Manny Rios, 62, retired border patrol K9 handler, had showed up to the annual Port Aransas volunteer fire department oyster roast fully planning to leave after 45 minutes, max. He’d avoided the last three years of community events, mostly because half the attendees tried to set him up with their sisters, their cousins, their widowed bowling league teammates, and he’d had his fill of awkward small talk about his “empty house” and his “too quiet days” fixing custom fishing lures for the local bait shop. His biggest flaw, the one his ex-wife had yelled about through the whole divorce, was that he’d rather shut down than risk looking like he cared too much about something that could break.
He was wiping melted garlic butter off his frayed plaid flannel sleeve when he saw her trip over the cinder block holding down the beer tent corner. He reacted on old muscle memory, reaching out fast to catch her elbow before she face-planted into a pile of discarded oyster shells crunching under every attendee’s boots. Her hand brushed the thick, jagged scar on his left forearm, the one his old K9 Max had left during a 2017 training exercise gone wrong, and she froze mid-stumble, her eyes locking onto his for three full beats too long for polite casualty. She was Clara Bennett, his ex-wife’s college roommate, the one he’d only met twice before, at their 2004 wedding and a 2012 holiday party, the one his ex had always joked was “the wild one” who’d snuck them all cheap beer at their senior year dorm.
The guilt hit him fast, hot and sharp enough to make him pull his arm back like he’d been burned. He hadn’t spoken to his ex in four years, not since she’d moved to Arizona with her new husband, a real estate agent who played pickleball every weekend, and the idea of even having a conversation with her old roommate felt like crossing a line he’d drawn for himself a decade prior. But she smelled like coconut sunscreen and fried okra, her dark hair streaked with silver pulled back in a loose braid that had a few strands stuck to the sweat on her neck, and she laughed when he mumbled an apology for yanking his arm away, a loud, snorty laugh that didn’t sound like it belonged to someone who was off limits.
They ended up leaning against the back of a dented 1998 Ford F-150 for an hour, passing a can of cold Shiner Bock back and forth while he told her stories about Max: the time the dog had snuck onto a fishing charter and ate an entire cooler of live shrimp, the time he’d tracked a lost 7-year-old through the thorn brush in south Texas in 102 degree heat, the way he’d curled up at the foot of Manny’s bed for three straight months after the divorce. She told him she’d moved to town two weeks prior to run the small public library, that she’d gotten sick of Chicago’s slushy winters and rude subway commuters, that his ex had texted her a month before she moved, told her Manny was the best guy she’d ever known, even if he was too stubborn for his own good, and that she shouldn’t let old “roommate code” stop her from saying hi.
She told him she’d had a crush on him since that 2012 holiday party, that she’d spent the whole night watching him fix the broken toilet in the guest bathroom when everyone else was drunk playing charades, that she’d never said anything because she’d thought he and his ex were happy. He didn’t say anything for a minute, just listened to the waves crash, felt the warmth of her shoulder through his flannel, realized the guilt he’d been carrying was all his own, that there was no unwritten rule saying he couldn’t be happy now, not after eight years of eating frozen burritos alone and sleeping on the side of the bed that didn’t smell like his ex.
He told her he had a custom redfish lure he’d carved a week prior, painted the same bright blue as the Gulf at high noon, that he’d been meaning to give it to someone who’d actually use it instead of letting it collect dust on a shelf. She turned to face him, her hand brushing his again, her eyes dark and soft in the dusk, and asked if his workshop was warm. He said it was, the space heater he’d gotten for Christmas ran all night, and when she laced her fingers through his calloused, scarred ones, he didn’t pull away. They walked back up the pier together, the distant pop of the fire department’s fireworks starting behind them, lighting up the sky in bursts of red and gold as they stepped onto the sand.
