Manny Ruiz, 53, owns a vintage motorcycle restoration shop outside Asheville, North Carolina, and has won the county’s annual fall chili cookoff three years running. His biggest flaw is that he’s held a petty, self-sabotaging grudge against his ex-wife for eight years, ever since she left him for a 28-year-old timeshare salesman with a frosted tip goatee and a leased Corvette. He hasn’t been on a date since, swears off all women within five years of her age, and promised his 22-year-old daughter Lila he’d never so much as flirt with any of her college roommates’ parents, no matter how nice they seemed.
The air at the cookoff smells like smoked paprika, hickory smoke, and spiced apple cider from the stand two booths down. Manny leans against the dented tailgate of his 1998 F150, sweating through his worn Harley-Davidson work shirt, a half-drunk Pabst in one hand, his hound dog Red curled at his feet gnawing on a pork rind. He’s been avoiding the cluster of women Lila pointed out an hour prior, determined to keep his promise and his streak of being left alone intact.
He turns to grab a stack of paper towels for a kid who spilled chili on his jeans, and slams right into a woman carrying a dented Dutch oven sloshing with bright orange mango habanero chili. A dollop splatters across the front of his shirt, right over the embroidered Harley logo. He’s half a second from snapping a joke about people watching where they’re going when he looks down. Her name tag reads Clara, 42, travel nurse, and her chestnut bob is streaked with a single silver strand that catches the afternoon sun, her cheeks pink from the heat, flannel tied tight around her waist, scuffed work boots caked in mud from the field parking lot. She smells like vanilla and pine, not the cloying heavy perfume his ex used to douse herself in.
“Shit, I’m so sorry,” she says, laughing, not nervous, just warm, like she’s already used to bumping into grumpy guys with chili on their shirts. She steps so close their shoes almost touch, dabs at the stain with a crumpled napkin from her pocket, her palm brushing his chest through the thin denim. Manny freezes. He hasn’t been that close to a woman who wasn’t his daughter or a customer in years. Their eyes lock for three full beats, and she doesn’t look away, just smirks, tilting her head toward his crockpot of brisket chili sitting on the tailgate. “I hear you’re the guy to beat here. I’ll trade you a taste of mine to make up for the stain. I’m Lila’s roommate’s mom, just moved here from Miami last month.”
Manny’s brain short circuits. This is exactly the woman he promised he wouldn’t talk to, exactly the age bracket he’s avoided for almost a decade, every alarm bell in his head screaming to make an excuse and walk away. But then she picks up a plastic spoon, holds it out to him, and he can’t say no. They sit side by side on the tailgate, shoulders brushing as they sample each other’s chili, Red abandoning his pork rind to curl up at her feet, leaning his weight against her calf. She tells him she’s been a widow for six years, her husband died in a construction accident, she moved to the mountains to get away from the constant noise of Miami, rides a beat-up dirt bike on weekends when she’s not working ER shifts. He finds himself telling her about the 1972 Ironhead he’s restoring for Lila’s graduation, about the time he crashed a race last spring and broke three ribs, about how he’s been such a bitter idiot for eight years he forgot what it felt like to talk to someone who actually listens.
She leans in closer, her hip pressing into his, the side of her hand brushing his where they rest on the cold metal tailgate. The sun is dipping low now, painting the Blue Ridge Mountains pink and tangerine, the bluegrass band down the street playing a slow fiddle track, the crowd thinning out as people pack up their coolers. “That’s a damn shame,” she says, soft, no pity in her voice, just a quiet heat. “You’re way more interesting than any timeshare salesman I’ve ever met.”
Manny doesn’t make a dumb joke to deflect, doesn’t pull away, doesn’t remind himself of his stupid grudge or his promise to Lila. He just nods, and asks her if she wants to come by his shop tomorrow, see the Ironhead, grab a burger at the dive bar down the street after. She grins, scribbles her number on a napkin, tucks it into the pocket of his work shirt, her fingers brushing the edge of his chest hair peeking out of the unbuttoned collar. She gives his arm a quick squeeze, says she has to go find her daughter, and walks away, looking over her shoulder once to wink before she disappears into the crowd.
He stands there for a minute, sipping his warm beer, the napkin crinkling against his chest through his shirt pocket. He pulls out his phone, texts Lila first, says he met her roommate’s mom, he’s asking her out, don’t kill him. She texts back ten seconds later: FINALLY. I’ve been trying to set you two up for three months. Idiot. He laughs, shoves his phone back in his pocket, hefts his chili crockpot into the bed of the truck, already making a mental note to sweep the shop floor and pick up a six pack of her favorite mango seltzer before she shows up tomorrow.
