Russ Thorne, 62, retired fire investigation specialist, leaned against the splintered cedar fence lining his front yard and glowered at the chaos of the annual Westwood block party. He’d only shown up because the HOA left a bright pink notice taped to his front door three days prior, threatening a $150 fine if he skipped the mandatory wildfire risk assessment sandwiched between the bounce house and potluck table. Thirty years picking through charred rubble to assign blame had left him with zero patience for small talk, fake smiles, and performative questions about how his week was going. His wife, Sarah, had dragged him to these things before she died of a stroke eight years prior; without her, he spent most evenings holed up in his garage restoring vintage lamps, the smell of solder and burnt fabric a familiar, safe comfort.
The cheap lager the HOA had supplied was warm and bitter on his tongue when he caught a whiff of lavender and vanilla cutting through the stench of grilled hot dogs and citronella candles. He turned just in time to see Lena Marquez, the 58-year-old book repair specialist who’d moved into the house three doors down three months prior, trip over a coiled garden hose half-buried in the grass. She was holding a ceramic plate piled high with peach cobbler, and for half a second he thought she’d face-plant straight into the crust. He reached out without thinking, caught her wrist with one hand and the edge of the plate with the other, steadying her before she could fall.
Her skin was warm under his calloused fingers, a smudge of bright blue ink on the knuckle of her thumb from gluing book spines, he assumed. She didn’t yank her hand away when she straightened up, just laughed, a low, throaty sound that cut through the yelling of kids bouncing on the inflatable slide 20 feet away. Her sunflower-patterned sundress was stuck to the sweat-slick skin of her shoulders, her hazel eyes flecked with gold when she held his gaze, long enough that he felt the tips of his ears turn pink. He let go of her wrist fast, like he’d been burned, and handed her the plate, his own knuckles brushing hers for a split second when he passed it over.
He told himself he should leave, go back to pretending to scroll his phone, avoid the kind of conversation that would end with her asking about his job, his dead wife, the empty house he spent most of his time in. He felt a sharp twist of guilt just noticing how the sun caught the silver streaks in her dark hair, how she bit the corner of her lower lip when she smiled. He’d not so much as looked at another woman since Sarah died, had written connection off as a waste of time, something he didn’t deserve.
“Nice fire department patch,” she said, nodding at the frayed Denver Fire patch sewn to his worn work jacket, before he could make an excuse to leave. “Saw you hauling a half-burnt Tiffany-style lamp out of your garage last week. Shade looked melted halfway off. You fix old stuff too?”
He blinked, surprised she’d even noticed. He told her he restored vintage lamps as a hobby, that he’d burned that one trying to rewire it himself, fumbling through the explanation like he was a teenager stuttering through a first date. She leaned in when he talked, her shoulder pressing against his bicep for three full seconds, pulling up a photo on her phone of a 1927 copy of Frost’s poetry she’d just rebound for a client, the leather cover embossed with gold leaf. He could smell her perfume again, feel the heat coming off her skin, and that guilt twisted tighter, warring with a low, warm hum in his chest he hadn’t felt in almost a decade.
He almost told her he didn’t need help with the lamp, that he could handle it himself, that he had old case files to sort through that night, when she ran a single finger along the frayed edge of his jacket cuff, so light he almost didn’t feel it. “I know what it’s like to think you don’t get to have fun anymore,” she said, quiet enough no one else could hear. “Spent three years holed up in my old apartment after my ex left me right after I finished chemo. Thought fixing other people’s books was the only good thing I was allowed to have, until I moved here.”
The tightness in his chest loosened, all the excuses he’d been building dying on his tongue. He nodded, before he could overthink it. “I’ve got the lamp on my workbench,” he said. “I’ll bring it over at 7. And I’ll bring a six pack of something better than this HOA swill. Trade you for a slice of that cobbler?”
She grinned, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, and told him she’d leave the back door unlocked. He watched her walk back to the potluck table, her flip flops thudding against the warm asphalt, and she glanced over her shoulder halfway there, winking so fast he almost thought he imagined it.
He took a long sip of his warm beer, and realized he was smiling, the corners of his mouth crinkling in a way they hadn’t in months. The HOA president walked over a second later, clipboard in hand, already opening her mouth to nag him about his overgrown rose bushes being a fire risk, and he didn’t even care enough to argue.
