Ronan Hale is 61, makes custom saltwater and freshwater fishing rods out of the cinder block garage behind his 1970s ranch outside Asheville, hasn’t gone on a date since his wife packed her suitcase and left for Key West with a realtor 12 years prior. His biggest flaw is he’d rather argue with his stubborn bloodhound Mabel over a leftover biscuit than make small talk with anyone in town, and he’d spent the last three months ducking the new county librarian, Elara Voss, because every time he ran into her at the hardware store his throat went dry and he forgot how to say basic words like “two-inch nail.” He’d only agreed to set up a booth at the town’s annual summer street fair because his 16-year-old niece begged him, said her business class needed extra credit for organizing the small business section, and he didn’t have the heart to say no.
The air that Saturday reeked of fried Oreos, freshly cut clover, and the piney tang of the cedar rod blanks stacked behind his table. Mabel was curled under the booth, snoring loud enough to compete with the bluegrass band playing two stalls over, when Elara leaned over the rickety wooden divider between their booths, her shoulder brushing his bicep before he even registered she was there. “You got an extra napkin?” she asked, holding up a hand dusted with iridescent glitter from the kids’ summer reading craft kits she was passing out. She smelled like lavender laundry soap and lemon Pledge, he noticed, and she was wearing a faded 1977 Fleetwood Mac tour tee under her oversized linen cardigan, not the starched cream button-downs he’d only ever seen her in at the library. Her sage green nail polish was chipped at the edges, and there was a tiny smudge of electric blue glitter on her left cheekbone.
He fumbled for the stack of napkins under his table, knocking over his lukewarm sweet tea in the process, and she laughed, a low, throaty sound that made the back of his neck feel hot. He’d heard the town gossip about her, the old biddies at the Main Street diner saying she was a stuck-up city girl from Boston who thought she was too good for small town life, that she’d never last six months before she ran back north. He’d always written that gossip off as small-minded garbage, but he’d still kept his distance, convinced she’d look at him, a guy with calloused, splinter-pricked hands and a scar across his left eyebrow from a construction fall in his 30s, and see nothing but a reclusive redneck who spent more time talking to fish than people.
When a kid chasing a fluffy golden retriever knocked a full cooler of water off the edge of Elara’s booth, they both dove for the rolling bottles at the same time, their hands brushing when they both grabbed the same dented Poland Spring. She didn’t yank her hand away immediately, held it there for two slow, warm beats, her hazel eyes flecked with honey gold locking onto his, and he felt a jolt go up his arm like he’d touched a frayed live wire. He’d spent 12 years convincing himself he didn’t want this, didn’t want the hassle of learning someone’s favorite food, their bad habits, the way they took their coffee, that he was better off alone with Mabel and his rod lathe. For a split second he almost pulled back, almost mumbled a clumsy excuse and retreated behind his stack of neon paracord rod wraps, but she smiled, a lopsided, sheepish little thing, and said, “I’ve been parking my beat-up silver Subaru outside your garage every Saturday for a month trying to work up the nerve to ask you to make a custom rod for my dad’s 70th. I kept thinking you’d tell me to get lost.”
He blinked, realized the Subaru he’d seen parked out front every weekend wasn’t a solicitor like he’d assumed, wasn’t someone trying to sell him a new roof or a magazine subscription. “I thought you were a Jehovah’s Witness,” he said, and she laughed so hard she snort-laughed, clapping a hand over her mouth like she was embarrassed anyone had heard. He told her he’d been hiding inside the whole time, sitting on his couch watching old John Wayne westerns, too stubborn to answer the door even when he heard her knock a few times.
The sky opened up 10 minutes later, a quick, violent summer thunderstorm dumping sheets of rain so hard the street puddled ankle-deep in 60 seconds flat. They scrambled to yank the canvas awning down over both their booths, shoving their stock under the tables as fast as they could, and ended up pressed shoulder to shoulder under the tiny overhang, their hips touching, rain drumming so loud on the canvas they had to lean in so close their foreheads almost touched to hear each other talk. She told him she’d grown up fishing off the coast of Maine with her dad, that she’d moved to North Carolina after he passed the year prior because she couldn’t stand being in their old house without him, that the town gossip about her being a stuck-up city girl was half right, she’d been scared to talk to anyone here because she thought they’d all judge her for being an outsider. He told her about his wife leaving, about how he’d started building rods to keep his hands busy so he wouldn’t drink too much in the quiet evenings, about how Mabel had showed up on his porch three years prior, half starved and covered in ticks, and refused to leave.
The rain stopped as fast as it started, the sun coming out so bright it made the puddles glow like scattered pieces of mirror. She helped him restack his rod blanks, her hand brushing his again when she passed him a roll of paper towels to wipe the water off the tabletop. They agreed he’d have the draft of her dad’s rod done by the end of the week, that she’d bring him a vanilla latte from the coffee shop downtown when she came by his garage the next morning.
He stood by his booth long after she’d packed up her craft supplies and walked to her car, watching her wave over her shoulder as she crossed the street, Mabel nudging his hand with her cold wet nose. He reached down to scratch her behind the ears, already mentally running through the list of navy blue rod wraps he had that would match the uniform her dad had worn on his commercial fishing boat for 40 years.
