Elio Rizzo, 53, pulls into the parking lot of The Rusty Buoy at 7:17 PM every Thursday, same time, same spot under the cracked neon beer sign he fixed for the owner for free two years prior. He’s a vintage neon sign restorer, calloused hands crisscrossed with tiny burn scars from hot glass and frayed wiring, still wears the same scuffed work boots he bought the day he moved to this coastal Georgia town after his divorce was finalized 8 years back. His biggest flaw, the one his ex screamed at him about through the entire mediation, is that he’d rather spend 12 hours troubleshooting a faulty transformer alone than ask anyone to hold a wire for 30 seconds. He avoids small talk like he avoids dropping unprotected neon tubes, which is to say, religiously.
He slides into his usual stool at the far end of the bar, the one with the frayed vinyl edge he stitched himself with fishing line last summer, and nods at the woman behind the counter. It’s Lila, Tom Carter’s daughter, the guy who sold him his old gas station shop for half the asking price when he first moved to town. She moved back three weeks prior, he’d heard, after leaving a cheating husband and a corporate marketing job in Chicago, picking up part-time bartending shifts to cover rent while she looked for graphic design work. He’d only spoken three sentences to her total before that night, all at Tom’s annual Fourth of July cookouts, all about sign parts. She wipes a streak of beer foam off the counter with a rag, leans across the space between them, and sets down his usual PBR draft before he can order. Their knuckles brush when he grabs the glass, her skin soft against the raised scar on his left hand from the 1950s beach motel sign he’d dropped last winter. She pauses, runs her thumb over the scar for half a beat before pulling away, and he feels his ears go hot, the way they haven’t since he was a teenager getting caught making out in his dad’s garage.
They talk for an hour, slow, pauses filled with the clink of pool balls and the rumble of a diesel pickup passing outside on the coastal highway. She mentions she’s been helping Tom organize his garage full of old sign parts, found a brand new 12-volt transformer for the motel sign he’s been stuck on for two weeks, offers to drop it off at his shop the next afternoon. He almost says no, almost tells her he can swing by Tom’s house to pick it up, that he doesn’t let anyone in his workspace, but the way she’s looking at him, head tilted a little, smile playing at the corner of her mouth, makes the words stick in his throat. He nods instead, tells her to come by around 2, flags down the server to bring her a slice of the bar’s famous key lime pie as a thank you. When she takes the plate, her fingers brush his wrist, and he swears he can feel the pressure of it for 20 minutes after she walks away to take another table’s order. He leaves the bar an hour earlier than usual, his chest tight, half giddy, half guilty, because Tom’s the closest thing he’s had to a friend since he moved here, and thinking about his daughter in any way that’s not strictly professional feels like a low blow.
She shows up at his shop the next day at 1:58, holding the transformer in one hand and a Tupperware of peach pie in the other, wearing a faded Tom Petty t-shirt under a plaid flannel, jeans cuffed at the ankle, scuffed white sneakers. The shop smells like hot glass and sawdust, the half-restored motel sign propped against the back wall, pink and blue tubes half screwed into the dented metal frame. She sets the transformer down on his workbench, leans in to look at the sign, her shoulder brushing his chest when she points out a loose wire he’d missed three nights running. He can smell coconut shampoo and pine soap on her, hear her breath catch a little when he reaches past her to grab a screwdriver, his arm brushing her hip. He plugs the new transformer in, flicks the switch, and the sign hums to life, pink neon casting a warm glow over her face, the tiny freckles across her nose standing out bright against her skin. She turns to look at him, her face inches from his, and he doesn’t pull away when she tilts her head up, her lips brushing his for half a second before he kisses her back, slow, the taste of peach pie on her tongue, the rough fabric of her flannel under his fingers when he rests his hand on her waist.
They pull away after a minute, both laughing a little, embarrassed, giddy. She tells him Tom’s been dropping hints for two years that he should ask her out, that he’d told her Elio was the only good man left in this town who didn’t cheat on his wife or blow half his paycheck on lifted pickup truck mods. He snorts, can’t believe he spent two years avoiding her because he thought it would be disrespectful, when Tom had been trying to set them up the whole time. They spend the rest of the afternoon finishing the motel sign, eating peach pie off crumpled paper plates, her sitting on the edge of his workbench, him leaning against it, their knees brushing every time one of them shifts to adjust a wire or grab another bite of pie. When the sun starts to dip below the pine trees lining the property, he walks her to her beat-up Honda Civic, kisses her again, slow, against the door frame, the faint hum of the neon signs in his shop windows thrumming behind them. He reaches out, tucks a strand of wind-tousled hair behind her ear, and tells her he’ll pick her up at 7 the next night for barbecue at the spot down the road, no work talk allowed.
