Ronan O’Malley, 53, runs a 12-acre apiary outside Asheville, North Carolina, has sold wildflower and sourwood honey at the city’s downtown farmers market every Saturday for seven years. His quiet, self-imposed isolation started when his ex-wife moved to Florida with a yoga instructor eight years prior, leaving him with half a retirement fund and a box of mismatched coffee mugs. He’d spent the years since convincing himself he liked being alone, that the mess of other people wasn’t worth the hassle, kept interactions with other vendors and customers short, strictly transactional.
He’d noticed Marisol, the woman who ran the hot sauce booth two feet to his left, for three months, though he’d never admit it out loud. She laughed loud enough to cut through the market’s chatter, wore tooled leather boots with sunflowers stitched into the sides, always had a streak of chili powder smudged on her left forearm. He’d caught her glancing at him when she thought he was counting jar labels, had felt the heat of her proximity when she leaned past his booth to grab a bottle of water from the shared cooler by his feet.
The sky opened up ten minutes before closing time, fat cold rain slamming into the canvas tent tops so hard the poles rattled. Vendors scrambled to pack up their stock before water seeped in. One of Marisol’s wooden crates stacked with habanero hot sauce slipped off her folding table, slid across the wet grass right between their booths. They both lunged for it at the same time, their knuckles brushing first, then his palm wrapping around hers for half a second before he yanks his hand back like he’d been burned. The wood of the crate was slick with rain, he could smell smoked paprika and citrus clinging to her skin, sharp and bright next to the thick, cloying sweetness of his honey jars.
She slipped on a puddle a minute later, reaching to pull her tent’s side flap down before it ripped. He reacted before he thought, one hand wrapping firm around her waist to steady her, his fingers pressing into the soft curve of her hip through her soaked flannel shirt. She steadied herself, one hand resting on his bicep for three long beats, her dark eyes locked on his, no hint of embarrassment, just a small, knowing smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. He didn’t let go right away, surprised to find he didn’t want to, even as the voice in the back of his head snarls that he’s being stupid, that this is just going to end in another mess he’ll have to clean up alone.
They hauled both their stock under the canopy of his beat-up Ford F-150 when the wind picked up enough to threaten to yank both their tents clean out of the ground. They huddled so close their shoulders were pressed together, their jeans soaked through, rain dripping off the brim of his baseball cap onto her shoulder. She teased him first, nodding at the jar of special sourwood honey he’d tucked under his table earlier, the one he’d set aside for her even though he’d told himself it was just because she’d mentioned she liked it the week before. “You gonna keep hiding that from me, or are you gonna admit you’ve been saving it?” she said, her voice low enough only he could hear it over the drumming of rain on the truck roof.
He didn’t answer, just reached into the cooler next to his feet and pulled the jar out. The label was smudged a little, a thin trickle of honey had leaked out around the lid, dribbled down the side. She reached for it, her fingers brushing his again, and when she pulled her hand back there was a bead of honey on her wrist. She lifted it to her mouth, licked it off slow, her eyes never leaving his, and he could feel his chest tighten, the last of his resistance melting away like sugar in hot tea. He leaned in, kissed her before he could talk himself out of it, tasted honey and chipotle and mint on her lips, and when her hand came up to tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck he didn’t pull away, didn’t overthink it, just leaned into the warmth of her, the quiet thrill of something he’d thought he’d never want again.
The rain slowed to a drizzle 20 minutes later, the sun peeking out through the clouds, painting a faint rainbow over the downtown skyline. They loaded their stock into their respective trucks, their hands brushing every time they passed a crate or stack of jar labels between them. She scribbled her address on the back of a mango habanero hot sauce label, shoved it into the front pocket of his flannel, her fingers lingering on his chest for a second. “Bring that honey jar,” she said, grinning, before she climbed into her own truck and pulled out of the parking lot.
He drove up the mountain towards his farm first, the crumpled hot sauce label pressed into his palm, the half-empty honey jar rolling around on the passenger seat next to him. He passed the turnoff to his driveway, didn’t even hesitate, just kept driving towards the address she’d scrawled in messy blue ink.
