Javi Mendez, 52, makes his living restoring vintage travel trailers for clients across the South, most of them fellow guys his age chasing low-stakes cross-country road trip adventure after retirement or divorce. He’s got a scar across his left knuckle from a slipped utility knife last year, and a flaw he’d never admit out loud: he holds grudges so long they calcify, hard as the aluminum he sands for 8 hours a day. His longest grudge, 30 years running, is against Dale Carter, the guy who’d dumped Javi’s prized vintage down sleeping bag in Lake Tyler during the 1993 county fall campout just for a laugh. He’d skipped the annual campout every year since, until his buddy Ray cornered him at the hardware store two weeks prior, swore Dale moved to Wyoming three years ago and wouldn’t be within 1000 miles of the campground.
He was two sips into a cold Shiner Bock at the campground’s pop-up bar tent when he turned too fast, shoulder bumping into a woman carrying a plastic cup of spiced cider. The liquid sloshed over the rim, splattering the cuff of his gray flannel, and he started to apologize before he looked up. She was 48, sun streaks in her dark brown hair, wearing a worn flannel of her own and cowboy boots caked in campground mud, and she smelled like cinnamon and cedar smoke. “Javi Mendez,” she said, grinning, the corners of her hazel eyes crinkling like she laughed more than most people he knew. “I thought that was you. I still have the scar on my ankle from tripping over your trailer hitch that same 1993 trip.”
It was Lila Carter, Dale’s ex-wife. Javi’s first instinct was to step back, mumble an excuse, go hide in his truck. He’d only met her a handful of times back then, always in Dale’s orbit, and he’d spent three decades lumping everyone related to or associated with that guy into the same “not worth my time” bucket. But she didn’t move, just wiped the cider off his sleeve with a crumpled napkin from her pocket, her fingers brushing his wrist so soft he almost flinched. “I left Dale last year,” she said, like she could read his mind. “Got tired of him thinking pranking people and skipping his own kid’s graduation was a personality trait. I run the s’mores pop-up over by the main fire pit now. Half the proceeds go to the county animal shelter.”
He found himself following her over to the fire, sitting on a weathered log next to her while she handed out gourmet s’mores with sea salt and dark chocolate to passing kids. She leaned in when he talked about the 1972 Airstream Sovereign he’d just finished restoring, her knee brushing his every time she shifted to grab another box of graham crackers, and when they both reached for the same marshmallow bag at the same time, their hands grazed, and she didn’t pull away for three full seconds. He hadn’t felt that tiny, zinging jolt of something like that since his own divorce finalized four years prior. He told himself it was just the beer, just the firelight making everyone look softer, but he couldn’t stop looking at the little smudge of chocolate on her lower lip.
She asked if he wanted to walk down to the lake shore when the crowd died down, and he hesitated for half a second before saying yes. The wind off the water was cold, sharp with the smell of pine, and the moon was bright enough that he could see the ripples on the surface, right where Dale had dumped his sleeping bag all those years ago. She pulled a crumpled, faded white tag out of her jacket pocket, held it out to him. It was the tag from his old sleeping bag, the logo of the 1972 National Park Service expedition he’d bought it from still visible. “Found it in Dale’s old toolbox when I was moving out,” she said. “I kept it. Always thought you were the nice one, back then. You used to slip me lemon drops when Dale was being an ass and wouldn’t let me hang out with you guys.”
He took the tag from her, his fingers brushing hers, and didn’t pull away. He told her he’d been an idiot, holding a grudge for 30 years, missing out on campouts and fire pits and whatever this was, all because of a stupid sleeping bag. She laughed, soft, and leaned in, kissing him before he could say anything else. She tasted like cinnamon and cider and a little bit of chocolate, her hand warm on the back of his neck, the cold wind stinging his cheeks the only reminder that this wasn’t some stupid teenage daydream he’d had back in 1993.
They walked back to his campsite 20 minutes later, her fingers laced through his, her shoulder pressed to his arm the whole way. The string lights strung between the oak trees glowed gold on the silver Airstream as he fumbled in his flannel pocket for the keys, her thumb brushing the back of his hand the whole time.
