Rafe Mendez is 59, spends 60 hours a week sanding rust out of 1960s and 70s Ford pickups for clients across the Texas Hill Country, and has not been on a date since his wife left him for a Scottsdale real estate agent seven years prior. His biggest flaw is that he’d rather argue with a seized engine for three straight days than admit he’s lonely, even to himself. His buddy Earl dragged him to the annual Johnson City chili cookoff that Saturday, saying he’d been moping in his shop long enough, and Rafe only agreed because Earl promised a spare case of Shiner Bock and swore he wouldn’t push Rafe to chat up any of the women from the local senior center manning the baked good booth.
He’s leaning against the bed of his fully restored 1970 F100, holding a paper plate heaped with brisket chili, half-empty beer sweating through the paper koozie in his other hand, when he sees her walking toward him. That’s Lena, the 52-year-old graphic designer who rented the tiny cottage at the edge of his property three months prior. He’d avoided her deliberately the whole time, convinced she was one of those remote work transplants from California who’d complain about his power tools running before 8 a.m. and the piles of scrap metal stacked behind his shop. He’d even drafted three versions of a half-hearted “sorry for the noise” note he never planned to send, fully expecting she’d hand him a formal noise complaint any day.
She stops a foot away from him, holds up a jar of pickled okra sealed with red wax, and grins. She’s wearing worn denim overalls over a faded Willie Nelson tee, scuffed white sneakers, her dark hair pulled back in a messy braid streaked with silver. “Brought this by your shop Tuesday,” she says, her voice low and rough like she’s spent the last week yelling over concert speakers. “You were under a 1972 F150 so deep I didn’t want to yank you out. Figured I’d catch you here.”
She steps closer, close enough that Rafe can smell jasmine lotion under the smoky scent of chili pits and grilled sausage drifting across the field. Her shoulder brushes his when she leans past him to nod at the F100, her arm pressing against his bicep for a beat longer than necessary. “That yours? I’ve watched you work on it from my porch. Looks perfect.” She holds eye contact when she says it, no polite look away, no awkward laugh, just a small, knowing tilt of her head like she knows he’s been avoiding her, thinks it’s funny.
Rafe’s throat goes dry. He wipes his free hand on the leg of his grease-stained jeans, takes the jar from her, their fingers brushing when she passes it over. Her skin is warm, calloused at the fingertips, he notices, not soft like he expected. “Thanks,” he says, popping the lid open and grabbing an okra pod, popping it in his mouth. It’s tangy, salty, has a kick of jalapeno at the end, same as the sharp, amused grin she’s fixing him with.
He’d spent three months telling himself he didn’t have time for anything other than work, that anyone new would just get annoyed at his weird hours, the grease under his nails that never fully washes off, the fact that he still eats frozen dinners for 80% of his meals and falls asleep on the couch watching old westerns most nights. He’d convinced himself even looking at her would be a waste of time, that she’d never be interested in a guy who smelled like rust and brake cleaner half the time, and that kind of rejection would sting worse than a busted knuckle.
The sun dips below the oak trees lining the field, the air gets sharp with October chill, and Lena shivers, rubbing her bare arms. “Forgot my jacket,” she says, nodding toward the dirt road leading back to his property. “You headed out soon? I’d kill for a ride in that truck instead of walking home in the cold.” She pauses, tilts her head, her eyes glinting in the string lights strung between the vendor booths. “I got a bottle of 12-year-old bourbon on my kitchen counter. We could crack it open when we get back, if you don’t have anywhere to be.”
Rafe doesn’t even hesitate. He tosses his half-empty paper plate in the nearby trash can, grabs his keys off his belt loop, and nods toward the truck. “C’mon,” he says, walking around to the passenger side to open the door for her. His hand brushes the small of her back when he helps her up into the high cab, and she doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move away, just leans into the touch for half a second before she sits down, her knee bumping his when she shifts to get comfortable.
He slides into the driver’s seat, turns the key, and the old truck rumbles to life, loud and deep, the way he likes it. Lena reaches over and twists the radio dial until Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” blares out of the speakers, tapping her boot on the dash in time with the beat. Rafe pulls out onto the dirt road, doesn’t even glance in the rearview mirror at the cookoff, doesn’t think about the half-dismantled F150 waiting for him back in the shop, doesn’t think about all the excuses he’d spent three months crafting to avoid her.
He rests his hand lightly on her knee, and doesn’t move it when she laces her fingers through his, the rough calluses on her palm catching on the grease smudges on his knuckles.
