Manny Ruiz is 62, retired air traffic controller, four years a widower, and he’s spent the last three weeks actively dodging his new next-door neighbor. He moved to the tiny Colorado mountain town six months prior to outrun Phoenix’s heat and the ghost of his wife’s empty side of the bed, and he’d grown used to keeping to himself: early hikes, pickup repairs, Friday nights drinking cheap beer alone on his porch. The last thing he needed was the town’s overactive gossip mill speculating he was “moving on” before he was ready, so when Clara, 58, sharp-tongued owner of the new used bookstore, moved into the blue bungalow beside his, he limited their interactions to two stiff, one-handed waves from his driveway.
He’s standing by the beer cooler at the volunteer fire department’s annual chili cookoff when he spots her, leaning against a picnic table, laughing so hard at the fire chief’s terrible joke that her eyes crinkle shut. She’s wearing a faded 1977 Fleetwood Mac tour tee, high-waisted jeans cuffed over scuffed work boots, a smudge of chili powder high on her left cheek. Manny’s got a crockpot of his dad’s Texas red chili set up on the far end of the table, the one he only makes once a year, half-hidden behind a stack of paper bowls, pretending to scroll his phone so he doesn’t have to make small talk with retirees pestering him about his winter firewood stock.
She sees him before he can duck away. She pushes off the table and walks over, boots crunching over loose gravel, stopping so close he can smell jasmine hand lotion and the smoky, cumin-heavy scent of the chili she’d entered wafting off her flannel shirt. Her shoulder brushes his when she reaches past him to grab a lime seltzer from the cooler at his feet, and he flinches like he’s been shocked, the kind of jolt he hasn’t felt since he was 16 and his first girlfriend held his hand at the drive-in.
“Been avoiding me, Ruiz?” she teases, twisting the seltzer cap open, grinning so he knows she’s not mad. She’s got a tiny silver hoop through her left nostril, a scar along her jawline from a childhood bike crash she’d mentioned once when she yelled over the fence to ask if he had a spare hammer. He stammers out a half-lie about being busy fixing the transmission on his 1987 Ford F-150, and she snorts, clearly not buying it. She reaches up to brush a pine needle off his flannel shoulder, her fingers lingering half a second too long on the bare skin of his forearm where his sleeve is rolled up, and his ears go hot, a flutter low in his stomach that makes him feel both stupid and alive at the same time.
Part of him recoils at the feeling, sharp and guilty, like he’s betraying Linda, his wife, by even noticing another woman, by letting himself feel anything but the quiet grief he’s carried for four years. The other part is hungry, starved for the easy banter he hasn’t had since Linda lost her ability to speak in the last months of her cancer battle. He spots a group of town regulars staring from a picnic table across the lot, the old hardware store owner winking and nudging the guy next to him, and Manny’s first instinct is to grab his crockpot and bolt, avoid the rumors that’ll be circulating at the diner by Sunday morning.
“Your chili’s the one with the brisket, right?” she says, nodding at his crockpot, ignoring the gawkers. “Heard three people already say it’s the best one here. Can I try a sample?” He grabs a small paper cup, ladles some in, and when he hands it to her, their fingers brush, calloused on calloused, both used to working with their hands. She takes a sip, tilts her head back, makes a low, soft noise that makes his breath catch, right there in the middle of the parking lot. “Holy shit, that’s perfect. Way better than the vegetarian garbage I made.”
She nods toward the row of houses at the edge of the lot, their two side-by-side bungalows visible through the pine trees. “I got a bottle of good reposado tequila back at my place, and a DVD of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly I found at a garage sale last weekend. Was gonna watch it alone tonight, but I’d rather not. You in?”
Manny glances over at the gossips, openly staring now, and for half a second he thinks about saying no, making an excuse about feeding his old hound dog, going back to his empty house to drink beer alone like he always does. Then he looks back at Clara, her grin softening like she’s ready to brush it off if he says no, no pressure, no expectations, and he nods.
They walk toward the houses together, their hands brushing every few steps, neither pulling away. Cold mountain air nips at his cheeks, the chatter of the cookoff fading behind them, crickets starting to chirp in the pine trees. When they get to her porch, she fumbles with her keys for a second, unlocks the front door, and the warm scent of old paper and cinnamon rolls hits him immediately. She steps aside to let him in, her hip pressing lightly against his as he crosses the threshold, and he doesn’t glance back at the street to see who might be watching.
