Elias Voss, 59, has restored over 1,200 vintage fishing reels out of his clapboard garage shop in coastal Oregon since his wife left him for a traveling surf instructor eight years prior. He’s the kind of guy who never says no when the local PTA asks him to run the crab leg station at the summer fundraiser, who slips free repaired kids’ reels into the hands of every preteen who hangs around his shop, who still drops a jar of his homemade dill pickles on his ex-wife’s mother’s porch every Christmas even though the woman hasn’t spoken to him since the split. His biggest flaw is he’d rather chew through his own steel-toe work boot than rock the boat, even when the boat is sinking under the weight of all the unasked favors he says yes to just to keep other people happy.
The air at the crab feed reeks of Old Bay, charcoal, and cheap domestic beer, the hum of 100 overlapping conversations mixing with the low crash of the ocean three blocks away. He’s mid-toss of a fat steamed crab leg onto a crinkled paper plate when Maren Hale steps up to the table, and his grip slips so bad the shell clatters against the metal serving tray. She’s the new county librarian, moved to town three months prior after her only kid graduated high school and moved to New York for art school, and Elias has spent every interaction with her since tamping down a stupid, fluttery feeling he thought he’d outgrown decades prior. She’s wearing a faded linen dress the color of sea glass, her freckled forearms dusted with ash from the fire pit by the entrance, and she’s holding a crumpled brown paper bag tucked tight against her hip.