipped a finger in, and licked the sweet, sticky residue off before he turned the key in the ignition.
