Silas Ortega is 52, a vintage camper restorer based out of a tin-roofed shop outside La Grande, Oregon, and his worst flaw is that he’d rather sand fiberglass for 12 hours straight than make small talk with anyone who isn’t his 72-year-old part-time assistant, Marnie. His wife died in a car crash eight years prior, and he’s avoided even the hint of romance since, convinced any interest in another person is a betrayal of the 22 years they had together. He only showed up to the town’s annual summer street fair because his little sister threatened to drop off her three preteen sons at his shop for a full week if he skipped it.
He’s leaning against the post of the beer tent, cold IPA sweating through the paper coaster in his hand, when he spots her. Clara Bennett, 37, the new county public health officer who’d shut down his unpermitted outdoor break patio three months prior and hit him with a $400 fine he’d been deliberately ignoring. She’s wearing a rumpled linen button-down, sleeves rolled to her elbows, a smudge of white sunscreen streaked across the edge of her jaw, holding a paper cup of lemonade that’s already dripping onto her khakis. She steps up to the napkin dispenser right next to him, and their elbows bump when she reaches for a stack. The warmth of her skin seeps through the thin fabric of her shirt, and he yanks his arm back like he’s been burned.
He blinks, the sharp edge of his annoyance fizzling out faster than a dropped soda. They drift to the side of the tent, out of the flow of foot traffic, and their shoulders keep brushing because the space is so tight. She’s got freckles across her nose he never noticed when she was standing in his shop in a crisp uniform, handing him the fine notice, and she twists a thin silver ring around her middle finger when she listens, like it’s a nervous habit. He makes a dumb joke about the town mayor’s weird obsession with installing 3-foot tall lawn gnomes along Main Street, and she laughs so hard she snorts, clapping a hand over her mouth like she’s embarrassed. He’s suddenly hyper aware of how close she is, the faint smell of coconut sunscreen coming off her skin, the way her eyes crinkle at the corners when she smiles. He’s hit with a jolt of desire so sharp it makes his chest feel tight, and he feels sick with himself for a second—he hasn’t looked at a woman like that in almost a decade, and it’s the woman who fined him, the woman everyone in town complains about is a stuck-up city transplant from Portland.
A group of kids on skateboards come barreling around the corner of the tent, and one slams into her back hard enough to send her stumbling forward. He catches her around the waist without thinking, his calloused hand splayed across the soft curve of her hip, and she plants one palm flat against his chest to steady herself. He can feel her heart hammering under her shirt, fast as his own, and they freeze there for three full beats, too close, no space between them. He doesn’t let go first. He lifts his other hand, brushes his thumb across her jaw to wipe away the sunscreen smudge, and his skin catches on the soft stubble along her jawline he never would have seen from farther away. “You had a mark,” he says, quiet enough only she can hear it.
Her cheeks flush pink, and she tucks a strand of hair that’s fallen loose from its ponytail behind her ear. She doesn’t step back. “I get off shift in an hour,” she says, nodding toward the taco truck parked at the end of the street, the one that serves al pastor with grilled pineapple. “You wanna skip the rest of the fair and get something to eat? No talk of permits, no talk of fines. Just tacos.”
He hesitates for half a second, his mind jumping to the half-restored 1972 Airstream sitting in his shop, the stack of unopened mail on his kitchen counter, the framed photo of his wife on his nightstand. Then he nods. She pulls a pen out of her pocket, scribbles her cell number on a crumpled napkin, and tucks it into the breast pocket of his flannel shirt, her fingers brushing the cotton of his undershirt underneath when she does. She waves, turns to walk back to her booth on the other side of the fair, and glances over her shoulder once to wink at him before she disappears into the crowd. He stands there for another minute, sipping his warm beer, the napkin crinkling against his chest when he breathes, the faint smell of coconut sunscreen still clinging to the pad of his thumb.
