Ronan O’Malley is 57, makes custom hand-carved fishing lures for a living out of his garage in Traverse City, and hasn’t willingly attended a neighborhood block party since his ex-wife left him for a timeshare salesman eight years prior. The only reason he’s here now is his 19-year-old part-time assistant, Javi, begged him to come, said the neighborhood association was giving out free smoked brats and if Ronan showed up, Javi would sand all the lure blanks for free next week. Ronan’s got a flaw he’s well aware of: he’s stubborn to a fault, holds grudges longer than he keeps his fishing line tied, and has turned down every half-hearted invitation for coffee or a drink from women in town since the divorce, convinced all they want is a free custom lure or to fix their leaky faucet.
He’s leaning against the dented aluminum cooler at the edge of the party, wearing a faded Carhartt work shirt with pine sap crusted on the cuffs and work boots still dusted with cedar shavings from that morning’s carving, sipping a cheap lager he grabbed from the ice, when he sees her. It’s Lila Marquez, the new county park ranger he screamed at over the phone three weeks prior, the one who made him move his three honeybee hives 300 yards back from the public trail because a hiker complained about being stung. He’d called her a rule-obsessed bureaucrat who didn’t know the first thing about native pollinators, and she’d snapped back that she knew enough to not let a grumpy old guy’s hives put kids with allergies at risk. He’s half tempted to slip behind the oak tree next to him and hide, but she’s already spotted him, and she’s walking over.
She’s not in her park ranger uniform today, just cutoff denim shorts, a faded Sleeping Bear Dunes tee, and scuffed white sneakers, a silver hoop earring glinting in her left ear. She leans against the cooler right next to him, her bare shoulder brushing his bicep through the thin fabric of his shirt, and he catches a whiff of cedar shampoo and coconut sunscreen, warm from the summer sun. “You’re the lure guy, right?” she says, a half-smirk playing on her mouth like she knows exactly how mad he was at her, and he can’t tell if she’s teasing or not. He grunts in response, taking another sip of beer, and she laughs, the sound low and warm, cutting through the noise of kids chasing each other with water guns down the street. “I didn’t recognize you out of your ‘get off my lawn’ vibe,” she says, nodding at the sap stains on his cuffs. “My 12-year-old son has been begging me for one of your walleye pattern lures for months. Says all the guys at his fishing camp swear by them.”
Ronan’s brain short-circuits for a second. He’d pictured her as the type who spent all her time filling out forms and yelling at people for leaving trash on trails, not as someone who had a kid that fished, or who smelled like coconut, or who smiled like she thought he was more than just an asshole who yelled at her on the phone. He shifts his weight, his boot scuffing the grass, and his hand brushes hers where it’s resting on the edge of the cooler. Her skin is warm, calloused on the palm from chopping trail brush, he realizes, and he yanks his hand back like he’s been burned, embarrassed. She doesn’t mention it, just nods at the scar snaking up her left forearm, thick and silvery, the one she’d mentioned on the phone when she’d told him she knew a thing or two about dangerous wildlife, having been mauled by a juvenile black bear two years prior. “You kept staring at it earlier,” she says, holding her arm out between them. “It’s okay, you can touch it. Doesn’t hurt anymore.”
He hesitates for a second, then reaches out, his fingers brushing hers first, that same jolt running up his arm, before he presses the pad of his index finger to the scar. It’s rough, raised, warm under his skin, and he runs his finger along the edge of it lightly before pulling his hand away. “Bear got me when I was clearing a fallen tree off the north trail,” she says, like she can tell he’s curious. “Tore through my uniform pretty good. Stitches sucked.” He nods, not knowing what to say, and for a minute they just stand there in silence, watching a group of older guys grill brats over a charcoal grill a few feet away, the smell of charcoal and smoked sausage mixing with the sunscreen and cut grass in the air. “For the record,” she says, after a minute, “I didn’t want to make you move your hives. It was county policy, that’s it. I even found you a spot deeper in the woods off the blue trail, no foot traffic, plenty of clover. You can move them back whenever you want.”
Ronan’s chest tightens a little. He’s spent three weeks fuming about the hives, bitching to Javi about stuck-up rangers who don’t care about local small business, and here she is, offering him a better spot, no fine, no argument. He’s disgusted with himself for how fast his annoyance is melting into something else, something warm and tight in his stomach, the same feeling he used to get when his ex-wife would laugh at his dumb fishing jokes back when they were first dating. He hasn’t felt that in eight years, and he doesn’t know what to do with it.
The first firework goes off over the lake a few blocks away, painting the sky bright red, and the crowd at the party cheers, everyone moving down the street to the empty lot by the water to get a better view. They hang back by the cooler, and Lila leans in closer so she can talk over the noise of the fireworks and the crowd, her breath warm on his ear, her hair brushing his cheek. “My son’s at his dad’s this weekend,” she says, her voice low enough that only he can hear it. “If you want to come over tomorrow, bring a few of those walleye lures, I’ll make smoked salmon dip. We can talk about the hives, or fishing, or whatever you want.”
He stares at her for a second, the light from the fireworks flashing across her face, and he almost says no, almost makes up an excuse about having to carve lures or check the hives, but then she smiles, that same half-smirk, and he nods before he can think better of it. She grins, pushing off the cooler, and when she reaches up to brush a strand of stray hair off her face, her knuckle grazes his jawline by accident, the callus on her index finger rough against his skin. “I’ll leave the back gate unlocked,” she says, winking, before she turns and walks down the street to join the crowd watching the fireworks.
Ronan stands there for another minute, sipping his now-warm beer, watching her walk away, the pine sap still crusted on his cuffs, the memory of her scar under his finger still sharp in his mind. He takes the last sip of beer, drops the can in the recycling bin next to the cooler, and starts walking back to his house, already mentally picking out the best three walleye lures to bring with him tomorrow.
