Javier Mendez, 53, makes his living restoring vintage travel trailers out of a cinder block and barn wood shop 20 minutes west of Austin, and he’s spent the last eight years avoiding anything resembling romance since his divorce. His biggest flaw? He’s a chronic people-pleaser, so terrified of letting someone down he’d rather skip the connection entirely than risk fumbling it. He’d volunteered to man the local Lions Club brat grill for the small hill town’s Fourth of July celebration mostly to get out of his sister’s annual pool party, where every distant relative would badger him about when he’d “finally settle down again.”
The July sun hung low enough to paint the oak trees pink when he first heard her laugh, cutting through the roar of the high school marching band and the chatter of kids chasing each other with water guns. He wiped sweat off his brow with the back of a grease-stained forearm, looked up, and froze. It was Lila, his ex-wife’s younger cousin, the one he’d only seen a handful of times at weddings and holidays before the split, the one he’d spent three days during a 2017 family camping trip deliberately avoiding because he couldn’t stop staring at the freckles across her nose. She leaned across the folding table stacked with paper plates and mustard packets, and he caught the soft scent of jasmine lotion over the acrid tang of charcoal smoke and burnt bratwurst. Her elbow brushed his when she reached for a napkin, and he fumbled the tongs he was holding, dropping a half-cooked sausage into the coals.
She laughed again, bright and unapologetic, and swatted his arm playfully. “Still as clumsy as ever, I see.” He’d forgotten how direct she was, how she held eye contact like she was actually listening to every word you said, instead of waiting for her turn to talk. He fished a perfectly charred brat off the grill, piled it high with sauerkraut and mustard, and slid it across the table to her, refusing to admit he’d been cooking it extra slow the second he spotted her walking across the field.
He expected her to grab the food and head off to join her family, but she dragged a folding stool around to his side of the booth, propped her elbows on the edge, and started asking about his shop. She’d seen his Instagram posts, she said, the shots of the 1972 Airstream Sovereign he’d just finished restoring for a couple from Portland, and she’d been daydreaming for months about renting a trailer to drive out to Big Bend for a solo trip. When a group of drunk college kids stumbled past yelling about fireworks, she leaned in closer to hear him talk about the custom cabinet work he’d done in the Airstream, her knee knocking against his under the table, and he could feel the heat of her leg through his worn denim jeans.
He fought the pull of it, at first. Kept reminding himself she was his ex’s family, that if anything went wrong it would blow up the whole extended family dynamic, that he’d just end up disappointing her like he’d disappointed everyone else he’d ever cared about. But she teased him about still drinking the same cheap root beer he’d loved back when he was married, tapped his forearm when she made a joke about his ex’s terrible camping cooking, and every time she smiled, the little crinkles at the corner of her eyes made his chest feel tight, like he was 17 again and working up the nerve to ask a girl to prom.
When the first firework burst red over the fairground, the crowd around them screamed and surged toward the field, and someone shoved Lila hard from behind. She stumbled forward into his chest, and he wrapped one arm around her waist automatically to steady her, his calloused hand splayed across the small of her back. She didn’t pull away. She tilted her head up to look at him, the blue and purple bursts of light painting her face every few seconds, and her hand rested flat on his chest right over his hammering heart, her thumb brushing the faded Tool logo on his sweat-stained t-shirt. He didn’t overthink it. He leaned down and kissed her, and she kissed him back, tasting like cherry seltzer and the spearmint gum she’d always chewed, the crackle of the fireworks echoing in his ears so loud he forgot anyone else existed.
They stayed like that for three full fireworks displays, his arm still around her waist, her hand tangled in the hair at the nape of his neck, until the last spark fizzled out and the crowd around them started cheering and heading for the parking lot. He offered to drive her back to her grandma’s house, but she shook her head, grinning, and asked if he could take her to see the Airstream first.
The barn was cool when they stepped inside, the smell of sawdust and old aluminum wrapping around them. He flipped on the string lights he’d strung above the trailer, and the soft golden glow bounced off the polished silver siding. She stepped inside the Airstream, ran her palm along the honey oak cabinetry he’d sanded by hand for three weeks, and turned to him with that same bright grin. “You know, we should probably test out the queen size mattress before I agree to rent it,” she said. He laughed, locked the barn door behind him, and flicked off the overhead light so only the warm string light seeped through the trailer’s frosted windows.
