Ronan O’Malley is 52, has mended commercial fishing nets for 28 years out of Astoria, Oregon, and has held a grudge against Lena Marquez for exactly 14 years, two months, and 11 days. Stubbornness is his worst flaw, he knows it—his daughter teases him for still boycotting the gas station that overcharged him for diesel in 2017—so he’s spent every crab festival since the divorce deliberately avoiding the section of the beer tent where Lena’s marine rescue team usually sets up their fundraiser tables. He’s got a scar snaking across his left knuckle from a feisty Dungeness crab that bit him last spring, calluses so thick on his palms he can grip wet polypropylene line without gloves, and he’s halfway through his second cold IPA when she pulls up the stool next to him.
The mist off the Columbia River has been sticking to his flannel collar all afternoon, carrying the briny tang of crab pots and fried dough, and when she sits, he catches the warm edge of coconut shampoo under the salt air. She’s 49, runs the local pinniped rescue, has a streak of silver running through her dark curly hair that he doesn’t remember from the divorce hearings, and she holds his gaze for three full seconds before she smirks, setting her hard seltzer down on the sticky counter so close her elbow brushes his bicep. He tenses, ready to get up and leave, but she nods at the scar on his knuckle before he can move. “Looks like that crab you posted about on the town Facebook group finally got its revenge,” she says, and he blinks, because he didn’t know she followed his account.
