Arlo Mendez, 62, retired highway construction foreman with knuckles crisscrossed with old scar tissue from 38 years of pouring asphalt and patching potholes, leaned against the leg of a folding table at the annual Westlake Fire Department chili cookoff and sipped a lukewarm Shiner Bock. He’d avoided the event for three years running, but his old crew had badgered him until he caved, hauling his award-winning brisket chili in a dented crockpot he’d owned since his wedding in 1987. His thumb brushed the faded Amarillo job site sticker on the crockpot’s side, and he almost packed up and left right then, still bitter that the woman he’d married had run off with his crew lead before the sticker had even lost its gloss.
The crowd hummed around him, thick with the smell of cumin and burnt mesquite, kids screaming as they chased each other with water guns, old men yelling over each other about last weekend’s high school football game. He was just reaching for a stack of sample cups when a shoulder brushed his, soft but firm, the flannel of her shirt rough against his bare forearm. He turned, ready to snap at whoever had jostled him, and froze.
Lila Marquez was 48, had moved back to town two months prior to run the senior center’s meal delivery program, and was his ex-wife’s first cousin. He’d only met her once, at his wedding rehearsal dinner, when she’d been 16 and had snuck a beer out of his cooler and told him his chili was the only thing making the whole weekend bearable. She was taller now, her dark hair streaked with silver at the temples, a smudge of what looked like engine grease on her left cheekbone, and she was holding an empty sample cup, grinning like she knew exactly who he was and exactly how flustered he was right now.
He opened his mouth to say hello, and nothing came out. She laughed, a low, throaty sound that cut through the noise around them, and leaned in a little closer, close enough that he could smell vanilla and peppermint on her breath, close enough that he could see the tiny scar above her right eyebrow, the one she’d gotten falling off a four wheeler when she was a kid, the story his ex had told him a hundred times. “You still make that brisket chili with the coffee and chipotle rub?” she asked, nodding at his crockpot. “I’ve been asking around about it for weeks.”
Arlo’s brain short-circuited. Half of him was screaming that this was a terrible idea, that his ex would hear about this before the sun went down, that she’d post scathing rants on the town Facebook group, that she’d badmouth him to every waitress at the diner he ate at three times a week. The other half of him was fixated on the way her hand was resting on the table six inches from his, the way her nails were chipped from working on something, the way she was holding eye contact like she wasn’t scared off by his reputation as the grumpy old guy who lived alone with two hound dogs and talked to no one unless he had to.
He grabbed a sample cup, ladled in a scoop of chili, and held it out to her. Their fingers brushed when she took it, her skin warm, calloused at the fingertips, and he felt a jolt go up his arm that he hadn’t felt since he was 20 years old and kissing his ex for the first time in the parking lot of the local drive-in. She took a bite, closed her eyes, and moaned softly, low enough that only he could hear it. “Tastes even better than I remembered,” she said, wiping a smudge of chili off her lip with the back of her hand.
They leaned against the cinder block wall of the station, catching their breath, the rain pounding so hard on the metal roof that no one else could hear them even if they tried. Lila turned to him, her hair stuck to her forehead, and reached out, brushing a drop of rain off his cheek with her thumb. “I know you don’t want to deal with the drama with my cousin,” she said, her voice soft, no teasing in it now. “I get it. But I just bought a 1972 Ford F100 that needs a full engine rebuild, and everyone in town says you’re the only guy who doesn’t overcharge and doesn’t half-ass the work. And I’d rather work on it with you than any other guy in this town. Ex’s drama be damned.”
Arlo stared at her for a long second, the sound of the rain in his ears, the feel of her thumb still lingering on his cheek. He thought about 12 years of eating frozen dinners alone, 12 years of working on pickups in his shop by himself, 12 years of avoiding any situation that might lead to something that felt even a little like vulnerability. He thought about his ex, running her mouth at the salon, and realized he didn’t give a single shit what she thought anymore.
“Saturday,” he said, nodding. “My shop is three miles out of town, on the old oak road. Get there by 9, I’ll have coffee made. And bring that chili recipe you said you’ve been working on, the one with the venison. We’ll test it for lunch.”
Lila grinned, leaning in and stealing a bite of chili off the spoon he was holding in his other hand, her lips brushing the metal. “Deal,” she said, winking. She grabbed her tote bag out of his hand, gave his forearm a quick squeeze, and turned to run back into the rain to help the firemen drag the keg under cover.
Arlo leaned against the wall, sipped the last of his beer, and watched her go, the rain dripping off the brim of his cowboy hat onto his shirt.
