Manny Ruiz is 53, runs a vintage camper restoration shop out of a weathered red barn 12 miles outside Asheville, North Carolina. He’s spent the last eight years avoiding anything that could land him on the small town rumor mill, ever since his wife left him for a Charlotte real estate agent and every waitress at the diner spent six months slipping him free pie with sympathetic side eyes. His flaw is that he’d rather turn down a good thing than risk being the topic of someone’s porch conversation again, so he sticks to work, six days a week, and a single draft beer at the highway dive bar every Friday night, no detours.
He’s at the county fair on a Tuesday evening because the 1972 VW Bus he restored for a client won third place in the custom vehicle contest, and he’s killing time before the fireworks, not eager to head back to the empty loft above his barn. The asphalt under his scuffed work boots is sticky with spilled soda and cotton candy syrup, the air smells like fried Oreos and diesel fumes from the Tilt-A-Whirl, and he’s half paying attention to a group of teens screaming on the rollercoaster when he spots the used book booth tucked between the 4-H goat show and the lemonade stand. He’s been hunting for a beat-up copy of *Desert Solitaire* for three months, ever since his old one got waterlogged when a pipe burst in the shop, so he veers over.
The woman running the booth has auburn hair streaked with sunbleached gold, a smudge of blue ink on her left wrist, and a thrifted linen sundress the color of wild clover. She’s 48, just moved to town three months prior to run the county library system, and she holds up the exact copy he’s looking for before he even opens his mouth, like she’s been waiting for him. Their fingers brush when he takes the book, calluses on his hands from sanding fiberglass catching on the soft skin of her knuckles, and neither of them pulls away for half a beat longer than necessary. She leans in over the fold-out table, close enough that he can smell coconut sunscreen and the faint, sweet scent of peach iced tea on her breath, and asks if he’s the guy who restores the old campers he sees parked along the highway.
Manny freezes for a second, glancing over her shoulder to see if anyone he knows is watching. The last time he talked to a woman who wasn’t a client or his cousin was six months ago, when the feed store clerk asked him if he needed help loading hay, and he’d stammered so bad he walked out with three extra bales he didn’t need. He almost mumbles an excuse to leave, but she’s grinning, like she can see how flustered he is, and asks him about the custom paint job he did on a 1968 Airstream last spring. He ends up leaning against the booth for 45 minutes, talking about fiberglass repairs and vintage stove parts, forgetting to check if anyone’s watching, until the first warning siren for the fireworks blares over the fair speakers.
She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, tilts her head toward the hill on the far edge of the fairgrounds, and asks if he wants to watch the show from her pickup, which is parked up there away from the crowd. Manny’s first instinct is to say no, to make up an excuse about having an early appointment, to run back to his barn and hide like he always does. But she’s holding eye contact, her green eyes bright under the string lights strung above the booth, and he’s suddenly sick of being the guy who hides from things that feel good. He says yes.
They walk up the dirt path to the hill, their shoulders brushing every few steps, and when they climb up into the cab of her beat-up Ford F-150, the first red firework bursts in the sky, painting the inside of the truck pink. She leans into his side, her shoulder warm through the thin cotton of his work shirt, and Manny doesn’t hesitate before he wraps his arm around her waist, his palm settling on the soft curve of her hip through the linen dress. No one can see them up here, no one’s whispering about him, all he can hear is the boom of the fireworks vibrating in his chest and her quiet laugh when a particularly bright blue firework bursts above the treeline. She tells him she’s been trying to fix the screen door on her 1969 Scotty trailer for weeks, and no one in town has been able to find the right parts.
After the last firework fades, Manny pulls his business card out of his wallet, scribbles his personal cell number on the back, under the shop line, and tells her he’s got the exact screen door parts she needs in his shop, he’ll come by her place tomorrow morning at 9, no charge. She tucks the card into the neckline of her dress, winks, and says she’ll have cold peach iced coffee waiting for him, extra sugar, just how he mentioned he likes it earlier.
Manny walks back to his own pickup, the beat-up copy of *Desert Solitaire* tucked under his arm, and doesn’t stop at the dive bar on his way home like he usually does. He pulls into the barn’s gravel driveway, grabs the spare screen door parts from the shelf by his workbench, sets them by the front door so he won’t forget them, and falls asleep on his loft couch that night with the book open on his chest. He wakes up ten minutes before his alarm the next morning, already pulling on his work boots, the taste of peach iced tea on his tongue before he even leaves the house.
