Elias Voss, 53, has restored 117 vintage outboard motors in the 12 years since his wife packed her bags and left their panhandle cottage for a marketing job in Atlanta. He’s got calluses so thick he can pick up a red-hot oyster shell off a roast pit without flinching, a habit that makes the guys at the marina call him “Fireproof Voss.” His biggest flaw is that he’s turned avoiding any kind of emotional vulnerability into a competitive sport; he’d rather spend three nights rebuilding a seized 1968 Johnson than sit through a first date, convinced any new relationship would only tear up the quiet, predictable routine he’s spent a decade building.
He only showed up to the county coastal cleanup oyster roast because his buddy Ray owed him $200 for a motor rebuild, and Ray said he’d hand over the cash only if Elias stayed for at least an hour. The air reeks of oak smoke, brine, and cheap domestic beer, and the ground under his scuffed work boots is muddy enough that he can feel damp seep through the hole in his left sock. He’s already halfway through his second beer, scanning the crowd for Ray, when he spots Lila Marquez.
She’s the 38-year-old county coastal resources manager who’s been sending him passive-aggressive emails for six months about minor oil runoff from his shop’s wash rack, and he’s done everything short of hiding in the storage closet when she drops by the marina. She’s wearing a faded yellow sundress dotted with oyster juice splatters, her dark hair pulled back in a messy braid, and she’s laughing so hard at something a retired shrimper said that her eyes crinkle shut. Elias turns to leave, but she spots him before he can make it to the parking lot, and she starts walking over, holding a cold can of IPA in each hand.
He tenses up, fully expecting her to launch into a lecture about sediment contamination or stormwater permits, but instead she holds out one of the beers, and their fingers brush when he takes it. Her skin is cold from the can, and she has a tiny scar across her knuckle from what looks like a fishing hook accident. “I’ve been meaning to tell you,” she says, leaning in a little so he can hear her over the noise of the bluegrass band playing by the tent, “the 1978 Evinrude you restored for my uncle last spring? Runs like a dream. I took it out chasing sea turtles last week, didn’t sputter once.”
Elias blinks. He’d assumed she only thought of him as the grumpy mechanic who ignored her emails. He nods, taking a sip of the beer, which is hoppier and better than the cheap stuff he’d been drinking. “Thought you were here to yell at me about the wash rack,” he says, and she snorts, leaning against the live oak next to him, her shoulder a bare inch from his.
“Only if you keep dumping motor oil down the drain,” she says, teasing, and he can smell salt and coconut sunscreen on her skin, the same scent that sticks to his waders after a long day out on the bay. He’s suddenly hyper-aware of the 15-year age gap, the fact that everyone in this town knows she’s the “government lady” who’s been fining local businesses for environmental violations, that half the guys at the marina call her a pain in the ass. He feels a sharp twist of something that’s half disgust at his own stupidity, half hot, unnameable desire, the kind of reckless feeling he hasn’t had since he was 19 and snuck into a bar with a fake ID.
They talk for 45 minutes, the crowd around them thinning as people drift home with coolers of leftover oysters, and she tells him she grew up fishing with her dad in the same bay he’s been sailing his whole life, that she took the county job because she wanted to protect the water, not punish the people who make their living on it. He tells her about the time he raced bass boats with his dad as a kid, about the 1956 Evinrude he’s been restoring in his spare time that he plans to mount on the front of his beat-up old Boston Whaler.
When they wander down to the water’s edge to watch the sunset paint the sky pink and tangerine, she leans in suddenly, her shoulder pressing fully against his, and points to a manatee surfacing 20 yards out, its snout glistening in the golden light. “I’ve stopped by your shop a couple times after hours,” she says, quiet, like she’s admitting something she’s embarrassed about, “just to watch you work. You look so focused, like nothing else in the world exists except that motor. I was too nervous to say hi, ‘cause you always looked like you’d bite my head off if I interrupted.”
Elias laughs, a rough, rusty sound he hasn’t made in years. He’s fully aware that any of the remaining guests could look over and see them, that the small-town gossip mill would run wild for weeks, that he’s breaking every rule he set for himself 12 years ago. He doesn’t care. “I can show you how to adjust the carburetor on that Evinrude of yours tomorrow,” he says, pulling his cracked old smartphone out of his pocket to get her number. “If you want.”
She nods, grinning, and when she takes his phone to type her contact info in, her fingers brush his again, this time deliberate, slow. He doesn’t pull away.
