Ronan O’Malley, 57, retired commercial salmon fisherman turned bait and tackle shop owner, had been dragged to the Astoria Lions Club annual summer crab feed against his will. His 17-year-old niece had begged, said she needed to sell 10 more raffle tickets to qualify for a football team trip to Seattle, and he’d caved faster than he cared to admit. He stood in the back corner of the high school gym, work boots still caked with dried salt from that morning’s low tide walk, flannel shirt unbuttoned over a faded WSU Cougars tee, sipping a lukewarm Bud Light and mentally counting the minutes until he could slip out without hurting the kid’s feelings. He’d avoided all community events since his divorce three years prior, convinced every single woman his age within a 20 mile radius was only interested in free dinners and someone to mow their lawn.
He’d just decided he could leave in eight more minutes when Marnie Carter stepped into his orbit. He’d known her for 22 years, as the wife of his old fishing partner Jimmy, who’d died of a heart attack out on their boat two years prior. He’d always written her off as prissy, the kind of woman who yelled at Jimmy for tracking fish guts on the carpet and banned him from bringing Ronan over for Sunday dinners after he’d spilled beer on her couch in 2017. She was wearing a soft blue sundress that hit just above her knees, strappy sandals showing off a chipped red pedicure, and she was holding a clipboard full of silent auction bid sheets. The country band playing by the gym doors was twanging an off-key version of “Chattahoochee” so loud she had to lean in to be heard, her shoulder pressing firm to his bicep for three full seconds before she even spoke.
“Thought you said you’d never set foot in one of these things,” she said, grinning, and he could smell coconut tanning oil and lemonade on her breath, sharp and sweet. She held out a bid sheet, and when he reached for it, his calloused fishing fingers brushed hers, soft but dotted with small calluses of her own, from the raised vegetable beds he’d seen in her yard when he drove past. He’d always thought her hands would be soft, unused to work, and the surprise of the rough spots jolts him more than it should.
“Niece made me come,” he grumbled, flipping through the bid sheet, eyes skipping over the gift baskets of jam and the free haircut certificates to land on a guided half-day salmon fishing trip out of Fort Stevens. He’d run his own boat for 31 years, didn’t need a guide, but the price next to the bid was only $40, lower than he’d pay for gas for a day on the water. “You running the auction?”
“Volunteering,” she said, shifting her weight so she was standing six inches away from him, close enough he could see the silver streaks running through her auburn hair, the faint laugh lines fanning out from the corners of her hazel eyes. She didn’t move away when he shifted his weight to lean against the cinder block wall, their elbows brushing every time one of them moved. “Found Jimmy’s custom fillet knife in the back of the garage last week. Figured you’d want it. He always said you were the only person he trusted to sharpen it right.”
That stopped him cold. He’d been thinking about that knife for two years, had even asked Marnie about it once, right after Jimmy’s funeral, and she’d brushed him off, said she’d thrown all of Jimmy’s fishing gear out. He’d been mad about it for six months, convinced she’d disrespected his best friend’s memory. “I thought you tossed all that stuff,” he said, voice quieter than he meant it to be.
“Couldn’t throw out the good stuff,” she said, and she’s not grinning anymore, her expression soft, like she’s telling him a secret. She held eye contact for two beats longer than was strictly polite, and he felt his neck warm up, like he was a 16 year old kid talking to a girl at a sock hop instead of a 57 year old man who’d been married almost three decades. “I was mad back then, when you asked. Thought you just wanted to take his stuff to sell. I see you now, though. You’re at the shop every single day, you help the old guys carry their coolers to their cars, you donate bait to the youth fishing clinics every spring. You’re not the grumpy drunk I thought you were back then.”
Before he could respond, the MC’s voice boomed over the speakers, calling the raffle winners. He’d stuffed the ticket his niece gave him in his flannel pocket and forgotten about it, and he was shocked when he heard his number called. Marnie laughed, grabbed his wrist to yank him up toward the stage, her hand warm and firm around his bone, and he didn’t pull away. He won the guided fishing trip, of all things, and when they got back to the corner, she was still laughing, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye.
“Funny, right?” she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I bid on that trip, too. Haven’t been out on the water since Jimmy died. Was gonna go alone, but… you wanna take me instead? I’ll bring the potato salad Jimmy used to love, and the knife. No strings attached.”
He hesitated for half a second, that old, stupid guilt bubbling up, like he was betraying Jimmy by even considering it. But then he looked at her, the way the fluorescent gym lights caught the gold flecks in her eyes, the way she was biting her lip like she was nervous he’d say no, and that guilt melted away into something lighter, warmer, something he hadn’t felt in three years. “Yeah,” he said, surprising himself. “I’d like that.”
They exchanged numbers, she wrote hers on the back of the silent auction bid sheet, her thumb brushing his knuckle when she handed it to him, and he stuck it in the pocket of his flannel, right next to the gift certificate for the trip. He sat down next to her at one of the folding tables, shared a plate of garlic bread and a pile of steamed crab, laughed so hard he snort-laughed when she told the story of the time Jimmy tried to grill a whole salmon on their backyard barbecue and burned the whole thing down to the metal grate.
When she leans in to whisper a joke about the Lions Club president’s neon orange bow tie, her breath warm against his ear, he forgets he’d planned to leave an hour earlier.
