Javi Ruiz is 59, makes his living restoring antique typewriters out of a cinder block garage behind his bungalow in the Blue Ridge foothills, and hasn’t asked anyone out in eight years. His only flaw, if you ask his older sister, is the stubborn rule he set after his ex-wife left him for a 28-year-old kayak instructor: no dating anyone more than five years younger than him. He swears it’s not pride, just self-preservation, doesn’t want to be some midlife crisis story for a kid half his age. He’d been dragged to the county summer craft fair that Saturday only because his sister threatened to drop off three boxes of her church widows’ casseroles at his shop if he didn’t make an appearance. He’d dodged her matchmaking booth within ten minutes of arriving, Mabel his golden retriever trotting at his heels, a BBQ pork sandwich in one hand and a sweating cup of lemonade in the other, and ducked down the craft vendor row to hide.
The first thing he noticed about the journal booth was the smell: warm beeswax, cracked leather, a faint hit of lavender sachets tucked between the stacks. The woman behind the table looked up from stitching a spine, dark hair streaked with one thick silver strand pulled back in a braid, and grinned before he could say a word. “Javi Ruiz? You still have that beat-up 1954 Royal you used to haul to my dad’s softball cookouts?” It took him three full seconds to place her: Lila, Tom Carter’s daughter, the kid who used to run around the ballfield stealing popsicles from the cooler back when he was 40 and playing third base for the rec league. He’d heard Tom passed last spring, knew she’d moved back to town to help her mom with the family hardware store, but hadn’t run into her yet.
The internal alarm was blaring the whole time. She’s 18 years younger than you. She’s Tom’s kid. People will talk. He kept waiting for the catch, for her to ask him for a discount on a typewriter repair, or mention a friend who thought older guys were cute, but she didn’t. She asked him about the custom keycap engraving he did for collectors, laughed so hard at his story about the guy who sent him a typewriter full of dead wasps that she snort-laughed, and when she pointed out a hand-tooled spine detail her hand brushed his wrist, light as dandelion fluff, and he felt heat crawl up his neck that had nothing to do with the July sun.
The sky opened up without warning, fat cold raindrops slamming into the tabletop, and everyone in the row scrambled to cover their stock before it got soaked. He grabbed two stacks of heavy leather journals before she could move, hauled them under the raised awning at the back of the booth, and when they both reached for the same box of embossed keys their hands tangled together. He didn’t let go for three long seconds. She didn’t pull away, just looked up at him, rain dripping off the end of her braid onto her flannel shirt, and said, “I’ve been asking my mom about you for three months. I always thought you were cool, even when I was a teenager and thought every guy over 30 was a total loser.”
He froze, every stupid excuse he’d been repeating to himself for the last hour sitting heavy on his tongue. He’d spent so long convincing himself anyone younger saw him as a walking retirement fund or a goofy novelty date that he’d forgotten what it felt like for someone to actually see him, not the age on his driver’s license or the gray in his beard. “I don’t do this,” he said, quieter than he meant to. “Date people that much younger. Got burned real bad once, figured it was better not to risk it.”
She rolled her eyes, not mean, just amused, and squeezed his hand before letting go to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Who said anything about a date? I said I want to bring green chile enchiladas to your place tomorrow night, see that Royal you never shut up about back in the day. Unless you’re too much of a coward to say yes.”
