Ray Voss, 52, vintage snowmobile restorer out of a cinder block shop behind his cabin outside Duluth, hovered by the gym bar, beer sweating through the paper coaster in his hand. He’d talked himself out of his 30th high school reunion three years running, and now that he was here, every muscle in his shoulders ached with the urge to bolt. His long-held flaw: he’d spent seven years since his wife’s cancer death building walls so thick he forgot how to have a conversation that didn’t revolve around carburetors or backcountry track conditions. He’d bought the ill-fitting navy button down he wore that morning at a local thrift store, the tag still scratching the back of his neck, and he’d already lied twice to former classmates about how busy his shop was, like that was a good excuse for skipping every social invite he’d gotten since the funeral.
The gym smelled like old floor wax and lukewarm catered lasagna, the DJ spinning slow 90s country that made the scuffed linoleum hum under his steel-toe work boots. Most people were clustered in yelling groups, swapping stories about grown kids, bad knees, and half-baked retirement plans, and Ray had just decided to slip out the unmarked side door when a woman leaned against the bar next to him, her elbow brushing his bicep when she set her glass of oaky chardonnay down. “You’re Ray Voss, right? The guy who singed Mrs. Henderson’s perm with a Bunsen burner junior year?”
He blinked, then recognized her. Mia Marquez, 51, the quiet girl who’d sat behind him in chemistry, who’d once slipped him a handwritten cheat sheet for the stoichiometry test after he’d missed a week of class to help his dad fix the family’s commercial fishing boat. She’d cut her hair short now, streaked with silver at the temples, and there was a tiny hand-poked bee tattoo peeking out from the cuff of her cream cable-knit sweater, her hands calloused where they wrapped around her wine glass. She ran a beekeeping supply company out of the Twin Cities, she told him, divorced four years, here alone because her best friend had bailed last minute with a nasty stomach bug.
He didn’t mean to stay talking as long as he did. She teased him about the time he’d shown up to first period with half his face covered in grease after wrecking his first snowmobile the night before, and he teased her about the tabby kitten she’d snuck into class in her backpack, the one that had escaped and run across the teacher’s desk mid-lecture. She leaned in when he talked, her shoulder almost touching his, her dark eyes holding his longer than felt strictly casual, and Ray felt a twist low in his gut he hadn’t felt in years, half warm, thrumming want, half sharp, cold disgust at himself for even noticing. He’d spent so long telling himself he was done with that part of life, that dating anyone—least of all someone he’d gone to high school with, like some cheap teen movie throwback—was a betrayal of the life he’d built with his wife, that even the thought of asking her to get a drink after the reunion felt like he was breaking a rule he’d carved into stone for himself.
The DJ announced the last dance, and the crowd cheered loud enough to rattle the gym windows, and Mia nodded toward the side exit. “Wanna get some air? It’s hotter than a summer hive in here.”
He nodded, following her outside, the crisp 40-degree October air hitting his face and cutting through the fog of cheap beer and nostalgia. He’d left his old Ford F-150 idling by the curb, the tailgate down, and they sat side by side on it, their shoulders pressed together tight enough he could feel the heat of her through his thin button down. He’d grabbed his extra plaid flannel from the passenger seat on the way out, draping it over her shoulders when he saw her shiver, his fingers brushing the back of her neck as he adjusted the collar. She didn’t pull away.
“I had the biggest crush on you back then, you know,” she said, quiet enough only he could hear it, looking out at the football field where the old bleachers were still rusted the same faded red they’d been in the 90s. “Thought you were too busy racing snowmobiles to notice the quiet girl in chem class.”
Ray froze for half a second, then laughed, rough and quiet. “I noticed you. Thought you were too smart to waste time on a kid who spent more time under a hood than in class.” He reached up to brush a stray strand of windblown hair that had fallen across her face, his knuckles grazing her soft cheek, and she tilted her head into his touch, her hand coming up to rest light on his wrist. The conflict he’d been carrying all night melted away, sharp edges softening, because for the first time in seven years, he didn’t feel like he was choosing between his past and whatever came next. He felt like he was allowed to have both.
He asked her if she wanted to come back to his cabin, see the 1978 Ski-Doo Everest he was restoring, the same model he’d driven to prom the year he’d bailed halfway through after his date dumped him for the football team quarterback. She said yes, no hesitation, sliding off the tailgate and holding the flannel tighter around her shoulders as they walked toward the truck.
He opened the passenger door for her, the heat from the cab gusting out over her bare ankles, and she smiled as she climbed in, already asking what color he was planning to paint the hood.
