Rafe Mendez, 59, only showed up to the annual Ohio River rib cookoff because his old Navy buddy owed him a full rack of dry-rubbed spareribs for patching the cracked window on his 1969 Airstream for free. He’d spent the whole day sanding bondo off a rusted 1972 Winnebago, so his Carhartt was stiff with sawdust and fiberglass resin, his work boots crusted with mud from the gravel lot behind his restoration shop. He’d planned to grab the ribs, chug one cold IPA, and hightail it back to his cottage before anyone could corner him into small talk about his ex-wife, who’d left him eight years prior for a digital nomad who posted van life reels for a living. He’d avoided every town event since then, content to spend his nights eating frozen dinners with his hound dog Bo and listening to old Merle Haggard records.
He was leaning against a splintered wooden post outside the beer tent, half-watching a group of kids chase each other with water guns, when someone’s shoulder crashed into his. His sloshed IPA spilled half its contents down the front of a linen button-down, the pale yellow fabric darkening instantly where the hoppy beer soaked in. He started to apologize, fumbling for a napkin in his pocket, when he looked down and recognized Elara Voss, the woman who’d moved into the blue clapboard cottage two doors down from him three months earlier. He’d only ever waved at her from his driveway, when she was hauling boxes of used books into the tiny downtown bookstore she’d bought, and had never worked up the nerve to knock, even when he’d seen her struggling to carry a full bookshelf up her front steps a few weeks back.
She laughed instead of yelling, wiping at the wet spot on her shirt with the back of her hand, which already had a smudge of barbecue sauce on the knuckle. “Relax, I already stained this thing with rib sauce ten minutes ago. It’s a lost cause.” She stood close enough that he could smell coconut sunscreen and smoked paprika on her, the silver hoops in her ears catching the gold of the setting sun as she tilted her head up to look at him. Her gaze held his longer than polite, no awkward look away, and he felt his neck warm, stupidly flustered like a teenager at a school dance. “I was actually gonna knock on your door tomorrow,” she said, digging a dog-eared paperback out of the canvas tote slung over her shoulder. “Found this in a box of donations at the shop. 1968 camper repair manual. Figured you’d get more use out of it than I would.”
When she handed it to him, her fingers brushed his wrist. Her skin was soft but calloused at the fingertips, from turning thousands of book pages, he guessed, and warm even through the thin layer of sawdust on his skin. He held the manual, its cover frayed at the edges, and fought the stupid voice in his head screaming that he should say thanks, hand her a beer as a peace offering, and go home. He’d spent so long walling himself off from anyone who might get close, the thought of letting someone in felt almost disgusting, like he was betraying the quiet, predictable life he’d built for himself. But she was still standing there, grinning, a half-eaten rib in her other hand, and he couldn’t make himself walk away.
She suggested they walk down to the riverbank to get away from the noise of the country band blaring from the main stage, and he agreed before he could overthink it. They sat on the edge of a weathered concrete picnic table, feet dangling a foot above the slow-moving river, and she told him she’d moved here from Chicago after her husband died of a heart attack four years earlier, that she’d wanted somewhere quiet where she didn’t have to run into someone who knew them as a couple every time she went to the grocery store. He told her about his ex, about how he’d stopped going to town events because every old acquaintance would ask how she was doing, and he was tired of lying and saying he didn’t know. When he shifted to lean back on his hands, his knee knocked into hers, and neither of them moved away.
The first firework went off just as he finished talking, a burst of neon red painting the surface of the river, and she flinched a little, laughing, before leaning into his side. Her shoulder pressed firm against his bicep, and he didn’t hesitate to wrap his arm around her waist, the fabric of her shirt still slightly damp from the beer he’d spilled earlier. He told her he made brisket tacos better than any stand at the cookoff, if she wanted to come over to his place after the fireworks ended. She said she had a peach pie cooling on her kitchen counter, and a rare Joni Mitchell record she’d found at a garage sale the week prior, that she’d bring both.
They didn’t rush to leave, sitting through the whole 15 minute firework show, his arm slung loose around her waist, no awkward pauses, no quiet panic that he was doing something wrong. When the last firework faded and the crowd behind them started cheering, he slid off the picnic table and held out his hand to help her down. She laced her fingers through his, her palm fitting perfectly against his calloused one, and they walked slowly back toward the neighborhood, Bo’s loud bark greeting them from the porch of his cottage before they even turned the corner.
