Rafe Mendez, 52, retired hotshot crew boss, is leaned up against the dented aluminum beer cooler outside the Flagstaff VFW’s monthly fish fry, wiping fryer grease off the laces of his steel toe work boots with a crumpled napkin. The air smells like burnt batter, hushpuppies, and pine warmed by the late August sun, George Strait’s *Amarillo by Morning* warbling out of a crackling portable speaker slung over a pine branch. He’s avoided any non-work conversation for the last hour, content to sip his cheap lager and watch the neighborhood kids chase each other around the picnic tables with water guns. Since his divorce eight years prior, he’s made a point of keeping interactions with new people as short and transactional as possible, convinced anyone new will only end up leaving when his schedule gets messy or his stubborn streak flares too hot.
He spots her the second she walks through the chain link gate, clipboard tucked under one arm, khaki work pants caked with red dirt at the cuffs, steel toe boots instead of the stuffy blazers and pumps the last two county health inspectors wore. His jaw tightens immediately; the last inspector shut down their annual spring chili cookoff over a technicality about cold holding temperatures, and he’s still pissed about it, ready to argue the second she gets within ten feet of the fryer. She stops to talk to the kid running the lemonade stand first, laughs loud when the kid dumps a handful of extra cherries in her cup, and when she turns to head for the fryer her shoulder brushes his bicep, hard enough that he feels the rough texture of her canvas work shirt through his faded fire department tee. She smells like lavender hand sanitizer and coconut sunscreen, and for half a second he forgets the argument he’d rehearsed in his head.
She holds out a hand to shake when he steps in front of the fryer, calluses rough on the pad of her index finger where it brushes his knuckle, and smirks when she sees the scowl on his face. “Relax,” she says, nodding at the temperature gun he’s holding in his other hand, the one he uses to test the fryer oil every ten minutes, “I’m not here to shut anything down. Just here to make sure no one leaves here with a side of salmonella to go with their catfish.” Her name is Lena, she says, she just moved to the county three months prior, spent the morning testing well water at a homestead up the mountain, didn’t even know the fish fry was happening until she drove past. He hands her the temperature gun without thinking, their fingers brushing again when she takes it, and he notices her nail polish is chipped navy, the same shade he used to paint his old crew rig’s bumper.
He offers her a beer ten minutes later, after she’s signed off on all their paperwork, teased him about the grease caked under his fingernails, asked about the thin scar slicing across his left cheek. He tells her about the 2019 Camp Fire, a falling oak branch that shattered the windshield of his crew rig when they were evacuating a nursing home, and she doesn’t wince or give him that sad pitying look most people do when he talks about the fires, just asks how many people they got out, if his crew was okay. They lean up against the split rail fence bordering the parking lot, their knees knocking every time someone walks past with a plate of food, and he finds himself rambling about the 1972 Airstream he’s fixing up in his garage, the two old hound dogs he adopted from the shelter last year, stuff he hasn’t told anyone since his ex wife left. He’s fighting a stupid, unfamiliar urge to lean in closer, to tuck the strand of auburn hair that’s fallen in her face behind her ear, and he hates it, hates how fast he’s letting his guard down after eight years of deliberately keeping everyone at arm’s length.
She checks her watch an hour later, tucks her clipboard back under her arm, and holds her phone out to him, screen open to a new contact page. “I’ve got a 1968 Scotty Camper parked in my driveway with a leaky roof,” she says, grinning when his ears go pink, “heard you’re the guy to call for that. And if you fix it, I’ll buy you tacos at that little spot down on Route 66, the one with the green chile margaritas.” He hesitates for two full seconds, half ready to make up an excuse about being too busy, too booked out for the next three months, before he types his number in, adds a tiny fire emoji next to his name. She laughs when she sees it, tucks her phone back in her pocket, and leans in to hug him quick, her hair brushing his jaw, the vanilla scent of her lip gloss catching him off guard.
He watches her drive off in her beat up forest green Subaru, dust kicking up behind the tires as she turns onto the highway, and reaches into his front pocket, pulls out the tiny corgi sticker she dropped when she was pulling her clipboard out earlier, the edge crumpled where he stepped on it by accident. One of the guys from the VFW yells from the fryer that the next batch of catfish is ready, cold beer on him if Rafe comes to grab a plate. He doesn’t move, just sticks the corgi sticker to the back of his phone, right next to the old hotshot crew sticker he’s had there for ten years.
