Ron Jablonski, 62, spent 38 years perched in 100-foot fire lookout towers across the Sierra Nevada before he retired last spring, and he still hates crowds. His neighbor had dragged him to the Pine Tap’s post-burn recovery potluck three hours prior, and he’d spent most of that time leaned against the far end of the bar, nursing a succession of cold IPAs and avoiding small talk with county officials milling around, all asking him the same tired questions about fire mitigation he’d answered a hundred times at town halls. His left forearm bears a thick, faded scar from a 2018 blaze he’d fought alongside his best friend Marty, and he rubs it unconsciously when he’s bored, the rough raised skin a familiar comfort. He’d been half a second from slipping out the back door when the front door swung open, and Lila Marlow walked in.
Lila was Marty’s only kid, 38, the new county reforestation coordinator, and Ron had known her since she was eight years old, when he and Marty would take her up to the high lakes to fish, and she’d fall asleep in the back of Ron’s truck wrapped in a neon pink sleeping bag. He’d only seen her a handful of times since she moved back to town six months prior, and he’d gone out of his way to avoid her, if he was honest. Something about seeing her all grown up, sharp and loud and covered in mud from planting saplings in the burn zones, had short-circuited his brain the first time they ran into each other at the hardware store, and he’d felt like a pervert for the rest of the day, replaying the way she’d grinned at him over a stack of two-by-fours.
She spotted him immediately, grinning so wide the dimples in her cheeks showed, and she cut through the crowd like she had a direct path, her work boots thudding against the sticky linoleum, a hard hat slung over her shoulder. She stopped so close to him her shoulder brushed his bicep when she leaned in to yell over the jukebox blaring Johnny Cash, “I’ve been looking for you all week, old man.” Her breath was warm against his ear, and she smelled like pine resin and coconut shampoo, a combination that sent a jolt down his spine he tried his damndest to ignore. When she reached past him to grab a stack of napkins from the bar next to his elbow, her forearm brushed his scar, and she paused, running a calloused finger lightly over the raised skin without thinking. “This the one from 2018? Dad used to talk about how you carried him out of that tree line when his ankle gave out.”
Ron froze, his mouth dry, half-ready to step back, tell her to watch her hands, remind himself this was Marty’s kid, for Christ’s sake. But she was looking up at him, hazel eyes crinkled at the corners, no trace of self-consciousness, and he found himself leaning in instead, telling her the story of that blaze, how Marty had complained about his ankle for three months afterward, how they’d gotten drunk on cheap whiskey that night and made a pact to retire and open a bait shop together. She laughed so hard she snort-laughed, and when a group of volunteers stumbled past, she had to press closer to him to avoid getting bumped, her hip warm against his thigh through the thin denim of her work pants. They talked for an hour, and Ron forgot all about leaving, forgot all about the rules he’d lived by for the last 12 years, ever since his wife left him for a realtor in Sacramento. She teased him about the beat-up flannel he wore every single day, about the flip phone he still carried because he thought smartphones were “a scam for people who can’t stand to be bored,” about the time he’d accidentally dyed his hair orange trying to cover gray before a high school reunion. He teased her back about the time she’d fallen out of a tree trying to rescue a baby bird when she was 10, broken her wrist, and lied to her dad about it so she wouldn’t get grounded.
When the bar started to empty out, she leaned in again, her voice lower this time, so only he could hear. “You mentioned you have old fire maps of the north burn zone, right? The ones that show the native seed pockets? I don’t wanna dig through county records for them. Wanna walk to your truck and grab ’em? It’s too loud in here to look at them anyway.” Ron nodded, his throat tight, and followed her out the door into the cool October air. The sky was dark, streaked with faint orange from the controlled burn the forest service was running a few miles out, and the air smelled like ash and fallen maple leaves. His old Ford F150 was parked at the end of the block, and when he pulled the tattered stack of maps from the back seat, he turned around to find her standing so close their toes were almost touching.
She reached up, brushed a pine needle off the collar of his flannel, her thumb brushing his jawline for half a second. He didn’t pull away. “I’ve had a crush on you since I was 16,” she said, like she was commenting on the weather, no hesitation. “You taught me to shoot a rifle that year, and I went home and wrote about it in my diary for three weeks straight. Never said anything ‘cause Dad would’ve killed both of us. But he’s gone now. And I’m tired of waiting for you to stop acting like I’m still 8 years old.” Ron stood there for a long second, the maps crinkling in his hand, all the guilt he’d been carrying for months warring with the warm buzz in his chest, the feeling that someone was actually seeing him, not just the retired spotter with the scar and the grumpy reputation. “I thought I was a creep for thinking about you like that,” he said, quiet enough she almost didn’t hear it. She laughed, soft, and leaned in a little more. “You’re not a creep. I’m a grown woman. I know what I want.”
She kissed him then, slow, her hands on his chest, and he kissed her back, the taste of her cherry seltzer mixing with the IPA he’d been drinking, her hair soft when he threaded his fingers through it, the hard hat slung over her shoulder digging a little into his ribs. No one walked past, no one yelled, the only sound the distant hoot of an owl and the hum of the streetlight above them. When they pulled away, she was grinning, and he was grinning too, something he hadn’t done without forcing it since Marty died. “You wanna come over tomorrow?” he said. “I’ll make coffee. We can go over the maps properly. No crowds.” She nodded, pulled the flip phone out of his flannel pocket, typed her number in, her fingers moving fast like she was scared he’d change his mind. She tapped the screen twice to save the contact, then slipped the phone back into his flannel pocket, her hand lingering just long enough to make his pulse jump again.
