Rafe Ortiz, 52, has spent the last twelve years perfecting the art of ducking small town social obligations. The vintage outboard motor restorer can turn a seized 1968 Johnson into a purring showpiece in three days flat, but he’d rather sand a rusted crankcase for eight hours straight than make small talk with anyone who knew him back when he was married. His buddy Jimmy dragged him to the county fire department chili cookoff anyway, saying the brisket chili was worth the risk of running into someone from his old life. Rafe’s already counting the minutes until he can leave when he feels a hard bump to his left side, his half-eaten plate of chili sloshing onto the toe of his scuffed work boot.
He looks down first, at a stack of paper bowls scattered across the asphalt, then up, and his chest tightens. It’s Marnie Cole, his ex-wife’s cousin, the woman he’s spent a decade blaming for helping his ex lie about cheating in that 2011 fishing tournament that ended their marriage for good. Her hand is still wrapped around his forearm to steady herself, calloused from years of running her own charter fishing boat, and she smells like coconut sunscreen, cheap menthol cigarette, and the bean and beef chili she’d been carrying for the volunteer crew. “Shit, I’m so sorry,” she says, laughing like she’s not even mad she tripped over the cinder block holding down the tent line. Her hazel eyes crinkle at the corners, same as they did back when she was the only person at family cookouts who didn’t bug him about having kids.
He should pull away. He should mumble something short and walk back to his truck. But he doesn’t. “Watch where you’re going next time,” he says, no bite in it, and she snorts, wiping a smudge of chili off the side of his wrist with her thumb before she even thinks about it. Her touch lingers for half a second, warm, and she doesn’t look flustered when she pulls her hand back.
“I’ve been trying to track you down for six months, you know,” she says, leaning in a little when a fire truck siren wails down the main road, her shoulder brushing the faded Evinrude sticker on his worn cotton t-shirt. The heat from her skin seeps through the thin fabric, and Rafe’s mouth goes dry. She says she found out two years ago that his ex had rigged the tournament scales, that Marnie had tried to tell him back in 2011 but he’d already blocked all her numbers, left town for six months to work on a charter boat out of Corpus Christi. “I felt terrible about it for years,” she says, and he can tell she’s telling the truth, no edge, no agenda, just that same easy bluntness he always liked about her, back when he thought he had to hate her.
They stand there for forty minutes, leaning against the side of his beat up 2007 F150, talking about motors, about the redfish run that’s starting next week, about the way the town’s new mayor is trying to raise dock fees so high half the local charter boats will have to shut down. She leans in when he talks about the 1972 Evinrude he just finished restoring for a client up in Tampa, nods like she actually cares about the modifications he made to the carburetor to boost its low-end torque, and when a group of off-duty firefighters walk by yelling her name, she doesn’t leave, just waves them off, shifts closer to him so they don’t cut into their conversation.
Rafe’s fighting every instinct he’s honed for twelve years, the voice in his head yelling that this is a bad idea, that anyone connected to his ex is going to burn him eventually, but the longer he stands there, the lighter that grudge feels, like it’s just a dumb rock he’s been carrying around in his pocket for no reason. She’s the first person who’s made him laugh that hard in months, no pity, no questions about why he’s still single, no unspoken expectations.
The sun dips low over the gulf, painting the sky soft pink and tangerine, and most of the cookoff crowd is packing up their coolers and folding up folding chairs. She tilts her head at the weathered wooden pier a hundred yards down the road, says she has a cooler of cold IPA in her 4Runner, no talk of exes, no old drama, just beer and watching the dolphins swim by before it gets dark. He hesitates for two full seconds, thinking about the half disassembled motor sitting on his workbench at home, the quiet cottage he’s gotten so used to occupying alone, then nods.
They walk to the pier side by side, their elbows brushing every few steps, and she sits on the splintered wood edge, yanking off her white sneakers to dangle her bare feet in the cool, salt-heavy water. She hands him a beer, their fingers brushing when he takes it, and the can is so cold it makes his knuckles ache. She says she has a seized 1978 Evinrude sitting in her garage that she’s been trying to fix for a year, says every mechanic she’s taken it to says it’s a lost cause. “I knew you’d be the only person who could get it running,” she says, smiling at him, the last of the sun gilding the edges of her honey brown hair.
He tells her he can come over tomorrow morning, bring his own tools, no charge, as long as she has good dark roast coffee. She laughs, and her knee bumps his, warm through the thin fabric of his navy board shorts. He rests his hand on his knee, half an inch from hers, and doesn’t move it away.
