Javier “Javi” Mendez, 52, spends 60 hours a week stripped to a grease-stained undershirt restoring vintage Japanese motorcycles out of a cinder block shop on the east side of Austin. His worst flaw, the one his old therapist chewed him out for for three years straight, is that he holds grudges like they’re rare vintage parts he might need someday. He hasn’t stepped foot at the Williamson County BBQ Cookoff in seven years, not since his ex-wife served him divorce papers mid-brisket tasting after he told her he was selling his half of their taco joint to open the bike shop. He only agreed to come this year because his 19-year-old apprentice entered a rib recipe he’d been testing for six months, and the kid looked so nervous Javi couldn’t say no.
He’s got his faded Carhartt jacket zipped up to his chin, beat-up work boots caked with chain lube, baseball hat pulled low enough that he’s pretty sure even his own mom wouldn’t recognize him if she passed. The air smells like mesquite smoke, pickled jalapeños, and cheap coconut sunscreen, the hum of a country cover band wrapping around every corner of the fairgrounds. He slips away from his apprentice’s booth when the kid starts chatting up a group of rodeo girls, heads for the craft beer tent to grab a Shiner Bock before he bails entirely.
He steps around a toddler chasing a corgi with a half-eaten sausage link in its mouth, and slams right into the woman pouring drafts behind the counter. Beer sloshes over the rim of the cup she’s holding, splatters across the front of his jacket. He starts to apologize, then freezes. It’s Lila Rainer, his ex’s stepsister, the woman his ex spent 12 years warning him was a walking red flag—gold digger, heartbreaker, would hit on any man with a functioning bank account before he could finish introducing himself. Javi had only met her twice before, both times at awkward family holidays, and he’d avoided eye contact the entire time, following his ex’s unspoken rule that Lila was off limits.
She grins, wiping a streak of beer foam off her cheek with the back of her hand, and nods at the Honda CB750 tattoo peeking out from under his jacket sleeve. “You’re Javi, right? The bike guy. I’ve been following your shop’s Instagram for two years. I’ve got a 1968 Triumph Bonneville sitting in my garage that I can’t get to turn over for shit.”
He blinks, confused. His ex had always said Lila hated anything that wasn’t a $70,000 electric SUV, thought mechanics were “grubby and unmotivated.” He leans against the counter, half to keep from backing away, half because he’s suddenly curious. She leans in too, elbows on the rough wooden edge, close enough that he can smell coconut lotion and smoked salt on her skin, even over the thick haze of beer and brisket. She hands him a fresh cold beer, her fingers brushing his calloused palm for half a beat longer than necessary, and he doesn’t pull away.
They talk for 15 minutes, even as a line forms behind him, other attendees grumbling under their breath. She teases him for hiding from his ex, says her stepsister has spent the last seven years complaining to every family dinner that Javi was the only person who ever actually listened to her. She asks specific questions about his current restoration project, a 1970 Kawasaki W1 he’s rebuilding for a client in Dallas, remembers details he mentions offhand about the custom carburetor he had shipped from Japan. When she reaches for a stack of napkins, her elbow knocks over a full cup of pale ale, spilling it across the front of his jacket again. She laughs, grabbing a handful of paper towels, and leans across the counter to dab at the wet fabric, her palm pressing flat against his chest for two full seconds. He can feel the heat of her hand through the thin cotton of his undershirt, and his throat goes dry.
The guy running the beer tent yells that she’s off shift, and she tucks a strand of sun-bleached blonde hair behind her ear, tilting her head toward the far end of the fairgrounds. “I know a spot under the oak trees by the cattle barn where no one from the judging tent will see us. The Dripping Springs team has a brisket entry that’ll make you forget you ever even owned a taco joint. You wanna come?”
Javi hesitates for half a second. The old, bitter part of him snarls that this is a mistake, that Lila is exactly what his ex said she was, that getting involved with anyone tied to his old life will only end in screaming matches and empty bank accounts. He can see the rib judging tent from where he’s standing, knows his ex is behind that table right now, and if she spots them she’ll raise hell for months, spam their old friend group with angry texts, call him a traitor and every other name she screamed at him the day she served him papers. He’s spent seven years hiding from that exact hassle, cutting off every person tied to his marriage just to keep the peace.
Then he looks at Lila, grinning, a smudge of barbeque sauce on her jaw, her hand resting on the edge of the counter an inch from his, and he nods.
She slips her hand into his as they walk across the fairgrounds, calloused from working on her own home reno projects, warm in his. The band starts playing a cover of Willie Nelson’s “Blue Skies” off in the distance, and he can hear the corgi he almost stepped on barking happily somewhere behind them. He doesn’t even glance over at the judging tent. He squeezes her hand back.
