Rudy Gallo, 62, retired wildland firefighter, has spent the last eight years perfecting the art of being left alone. He lives in a one-room cabin 12 miles outside of Traverse City, only comes into town twice a month for groceries and the monthly fire department volunteer check-in. Tonight, he’s manning the charcoal grill at the department’s annual fundraiser, back patio of The Rusty Axe bar, the air thick with hickory smoke, the sharp tang of yellow mustard, and the high, tinny chatter of kids chasing fireflies through the patch of clover along the fence line. His left forearm bears a thick, silvery scar from the 2018 Upper Peninsula blaze that cost him three weeks in the burn unit and his crew chief spot, and he’s wearing a cut-off hoodie emblazoned with the department logo that’s faded so bad the red lettering is almost pale pink. He’s got a Pabst Blue Ribbon in a foam koozie tucked in the pocket of his grease-stained work jeans, and he’s ignoring the way his old crew keeps glancing over at him, snickering, like they’re waiting for something to happen.
He knows exactly what they’re waiting for. Clara Marlow, the new town librarian, moved to town three months prior, and every single busybody within a 20-mile radius has been trying to set her up with every available single man over 50, Rudy included. He’s avoided her on purpose, ducking down the cereal aisle when he sees her at the grocery store, leaving the coffee shop early when he spots her beat-up forest green pickup truck in the parking lot. He’s got no interest in being the subject of town gossip, no interest in letting anyone get close enough to notice he still sleeps with his late wife’s old plaid flannel shirt under his pillow, no interest in the sharp, unfamiliar lurch in his chest he got the one time he saw her laughing while she helped a wobbly four-year-old pick out a picture book at the library book sale last month.
He’s turning a row of brats with a pair of rusted stainless steel tongs when he smells it first, cedar and lavender hand lotion, cutting clean through the smoke and grilled onion fumes. He looks up, and she’s standing three feet away, holding a crumpled paper plate in one hand, a smudge of blue ink across the pulse point of her wrist, her linen button-down rolled up to the elbows, a faint smattering of freckles across her nose that he never noticed from far away. “Sorry to bother you,” she says, and her voice is lower than he expected, warm, like she’s talking to someone she already knows, “the line up front was 10 people deep, and I lost track of time hauling silent auction items out of my car. Would it be too much trouble to grab a brat off you?”
He nods, fumbling for a split second with the tongs, and when she steps closer to hold the plate out, their fingers brush. It’s nothing, just a split second of contact, but he feels it all the way up his arm, the soft warmth of her skin against his calloused, smoke-stained knuckles. He’s immediately disgusted with himself, angry that a stupid accidental touch is enough to make his ears go pink, angry that he’s already mentally cataloging the way her hair has strands of silver mixed in with the dark brown, the way she’s wearing scuffed white sneakers instead of the fancy loafers most of the town’s professional women wear. He expects to hear his crew hooting behind him, but when he glances over, they’re all pretending to be deep in conversation about last week’s softball game, though he sees Jimmie sneak a quick glance over his shoulder and grin.
“I heard you used to be a wildland firefighter,” she says, leaning against the weathered cedar fence post next to the grill, not leaving like he expected her to. She nods at the scar on his forearm. “I’ve been trying to put together a local history display at the library about the 2018 blaze, but all the records we have are just generic newspaper clippings. I’ve been bugging the chief for weeks to let me look at the crew logs, but he keeps saying he’s too busy running drills.” Rudy blinks, surprised. No one’s asked him about the 2018 blaze in years, not unless they were asking if he needed help filing his disability paperwork. He finds himself telling her about the bear cub they rescued from a burning oak, the way it bit his work boot when they carried it out to the wildlife rehab van, and she laughs, leaning in so her shoulder brushes his, the linen of her shirt soft against his bare arm. She doesn’t look away when he catches her staring at his scar, doesn’t flinch when he describes the way the fire sounded like a freight train coming through the trees.
By the time he remembers the brat he set on the grill for her, the edge is a little charred, but she takes it anyway, waving off his stammered apology. “I like my food a little crispy,” she says, and she’s holding steady eye contact, her dark eyes crinkling at the corners, and he knows he’s about to do something stupid, something he swore he’d never do again. “I’ve got a box of old crew logs and personal journals from that fire in my garage,” he says, the words coming out faster than he intended, “if you want to look through them. I could bring them into the library tomorrow, or… we could get coffee first. If you want. No pressure.” He’s holding his breath, waiting for her to laugh it off, waiting for her to say she’s busy, waiting for the familiar hot embarrassment of rejection to settle in his chest.
Instead, she grins, digs a crumpled silent auction ticket out of the pocket of her khakis, and scribbles her cell number on the back with the blue pen tucked behind her ear. She presses the ticket into his palm, her thumb lingering on his knuckle for a full beat before she pulls her hand away. “I get off work at 2 tomorrow,” she says, “there’s that little coffee shop on Main that makes really good homemade cherry pie. Meet me there? I’ll save you a booth by the window, away from the regular gossips.” He nods, tucking the ticket into the inner pocket of his hoodie, like it’s something important, something he can’t afford to lose.
She waves and walks back toward the silent auction table, and Jimmie yells over from the picnic table, “Took you long enough, Gallo! We had 20 bucks riding on whether you’d actually talk to her!” Rudy flips him off, the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth impossible to hide. He turns back to the grill, picking up the tongs to flip the next row of brats, and notices the condensation from his beer has soaked through the koozie, leaving a dark damp spot on the leg of his jeans.
