Elroy Mendez, 53, has run his family’s beekeeping operation and small-batch mead label out of western Michigan’s apple country for 18 years. Since his wife left him for a 34-year-old snowboard instructor eight years prior, he’s kept most people at arm’s length, writes off small-town gossip as noise, and refuses to entertain the constant teasing from his old high school buddies about asking the new elementary school principal out. He’s got a scar across his left knuckle from prying open a stuck hive box last spring, a permanent smudge of beeswax on the cuff of his work flannel, and a rule against mixing business with anything that could remotely count as flirting.
The harvest festival crowd thins out as the sun dips below the orchard rows, painting the sky a bruised orange that bleeds into purple. He’s packing glass bottles of spiced pear mead into a weathered plastic crate, the air sharp with the smell of wood smoke, roasted cinnamon almonds, and fermented honey, when he hears someone clear their throat right in front of his booth.
He looks up. It’s Clara Hale, 42, the new principal, a streak of un-dyed silver cutting through her chestnut half-up hairstyle, work boots caked in hay path mud, a half-eaten caramel apple in one hand, sticky juice glistening on her wrist. He freezes for half a second, then nods, trying to keep his face neutral. He’s avoided running into her for three months straight, ever since his buddy Ted yelled across the diner counter that she’d asked if Elroy was single. The thought of dating at all, let alone someone 11 years younger, made his skin crawl at first, leftover resentment from his marriage splitting, the way people whispered that he’d gotten too boring, too old, for his ex to stick around.
She leans against the edge of the booth, close enough that he can smell the vanilla lotion she wears under the faint tang of apple cider. “Heard you do free hive consultations for local nonprofits,” she says, her voice lower and rougher than he expected, like she spends half her day yelling over 20 screaming second graders. He opens his mouth to say yes, that’s standard, when a group of kids dart past, one slamming into her shoulder hard enough that she stumbles forward. He reaches out automatically, catches her by the elbow, his palm brushing the soft skin of her forearm where her flannel is rolled up. Her other hand flies out to steady herself, landing on his wrist, and he feels the callus on the pad of her thumb, the kind you get from playing acoustic guitar for hours a week.
They hold that position for two beats too long, her hazel eyes locked on his, no hint of embarrassment on her face, just a small, lopsided smile. He’s the first to pull away, wiping his palm on his jeans like he’s nervous, which he is, stupidly so, like he’s 16 again asking a girl to prom. “Sorry about that,” she says, wiping caramel apple juice off her jeans with a crumpled napkin. “I’ve been hanging around your booth for the last three nights, waiting for the crowd to die down so I could talk to you without Ted and his crew leering from the corn dog stand.”
He blinks. He’d noticed a figure lingering near the edge of the crowd a few times, but he’d assumed it was just a tourist waiting for a free sample. “You didn’t have to wait,” he says, surprised at how soft his own voice comes out. She laughs, a warm, throaty sound that makes the back of his neck warm. “I did, actually. I heard you hate being the center of small town gossip, and I didn’t want to give everyone more to talk about before I even got to ask you out.”
The words hang in the cold air between them. He tenses up automatically, the old resentment flaring, the voice in his head saying she’s just doing this for a joke, that everyone’s watching, that he’ll look like a sad old man chasing someone half his age. But then she shifts her weight, leans a little closer, and he sees the faint smudge of caramel on her cheek, the way her eyes crinkle at the corners when she’s waiting for an answer, and he realizes the disgust he’s been carrying around isn’t for her, or for the idea of dating someone younger, it’s for the version of himself that let his ex’s choice make him feel small, unworthy, too old to have fun.
“I don’t do casual,” he says, blunt, no beating around the bush, because he’s too old for games. She nods, like she expected that. “Neither do I. I’ve been asking around about you for months. Everyone says you’re the most reliable guy in town, that you stay up half the night rescuing hives for old ladies who can’t pay you, that your mead is the only thing in this town that tastes better than my grandma’s apple pie. The hive thing is real, by the way. We’re building a garden at the school, I want to put in two hives to teach the kids about pollinators. But I also want to take you out to dinner. No kids, no gossip, just us.”
He stares at her for a long minute, the hum of the festival’s leftover string lights in the background, the distant sound of a bluegrass band playing a slow waltz. He reaches behind the booth, grabs the last bottle of spiced pear mead he’d set aside for himself, pulls a Sharpie out of his pocket, scribbles his cell number on the label, right next to the hand-drawn bee logo he designed himself.
“Dinner sounds good,” he says, passing her the bottle. Their fingers brush again when she takes it, and this time he doesn’t pull away first. “Call me whenever you want to talk hives, or pie, or whatever. I’m free most nights after I finish checking the hives.” She tucks the bottle into the canvas bag slung over her shoulder, grinning, and he notices the faint dimple in her left cheek he hadn’t spotted before. “I’ll call you tomorrow before 7,” she says, stepping back from the booth. “Don’t leave your phone in the truck like I heard you usually do.”
She turns and walks away, toward the parking lot, her flannel riding up a little at the hips when she steps over a stray hay bale. He leans against the booth, watching her go, and smiles, slow and unplanned, the first time he’s smiled without overthinking it in almost a decade.
