Rafe Mendez, 58, spent the first hour of the county fire department’s annual oyster roast tucked between a rusted beer cooler and a stack of cinder blocks, picking meat from oyster shells and avoiding eye contact with every neighbor who wandered past. He’d retired from air traffic control three years prior, moved to this tiny Outer Banks town for the quiet, spent most of his days in his workshop hand-building custom fishing rods for clients up and down the east coast. He’d not so much as had a coffee date in 12 years, ever since his ex-wife left him for a charter boat captain, convinced he was too married to his high-stress job to ever loosen up. He’d only agreed to come to the roast because his next door neighbor, a volunteer firefighter, had begged him, said he’d owe Rafe a free case of his favorite IPA if he showed up for at least two hours.
The air smelled like salt, charcoal smoke, and brine so thick he could taste it on his tongue. The bluegrass band set up on the back of a flatbed trailer plucked through a slow, twangy cover of a Johnny Cash song, and the ground under his work boots crunched with crushed oyster shells and discarded beer cans. He’d just reached into the cooler for his second beer when a woman’s hand bumped his, knuckles brushing the calluses he’d earned wrapping fishing line guides around rod blanks for 10 hours a day.
He looked up. Clara Bennett, 49, ran the town’s only independent bookstore, and was engaged to the mayor, the same man who’d pushed through a vote to close the public boat ramp Rafe used every weekend to save money for a stupid downtown tourist park. Rafe had avoided her for six months, ever since she’d dropped off a stack of vintage fishing memoirs at his workshop, said she’d found them in a box of donated books and thought he’d like them. She was wearing a faded red flannel rolled up to her elbows, jeans cuffed over muddy work boots, her dark hair pulled back in a messy braid streaked with a single strand of silver at the temple. She laughed, a warm, rough sound, and pulled her hand back like she’d been burned. “Sorry,” she said, “I’ve been running around setting up tables since 7 a.m., I’m half feral for a cold beer.”
He grabbed two IPAs, handed her one, and tried not to stare at the callus on her index finger, the kind you get from turning thousands of book pages over decades. She leaned against the cooler next to him, her elbow brushing his bicep every time she lifted the can to her mouth, and complained that the mayor had bailed on the roast three hours prior, drove to Myrtle Beach for a golf tournament with a bunch of real estate developers from Raleigh. Rafe made a dry joke about the mayor’s combover being so stiff it could deflect a golf ball, and she snort-laughed so hard beer dribbled down her chin. She wiped it off with the back of her flannel sleeve, and for a second she held his gaze, dark eyes crinkling at the corners, and he felt something shift in his chest, the same tight, fluttery feeling he’d only ever gotten when he was a teenager talking to a girl he liked.
He knew better than to engage. The whole town assumed she and the mayor were still happy, still set to get married in the fall at the country club. Gossip in this town spread faster than a brush fire, and he’d spent three years carefully staying out of every bit of it. But she kept talking, asking him about the custom fly rod she wanted him to build for her nephew’s high school graduation, and he found himself leaning in closer, so he could hear her over the band, the scent of cedar and lavender hand cream mixing with the smoke from the oyster pit wrapping around him like a blanket. When the band switched to a slow waltz, she nodded at the crowd of couples swaying on the grass, and raised an eyebrow. “You dance?” she asked.
He hesitated, said he hadn’t danced since his wedding, 18 years prior. She didn’t push, just set her beer down on the cooler, and reached for his hand, her palm warm and calloused against his. He didn’t pull away. They didn’t really dance, just swayed a little off to the side, far enough from the crowd that no one would pay them any mind, close enough that he could feel the heat radiating off her neck, the soft brush of her braid against his wrist when she shifted her weight. She rested her head on his shoulder for 10 full seconds, then pulled back, her face so close he could see the freckles across her nose. “I called off the engagement three days ago,” she said, quiet enough only he could hear. “Haven’t told anyone yet. Didn’t want to turn the roast into a gossip circus.”
The tight knot of guilt he’d been carrying in his gut since their hands first brushed melted away entirely. He didn’t care about the gossip, didn’t care about the stupid boat ramp, didn’t care that he’d spent 12 years convincing himself he was better off alone. He asked her if she wanted to get out of there, go back to his workshop, he could show her the blank he’d been saving for a fly rod, the one made from old growth cedar he’d pulled from a shipwreck off the coast a year prior. She grinned, squeezed his hand, and nodded.
They snuck out past the edge of the crowd, no one paying them any mind, the sound of the bluegrass band fading behind them as they walked down the dark boardwalk toward his cottage. The tide was high, lapping at the wooden pilings under their feet, and a string of fairy lights strung between the dock posts cast soft gold light across her face. He didn’t let go of her hand the whole walk.
