Elias Voss, 52, runs a vintage camper restoration shop out of a weathered barn 12 miles outside Boone, North Carolina, had just wrapped a 10-month overhaul on a 1972 Airstream for a retiree couple from Ohio, and decided to stop in at the only bar in town for a neat bourbon before he headed home to his quiet, empty farmhouse. The place was packed, harvest festival crowds spilling out onto the sidewalk, string lights strung across the ceiling casting warm gold over tables sticky with spilled beer and peanut shells. He grabbed the only open stool at the bar, nodded at the bartender who’d known him since high school, and sipped his drink, half listening to the country band fumble through an old Alan Jackson track in the corner.
Ten minutes later, Clara Bennett slid into the empty space next to him, her shoulder brushing his so firm he could feel the soft knit of her sweater through his flannel. He’d known her 12 years, as Hank’s wife, the woman who ran the apple cider booth at every festival, who helped him load 50 pound bags of feed for his three goats at the farm supply store every other month. She wore high top leather boots caked in mud, a flannel tied around her waist, her dark hair pulled back in a messy braid streaked with a single strand of silver at the temple. She smelled like cinnamon and apple cider and a faint hit of pine, like she’d been hiking over the weekend, and when she smiled at him, he felt that stupid little lurch in his chest he’d spent 8 years trying to train out of himself.
He’d always written off her friendly waves and quick jokes as small town politeness, figured if she ever stopped by his shop it would be to beg for a free repair on the farm truck Hank never bothered to fix. But when she ordered a bourbon, same as his, and leaned in so her mouth was close to his ear to talk over the band, their knees knocking under the bar, he realized he’d been reading her wrong for years. She told him Hank had moved out three months prior, left her for a 26 year old he’d met at a cattle auction in east Tennessee, was already filing for divorce, and she’d been too embarrassed to tell anyone in town until now. He felt the sharp twist of guilt he’d been expecting when she first sat down fade fast, replaced by something hotter, sharper, the kind of thrill he’d thought was long behind him.
She laughed at his story about the client who’d tried to rig a pool filter as a septic system for his 1968 Volkswagen bus, leaning so far in her knee pressed firm to his thigh, no apology, no quick pull back, just her bright eyes locked on his. When she reached past him to grab a napkin off the bar, her breast brushed his bicep, soft and warm, and he froze mid-sip, while she just winked, a faint pink flush high on her cheeks that told him it hadn’t been an accident. She grabbed his arm a few minutes later, her calloused palm warm through his shirt, to point at a group of drunk festival goers trying to line dance in the space between tables, and he didn’t pull away.
When the bar got too loud, when a group of rowdy college kids stumbled in screaming, she tilted her head toward the door, and he followed her outside without a second thought. The air was crisp, sharp with the smell of wood smoke and fallen oak leaves, crunching under their work boots as they walked around the side of the old general store, out of sight of the festival crowds. She pulled him down for a kiss before he could overthink it, her lips soft, tasting like bourbon and caramel apple, her hands fisted in the front of his flannel, and he rested his hand on her hip, his fingers brushing the bare skin above the waistband of her jeans, no rush, no awkward fumbling, just the quiet hum of the festival music in the distance, no one around to see them.
They stayed there for 20 minutes, talking quiet, her back pressed to the brick wall of the store, his arm slung loose around her waist. She told him she’d inherited her dad’s 1968 VW bus a year prior, had been too nervous to ask him to restore it, figured he’d be swamped with client work, and he laughed, told her he’d clear half his schedule next week if she brought it by the shop. He walked her to her beat up pickup truck parked two blocks over, and she squeezed his hand before she climbed in, leaning through the open window to kiss him one more time, slow, before she turned the key in the ignition. He stood on the sidewalk until her taillights rounded the corner out of sight, the taste of her still on his lips, already running a mental list of rare VW parts he’d stashed in the back of his barn for a project he’d never thought he’d have a reason to start.
