Manny Ruiz is 53, a beekeeper and small-batch honey producer based outside Grand Rapids, Michigan, and he’s spent the last seven years cultivating a very specific routine that leaves zero room for unexpected mess. That flaw—his stubborn refusal to let anything disrupt the schedule he built after his wife left him for a remote marketing bro who moved to town for the lake views—has kept him from getting hurt again, but it’s also kept him lonely, even if he won’t admit it to anyone but his hives. He’s at the county fair on a sticky August Thursday to judge the amateur sweet preserves contest, a gig he takes every year for the free fried pickles and the excuse to skip hive maintenance for an afternoon.
The agriculture tent reeks of fermented dill, cotton candy, and the damp wool of the 4H kids’ show jackets when he slides into the folding chair behind the judging table. His work boots are caked with beeswax and clover pollen, his left forearm crisscrossed with faint scars from bad sting reactions, his faded 2006 Tigers cap pulled low over his sunburnt forehead. He’s reaching for the stack of judging sheets when a linen dress dotted with raspberry stains swishes into his peripheral, and the woman sitting down next to him knocks their knees together under the table by accident. He recognizes her immediately: Clara Bennett, his ex-wife’s younger cousin, the only person in his ex’s family who didn’t take her side when the split happened. He’s avoided her for seven years on principle, convinced even talking to her is some kind of unspoken rule break, even though his marriage ended so long ago he barely remembers what it felt like to come home to someone.
She smells like lavender and cedar, not the cloying floral perfume his ex used to douse herself in, and she laughs when she sees his boots, tapping her own scuffed white converse against his work boot toe. “I knew they’d drag you out for this. I’ve been buying your wildflower honey at the farmers market for three months, by the way. You never say hi.” He blinks, surprised, because he’s seen her at the market a handful of times but always ducked behind his stack of honey jars before she could wave. Their fingers brush when she passes him a jar of peach preserves to taste, and he feels a jolt run up his arm so sharp he almost drops the jar. She doesn’t pull away, just holds eye contact for a beat longer than necessary, her dark eyes crinkling at the corners like she knows exactly how flustered he is.
They spend the next two hours sampling jellies infused with lavender, jam so thick it holds its shape on the plastic spoon, even a jar of honey-lemon curd so good Manny gives it a perfect score without thinking. The taboo of sitting so close to his ex’s cousin nags at the back of his head the whole time, a little voice saying he shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be noticing how her dress slips off one shoulder when she leans forward to grab another jar, shouldn’t be wondering what her laugh would sound like if he kissed her mid-sentence. He pushes the thought away every time, but it keeps coming back, sharper every time their knees brush under the table, every time she teases him for hating raspberry jam as much as he did at the 2018 family Christmas.
When the judging wraps up, she asks him if he wants a beer at the tent by the rodeo grounds, and he says yes before he can talk himself out of it. They lean against the splintered wooden fence drinking cold IPAs, watching the 7-year-olds practice mutton busting, and she leans into his side when a kid goes flying off a sheep into a pile of hay, laughing so hard she snorts. Her shoulder presses into his bicep through his thin flannel shirt, and he can feel the warmth of her skin through the fabric, like he’s been standing too close to a hive box on a hot summer day. She admits she’s been leaving little handwritten notes in his tip jar at the market for months, the ones he always thought were from the 82-year-old lady who buys a jar of sourwood honey every week, and he feels like an idiot for not realizing it sooner.
He tells her he’s been avoiding her for seven years because he thought liking her was wrong, that it would start drama with his ex, and she snorts, taking a sip of her beer. “My cousin cheated on you first. I’ve had a crush on you since I saw you hauling beehives in the back of your beat-up pickup eight years ago. I don’t care what she thinks.” She reaches up then, brushing a stray bee stinger off the collar of his flannel, her fingers grazing the side of his neck for half a second, and he doesn’t pull away. He’s done fighting the pull, done letting his stubbornness keep him from something that feels this good, this easy.
They leave the fair an hour later, stopping at his honey stand on the side of the road on the way back to her place. He grabs a jar of his private reserve, the orange blossom honey he only makes for people he cares about, and hands it to her. She takes it, leaning in to kiss him first on the cheek, then on the mouth, and she tastes like peach jam and IPA and summer. When he unlocks the passenger door of his pickup for her, a stray honeybee he’d accidentally brought home from the hives that morning buzzes past her ear, and she laughs instead of flinching, just like he knew she would.
