Rafe Mendez, 53, has built custom fishing rods out of his cinder block shop off Apalachicola’s dirt backroads for seven years. He moved there after his divorce, traded the noise of Tampa’s construction sites for the whine of his wrapping lathe and the low hoot of owls over the bay at dusk. His worst flaw? He’d rather sand down a rod blank for three hours straight than make small talk with anyone who isn’t asking about line weight or guide spacing. He’d skipped the town’s annual oyster roast five years running, but his old charter captain buddy owed him a free week of offshore fishing if he showed up, so he caved.
He leaned against the side of his buddy’s beat-up F-150, shucking oysters straight into his mouth, ignoring the giggling group of garden club ladies who kept glancing his way. The bonfire popped, sending embers spiraling into the indigo dark, and the bluegrass band off by the pavilion sawed through a cover of a Johnny Cash track he’d loved since he was a kid. He was just debating bailing early when someone stumbled into his side, cold IPA sloshing over the rim of their can onto the toe of his worn work boot.
He looked down, ready to snap, and froze. She was the new county park ranger, the one he’d seen patrolling the boat ramps for the last three months, her Carhartt overalls always smudged with marsh mud, a scar slashing across her left knuckle from a manatee rescue the month prior. She leaned down immediately, swiping at the beer on his boot with the edge of her flannel sleeve, her shoulder brushing the side of his thigh as she moved. The heat of her through the thin denim of his jeans made his breath catch, a sensation he’d written off as dead years ago.
“Shit, I’m so sorry,” she said, straightening up, and he could smell the brine of the oysters on her breath, mixed with the pine of the hand soap she kept in her ranger truck. “Some kid ran past with a crab net and took me out at the knees.” She held out a hand, calloused at the palm, and he shook it, his own calloused fingers catching on hers for a beat longer than necessary. She didn’t pull away first.
She sat next to him on the truck’s tailgate after that, and they didn’t talk for 20 minutes, just shucked oysters, passing the bottle of hot sauce back and forth, their elbows knocking every time they reached for the stack of saltines. He hated himself for the quiet buzz under his skin, the way he kept glancing at the scar on her knuckle, the way she tucked her hair behind her ear when the wind blew off the bay. He’d spent seven years convincing himself romance was just a scam for people who didn’t have anything better to do with their time, and here he was, hung up on the way she laughed when a golden retriever ran past with a whole unshucked oyster clamped in its jaws.
When she asked about the custom rod he had propped against the truck bed, he almost didn’t answer. He’d brought it to drop off for his buddy, a seven-foot redfish rod with a deep purple thread wrap he’d spent three weeks perfecting, even added a tiny custom engraving of a marlin on the reel seat. But she didn’t ask the usual dumb question about how much it cost. She asked if he’d used high-modulus graphite for the blank, if he’d spaced the guides for braided line, and he realized she knew more about rod building than 90% of his regular customers. Her dad had built rods out of their garage when she was a kid, she said, she’d spent hours sitting next to him on a milk crate, handing him spools of thread and holding the blanks steady while he wrapped them.
Most of the crowd left around 10, the band packing up their instruments, the bonfire dwindling to a bed of glowing coals that painted the surrounding oak trees soft orange. She asked if he wanted to walk down to the shore to see the bioluminescence, and he nodded before he could overthink it, before he could make up some excuse about needing to get back to the shop to finish a custom order. The sand was cold under his boots, the water glowing pale neon blue every time a wave crashed against the shore, lighting up the tiny shrimp darting just under the surface. They stepped over a gnarled piece of driftwood at the same time, their hands brushing, and he didn’t yank his away like he’d expected to. She stopped, turning to face him, the blue glow of the water lighting up the edges of her face, and she admitted she’d driven past his shop at least a dozen times over the last three months, too nervous to go in, afraid she’d make a fool of herself asking about rod building.
He didn’t tell her he’d noticed her beat-up ranger truck parked across the street twice, hadn’t thought much of it at the time, now wished he’d run out to say hi instead of hiding behind his lathe. He told her he had a blank he’d ordered six months prior, no real reason, just thought it was the perfect weight for inshore redfish, and he’d build it for her if she wanted. No charge, he said, as long as she brought him a cold IPA when she stopped by to pick it up, and maybe let him tag along the first time she used it. She smiled, and he could see the faint crinkles at the corners of her eyes, the same ones he got when he laughed so hard his sides hurt.
They walked back to the parking lot after that, her shoulder brushing his every few steps, no awkward silence, no pressure to say more than they needed to. He scribbled his cell number on the back of a crumpled receipt for silver rod wrap thread he’d stuffed in his jacket pocket, his hand a little shakier than he wanted it to be, and she promised to stop by his shop at 9 the next morning.
He tucks the stray piece of seaweed that had stuck behind her ear during the walk into his jacket pocket as he climbs into his own truck, already mapping out the guide spacing for her rod in his head.
