The fizzing drink sloshed over the rim, soaking the cuff of his gray flannel shirt, and she stumbled back half a step, grabbing his bicep to steady herself. Her fingers lingered on his arm for a beat before she pulled away, laughing so hard her eyes crinkled at the corners. She was 58, he’d later learn, the new part-time librarian who’d moved down from Chicago six months prior, with a streak of gray running through her auburn hair and a faint scar wrapping around her left wrist from a childhood bike crash into a fire hydrant. Her nails were painted chipped pale blue, she wore a faded linen button-down covered in tiny pelican prints, and she smelled like coconut sunscreen and old paper, the same scent his late wife’s favorite poetry books used to hold.
Javi’s first instinct was to apologize, mumble an excuse, and hightail it to his truck. He hadn’t so much as flirted with anyone since his wife died of ovarian cancer in 2015, convinced any kind of new connection would be a betrayal, even when his adult kids called every other week to beg him to stop moping and go on a date. But she didn’t let him slip away. She leaned in a little, close enough that he could smell the mint gum on her breath, when the band kicked up a louder song, and asked about the tiny carved sandpiper hanging from his keychain, the one he’d whittled on a slow rainy Tuesday the month prior.
He found himself talking for 45 minutes straight, about how he’d started carving to fill the quiet after his wife died, about the way ospreys mate for life and build the same nest every year, about the time he’d misread a radar blip as a small plane only to realize it was a flock of pelicans flying too high, and had gotten written up for delaying three commercial flights. She laughed at that, leaning so far in her elbow brushed his every time she moved, and told him about the time she’d accidentally checked out a stack of explicit romance novels to a 12-year-old who’d asked for “books with kissing in them,” and had gotten a very angry email from the kid’s mom.
By the time the first firework burst over the Gulf, painting the sky neon pink, Javi had forgotten all about his plan to leave early. She shifted closer to him as the crowd cheered, her shoulder pressing firm against his, and he didn’t move away. He could feel the low thrum of the fireworks in his chest, hear her breath catch when a shower of gold sparks drifted down low over the pier, and for a second he froze, his gut twisting with that familiar, sharp guilt. Then he remembered the last thing his wife had said to him, when she was lying in the hospital bed, her hand thin and cold in his: Don’t you dare spend the rest of your life being lonely just because I’m not here.
He hesitated for two full beats, then reached down and laced his fingers through hers. Her hand was warm, a little calloused from repainting the library’s bookshelves the week prior, and she squeezed back immediately, no hesitation, no awkward pause. No one who knew him from the neighborhood said anything, but he caught a few sideways glances from people who’d known his wife for decades, and for the first time in years, he didn’t care.
The fireworks ended 15 minutes later, the crowd dispersing in loud, chattery groups, carrying leftover potato salad and half-empty beer cans. She asked if he wanted to walk her back to her cottage, three blocks off the beach, and he said yes before he could overthink it. They walked slow, still holding hands, their boots crunching on the shell-covered sidewalk, and stopped once to watch a family of raccoons dig through a trash can by the boardwalk, one of them holding a half-eaten hushpuppy like it was a treasure. She laughed so hard she snort-laughed, and Javi found that far more charming than any polished, perfect date he’d gone on when he was in his 20s.
He walked her up to her small blue cottage, the porch strung with fairy lights and lined with potted succulents. She leaned in, kissed him soft on the cheek, and told him she expected a custom carved snowy plover in exchange for ruining his shirt cuff, same time next week at the library’s used book sale. He nodded, already mentally clearing his schedule for Saturday, and walked back to his truck, the salt air stinging his cheeks, the faint scent of her coconut sunscreen still clinging to his flannel sleeve. He turned the key in the ignition, the old truck rumbling to life, and smiled when he saw a crumpled napkin with her phone number scrawled on it tucked into his front pocket.
