She charmed me

The outdoor committee was already working when I found them.

One skinny hippie was crouched beside a stack of split logs, tying something together with twine and looking like he’d been born with a permanent layer of sawdust on him.

The girl beside him was impossible to miss. Braided dirt blonde pigtails. Bandanna tied around her head. Sun-browned arms. Tank top, short khakis. A grin that looked like trouble and kindness had decided to share the same face.

She looked me up and down the second I stepped into the clearing. Then she smiled. “I knew I asked Deb to send me a cute one,” she said, “but did she outdo herself?”

I stopped short.

The hippie looked up from his knot work and laughed under his breath like he’d heard that line a hundred times before. The girl noticed my expression and rolled her eyes. “Relax. He’s basically my brother.” She jerked a thumb toward the skinny hippie. “We work together eighteen hours a day and argue like siblings.”

The hippie gave a lazy salute with the end of the twine. “She means she bosses me around.”

“She means you’d be lost without me.”

“True.”

She turned back to me. “I’m Mara.”

The hippie stood and wiped his hands on his jeans. “Eli.” He offered a hand.

His grip was soft and warm and a little too gentle for somebody who looked like he lived outdoors.

Mara pointed toward the woodpile. “Deb said you were available, so congratulations. You’re ours now.”

I smiled sheepishly. “That sounds slightly ominous.”

“It should.” She handed me a pair of work gloves. “Start hauling those logs over to the fire ring.”

Eli pointed toward a stack of benches near the tree line. “And those need to be moved into a circle.”

“Got it.”

“Also,” Mara added, “if you drop one on your foot, try not to cry in front of us.”

“I’ll do my best.”

She laughed and went back to tying off a bundle of kindling.

For the next half hour, the three of us worked in a rhythm that felt strangely easy. Eli carried wood like he weighed nothing. Mara moved fast, barking out directions while somehow making it sound like teasing. I hauled logs. Dragged benches. Sweated through my shirt. At one point I nearly lost my grip on a split round and Eli caught it before it rolled into the dirt.

“Nice save,” I said.

He shrugged. “Been doing this long enough.”

Mara glanced over. “Translation: he’s old.”

“I’m twenty-two.”

“Ancient.”

She grinned at me. “You’ll learn quickly around here that Eli is the responsible one.”

“That’s not true,” he said.

“It is absolutely true.” She leaned on the handle of a rake and studied me for a second.“So,” she said, “what’s that accent? Rural Midwest?”

“Yeah.”

“How was it?”

I blinked. “What?”

“Home.”

I hesitated.

She waved a hand. “Not the sad stuff. I don’t want the sad stuff.”

Eli snorted softly and kept working.

Mara pointed at me with the rake. “I want the good stuff. The happy stuff. What does a happy home feel like?”

The question caught me off guard. Nobody had asked it like that before. Not in a long time. I looked down at the log in my hands.

“I guess…”

I thought about it.

“…it smells like my mom’s kitchen in the morning.”

Mara’s expression changed immediately. Not pity. Interest. “Yeah?”

“Coffee. Always a full pot. Toast. Sometimes bacon if my dad was in a good mood.”

She smiled. “Keep going.”

I shifted the log onto the growing pile. “There was this old porch swing out back. It squeaked every time you sat on it.”

“Good squeak or bad squeak?”

“Bad squeak.”

She nodded solemnly. “Important detail.”

“But at night,” I said, “if it was hot enough, my brother and I would sit out there and watch lightning bugs in the yard.”

Mara’s face softened. “Lightning bugs are good.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you catch them?”

“Sometimes.”

“Did you put them in jars?”

“Always.”

She laughed. “Of course you did.”

Eli looked over his shoulder.

“You’re making him sentimental.”

“I’m making him useful.”

She turned back to me. “What else?”

I found myself talking before I’d really decided to. About summer storms rolling in over the fields. About my mom humming while she cooked. About the sound of the screen door slamming shut when somebody came in from outside. About the way the whole house felt when everyone was home at once.

Mara listened like every detail mattered. Not because she was being polite. Because she genuinely wanted to know.

“That,” she said when I finished, “sounds like a happy home.”

I laughed quietly. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

She nodded toward the benches.

“Then you know what one feels like.”

I wasn’t sure that was true. I didn’t tell her about the daily dread. But felt good hearing it.

The sky had started to change by the time we finished moving the last of the benches. A gray softness crept over the trees. The air cooled. A few drops of rain tapped against the leaves overhead.

Mara looked up. “Ah.”

Eli glanced toward the clouds. “Looks like we’re getting the drizzle version.”

“Better than the thunder version,” Mara said.

She brushed her hands off on her shorts and pointed toward a tent set up near the edge of the clearing. “Want to join me?”

I looked at the tent.

Then at her.

The rain was just beginning. Not enough to send anyone running. Just enough to make the woods smell alive.

Mara smiled, one eyebrow lifting slightly. “Unless you’re afraid of a little weather.”

I wasn’t. Not really. And for the first time all day, I didn’t feel like I was standing outside the circle. I felt like I’d been invited into it.

And I was sure she wasn’t inviting me into the tent to just wait out the rain…