Rico Marquez is 59, runs a vintage travel trailer restoration shop out of a weathered cedar barn 12 miles east of Austin, and has held a petty, unshakable grudge against the Small Business Administration since 2017, when a part-time loan officer missed three line items on his expansion application and denied him the cash he needed to add a second work bay. He’s also stubborn to a fault, and swears he’ll never mix business with anything romantic, ever again, after a 2021 fling with a client left him with a one-star Yelp review that claimed he “prioritized sanding Airstream siding over texting back.” He’d only shown up to the monthly Main Street small business meetup that late April Thursday because his best friend Mike, the local feed store owner, had threatened to stop dropping off free bags of oak shavings for his sanding booth if he bailed again.
The bar smelled like smoked pecans, hazy IPA, and the faint, sweet tang of someone’s peach vape. Rico was leaning against the sticky oak bar, nursing a cold lager and mentally mapping the fastest exit to the parking lot, when a woman reached for the same bowl of spiced nuts he’d just stretched for. Their knuckles brushed. His were rough, crisscrossed with tiny, faded scabs from snips and sanding blisters, hers soft, with a dainty silver sunflower tattoo curled around her left wrist. She held eye contact for a beat longer than strictly polite, the corner of her mouth tugging up in a half-smirk, and pulled her hand back slow. “Sorry,” she said, her voice low, a little rough around the edges like she spent all day on the phone. “Didn’t see you reaching.”
He grunted, pushed the bowl a few inches her way, and was already turning to make his escape when she sat down on the bar stool next to him, close enough that he could feel the heat off her shoulder through the thin cotton of her work shirt. She introduced herself as Lena, the new SBA regional rep, just relocated to the area from Portland two weeks prior. Rico tensed immediately, jaw tightening, and told her straight about the 2017 loan denial, every petty detail, the way he’d had to work 18 hour days for 18 months to save up the cash for the bay himself. She didn’t get defensive. She laughed, quiet and warm, and said she’d pulled his file earlier that week, that the old rep had been fired for blowing off half his applications, that she’d already flagged his account to approve a second expansion loan, no extra hoops, if he still wanted it.
He didn’t know what to say. He leaned in a little to listen when she explained the new grant programs for small trade businesses, and the scent of her perfume hit him—cedar and orange blossom, warm, not cloying. Their heads were close enough that her shoulder brushed his when she reached for her glass of wine, and once, when he pulled up photos of the 1962 Airstream he’d been restoring for himself for three years, the one he planned to drive up to Alaska when he retired in six years, a strand of her wavy auburn hair brushed his temple. He didn’t pull away. He was fighting it, hard, that old rule buzzing in the back of his head, the leftover resentment for the SBA warring with the low, warm hum in his chest he hadn’t felt in years.
By 10:30, most of the other attendees had cleared out, the bartender was wiping down the back counter and stacking glasses, and the only sound left was the low rumble of the ceiling fans and an old Willie Nelson track playing quiet over the speakers. Lena leaned in even closer, her elbow resting on the bar next to his, and said the loan approval would come through by end of week, but there was one condition. Rico tensed, ready for some bureaucratic garbage, some extra form he’d have to fill out at 7 a.m. on a Saturday. She smiled, full this time, and said the condition was he take her out to the barn to see that Airstream first. “I’ve always wanted to do that Alaska drive,” she said, and her knee brushed his under the bar, deliberate, light.
He laughed, loud, surprised, and realized he’d been grinning for almost two hours, something he never did at these stupid meetups. He agreed, told her he had cold Shiner Bock in the mini fridge out at the barn, if she wanted to head over that night. He walked her out to his beat-up 2002 Ford F150, opened the passenger door for her, and leaned over to fasten her seatbelt out of old habit, the one his mom had drilled into him when he was 16. Her knee pressed against his chest for half a second while he clipped the buckle in, and she rested her hand on his forearm for a beat before pulling back, her palm warm through the worn fabric of his flannel shirt.
He slid into the driver’s seat, turned the key, and the Willie Nelson track picked up right where it had left off on the radio. She hummed along, tapping her sunflower-tattooed wrist against the dashboard. He pulled out of the parking lot, heading east toward the barn, already forgetting he’d ever had a stupid rule about mixing business with anything that felt this easy, this good.
