Rafe Mendez is 62, retired wildland fire crew coordinator, and he hasn’t broken a single unspoken local rule since he moved back to Bend after his wife’s passing eight years prior. His only consistent vice is weekly Tuesday trivia at The Pine Tap, where he sits at the same scuffed booth in the back, wears the same faded fire department hoodie, and never misses a question about 90s Pacific Northwest rock. The only thing throwing off his rhythm these past three weeks is Clara Bennett, the new 58-year-old head librarian who moved to town to take over the shuttered downtown branch after the city council gutted both library and fire department budgets last spring. The unspoken rule: fire crew alumni don’t fraternize with city library staff, not while the budget fight is still simmering in the local paper’s comment section.
The AC hums low enough that he can hear the rattle of ice in her plastic cup across the room, even over the country jukebox. She’s wearing a linen button-down rolled to the elbows, silver hoops that catch the neon Pabst sign when she turns to laugh at her teammate’s bad joke, a smudge of blue ink on her right wrist from stamping library books. He’s been half staring all night, pretending he’s focused on the trivia sheet in front of him, until he stands to grab a fresh pitcher of IPA from the bar and their hands collide around the same cold glass. Her knuckles are softer than he expects, she smells like lavender hand lotion and the peach iced tea she’s been sipping all night, and she holds eye contact for a full three seconds before she smirks and pulls her hand back. “Was wondering when you were gonna stop glaring at my team from the booth,” she says, and he’s so flustered he fumbles the pitcher, sloshing a half ounce of beer onto his jeans.
He expects her to walk away, but ten minutes later the bartender drops a shot of bourbon on his table, napkin tucked under it with scrawled blue ink: stop hoarding all the Nirvana answers. He looks over at her table, and she lifts her own shot in a toast, winking. His chest feels tight, the way it used to when he was a kid sneaking out to go to shows in Portland, the thrill of doing something he’s not supposed to overriding the voice in his head that says he should stay in his lane, avoid drama, keep his head down like he always does. He walks over to her table halfway through the final round, leans against the edge, and their knees bump when she shifts to make space for him. “I’ll trade you the answer to the Soundgarden deep cut question,” he says, low enough no one else can hear, “for a bite of that peach pie your team brought.”
She leans in, her breath warm against the shell of his ear, and he can feel the heat of her shoulder pressed against his bicep. “I’ve got a better trade,” she says, and he can hear the smile in her voice. “If your team wins, I’ll bring you a whole pie to the fire safety workshop you’re running at the community center Saturday. And I won’t even mention the budget fight the whole time.” He laughs, louder than he means to, and half the bar turns to look, the regulars raising their eyebrows like they can’t believe he’s talking to the librarian everyone’s been blaming for the fire department’s new equipment cuts. He doesn’t care, for the first time in years.
His team wins by two points, just enough that no one can argue the call. The bar empties out quick, the janitor already mopping the sticky floor by the door, when she walks over to him holding a tupperware sealed with pink tape. “The pie’s still warm,” she says, and before he can say thank you she’s leaning in, kissing him quick at first, like she’s testing the waters, then deeper when he doesn’t pull away. He tastes peach and bourbon on her lips, his hand comes up to cup her jaw, the stubble on his thumb brushing the freckle that runs across her left cheek, and he forgets all about the budget fight, the unspoken rules, the voice in his head that’s told him for eight years he doesn’t get to have nice things anymore.
He walks her to her beat-up Subaru in the gravel parking lot, the cool night air smelling like pine and cut grass, and she leans against the doorframe when she opens it. “I’ll be at the workshop Saturday,” she says. “I even bought a new fire extinguisher last week, just so I can impress you.” He laughs, tucking the tupperware under his arm, and watches her pull out of the lot, waving out the window. He stands on the sidewalk holding the warm tupperware, grinning like a teenager who just snuck out past curfew, long after her taillights disappear around the bend.
