Moe Pritchard, 62, retired high school football referee, had driven to the county fire department chili cookoff only because his next-door neighbor had begged him to enter his famous smoked brisket chili, the recipe he’d tinkered with for 22 years. He’d avoided local events for three years ever since moving to the tiny western North Carolina town, self-conscious about the handful of locals who still recognized him from the 2019 state semi-final game where he’d called a holding penalty that cost the home team a shot at the championship. His other flaw, the one he rarely admitted to anyone, was holding petty grudges for decades: he still hadn’t spoken to his ex-wife’s cousin over a $140 bet lost on the 2006 Super Bowl.
He was leaning against the leg of his folding table, wiping sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his red flannel, when he smelled it: lavender hand cream cut with the faint hoppy bite of IPA, drifting toward him over the thick cloud of chili smoke and charred onion hanging over the parking lot. He looked up and froze. Lena Voss was standing three feet away, head tilted as she read the handwritten sign taped to his crockpot, a half-empty beer in one hand, a smudge of chili powder dusting her left cheek. She was 54, his ex-wife’s younger half-sister, the woman he’d carried a stupid, unspoken crush on for the entire 10 years he’d been married, the woman he’d felt disgusting for even looking at for most of that decade.
She looked up, and her face broke into a wide, crinkly-eyed grin that made the corners of her mouth tilt up the exact same way her sister’s did, but for the first time in his life, Moe didn’t feel a twinge of guilt for noticing. She stepped closer, close enough that her shoulder brushed his bicep when she leaned in to sniff the crockpot, and he could feel the heat of her arm through his shirt. “You still make this with the chipotle rub on the brisket?” she asked, holding his gaze for two full beats longer than casual politeness dictated. He nodded, his throat suddenly dry, and fumbled for a stack of sample cups. When he reached for one at the same time she did, their hands brushed, and a jolt like warm static shot up his forearm, sharp enough that he almost dropped the whole stack. She didn’t pull away right away, just smirked, her fingers lingering against his for half a second. “You still jumpy as you were when I caught you staring at my tattoo at the 2009 family cookout?”
Moe huffed a laugh, suddenly less nervous. He’d forgotten how easy it was to talk to her, how she never treated him like the guy who’d messed up her sister’s marriage, never took sides when the family fought over the divorce. They talked for 47 minutes, he counted later, while a steady stream of cookoff attendees grabbed samples from his crockpot and he barely registered any of them. She told him she’d moved to Asheville after her divorce two years prior, ran a small landscape design business, was in town for three months to help her mom recover from knee replacement surgery. He told her about the vintage riding lawnmowers he fixed out of his garage for extra cash, the dumb Super Bowl grudge he still held against her cousin, and she snort-laughed so hard beer sloshed over the edge of her can onto his boot. “That deadbeat still owes me $200 from a Final Four bet in 2019,” she said, leaning back against the table, her knee brushing his as she shifted her weight.
For the first 20 minutes of their conversation, Moe fought the familiar, squirming sense of disgust in his gut, the voice in his head that told him wanting his ex-wife’s sister was wrong, a line you didn’t cross no matter how many years had passed. But the longer she talked, the more he realized that voice was just leftover guilt from a marriage that ended 12 years prior, from a version of his life that didn’t exist anymore. No one was getting hurt here. They were both single, both grown, both tired of making themselves small for other people’s opinions.
The fire chief’s voice boomed over the loudspeaker then, announcing the chili winners, and Moe’s entry took second place. Lena cheered so loud she spilled a splash of IPA on the front of his flannel, and he didn’t even care. He wiped the wet spot off absentmindedly, eyes locked on hers, and asked if she wanted to get meatloaf and pie at the diner up the road after the cookoff wrapped. She leaned in so close he could feel her breath on his ear when she answered, low and teasing, “I was hoping you’d ask. I’ve been waiting 15 years for you to stop being such a coward.”
The sun had dipped below the mountains by the time they walked out to his beat-up 2008 Ford F150, autumn air sharp enough to make his nose run, crickets chirping loud in the oak trees lining the parking lot. He opened the passenger door for her, and she paused before climbing in, reaching up to wipe a smudge of chili off his jaw with her thumb, the callus on its tip rough against his skin, lingering for a beat longer than necessary. He got in the driver’s seat, turned the key, and the radio cut on mid-verse to Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’,” and she hummed along, tapping her scuffed work boot against the dashboard. He pulled out of the parking lot, didn’t glance back at the cookoff, didn’t waste time wondering what locals would say if they saw them together, didn’t spare a passing thought for his ex-wife or the dumb grudge or that 2019 football game. He turned the radio up a little, grinned, and merged onto the two-lane road heading toward the diner, the heat from her leg pressed against the center console seeping through his jeans.
