Manny Ruiz, 62, retired Border Patrol K9 handler, leaned against the splintered back of a picnic table at the county fire department’s annual chili cookoff, sweating through the collar of his faded denim work shirt. He’d only shown up because his former patrol partner had badgered him for three straight days about “getting out of that goddamned empty house before you grow roots into the couch,” and the promise of free Shiner Bock had been too hard to pass up. His old German shepherd Max, his last working K9 before he retired three years prior, was sacked out under the table, paws twitching in a sleep run, and Manny kept one boot propped against the dog’s side to keep stray kids from tripping over him.
He’d been ignoring the small talk for an hour, nodding politely when neighbors stopped by to ask about Max’s arthritis, when the side of her cowboy boot brushed his ankle by accident. He looked up, and there was Lila Marquez, the 48-year-old who’d opened the holistic pet grooming and massage shop on Main Street six months prior. He’d brought Max in for a deep tissue massage for his hips two months back, and he’d left flustered, avoiding her shop ever since, terrified the whole town would start whispering if he so much as stopped in for a free dog treat. She smelled like jasmine hand lotion and smoked paprika, the hem of her cutoff jeans dusted with chili powder, and she held up a dented ceramic bowl of bright orange chili, her dark eyes holding his for three full beats longer than casual small talk allowed. “Heard you’re the only guy in town who can handle spice without crying into his beer,” she said, grinning, and the corner of her mouth pulled up higher on one side, a little scar cutting through her left eyebrow that he hadn’t noticed before.
He grunted, taking the bowl from her, and their fingers brushed for half a second. His skin prickled, and he told himself it was just the 90 degree heat, that he was being an idiot, that everyone in this town had known him and Elena for 40 years, that they’d talk if they saw him flirting with a woman 14 years his junior. He’d seen the dumb Facebook posts the local high school kids shared, yelling about age gap relationships being predatory, like two consenting adults grabbing coffee was some kind of moral failure. He took a bite of the chili, and it burned just right, sweet with mango and sharp with habanero, and he made a face that made her laugh, loud and throaty, no fake polite giggle to it.
They talked for 45 minutes, him leaning against the picnic table, her perched on the edge next to him, their shoulders brushing every time someone squeezed past the crowded lot. She told him she’d moved to town after her divorce from a guy who’d cheated on her with his dental hygienist, that she’d grown up visiting her grandma 20 minutes outside of town and had always dreamed of living here. He told her about working the Rio Grande valley, about Max once taking down a human trafficker who’d tried to run with a 7 year old girl in his arms, about Elena dying of breast cancer 8 years prior, how he’d not gone on a single date since, scared he’d be betraying her memory. He didn’t know why he told her all that; he never talked about Elena with anyone but his kids.
When the sun started to dip below the oak trees, she asked if he wanted to walk Max down by the creek behind the fairgrounds, get away from the noise. He hesitated for half a second, then nodded, calling Max to his feet. The path was overgrown with prickly pear, and she tripped over a twisted mesquite root ten minutes in, falling sideways right into his chest. He caught her, his hands wrapped around her waist, her hands fisted in the front of his shirt, and for a second neither of them moved. The creek gurgled off to their left, crickets chirped in the brush, and Max sat down at their feet, tilting his head like he was waiting for something. She leaned in first, her lips soft, coconut lip balm sticking a little to his chapped lower lip, and he kissed her back, slow, not pushing, not rushing, like he had all the time in the world.
They walked back to his truck ten minutes later, their fingers laced together, and he didn’t let go when they passed a group of local teens who snickered and nudged each other. He drove her back to his little ranch house on the edge of town, made her black coffee in the chipped mugs Elena had bought him for their 25th anniversary, and they sat on his porch swing, Max curled up across both their laps, watching the stars come out.
He reaches for her hand, calloused from 27 years of handling K9 leashes and prying open stuck truck doors, and doesn’t let go when a neighbor’s pickup rumbles past on the dirt road, headlights cutting across the porch for half a second.
