Ray Garza, 53, retired Border Patrol K9 handler turned native plant nursery owner, stood in the same spot at the annual West Bexar County Chili Cookoff for 12 minutes, pretending to study handwritten score sheets taped to a folding table so he wouldn’t have to make small talk with the raffle volunteer. His boots crunched over discarded corn chip bags and dust kicked up by kids darting between picnic tables, the air thick with smoked brisket, cumin, and charcoal smoke that clung to his flannel shirt even through the light October breeze. He’d entered his smoked pasilla chili every year for seven years, never placed higher than fourth, and showed up anyway because the nursery went quiet this time of year, cacti going dormant, and he only had Mabel, his three-legged rescue heeler, and guilt over his last K9 partner Ajax, who’d taken a knife to the chest protecting him during a smuggling bust four years prior, waiting for him at home. Ajax survived, retired to live with Ray’s sister in Austin, but Ray still couldn’t shake the feeling that letting anyone get close meant they’d get hurt because of him.
He smelled jasmine and vanilla before he heard her voice, soft and warm right next to his ear, close enough that her shoulder brushed his bicep when she leaned in. “Is that your chili over there with the sign that says ‘Warning: Will Clear Your Sinuses And Your Social Calendar’?” Marisol, the potter who’d moved into the adobe two lots over three months prior, who’d brought him beef empanadas when he had heat stroke in August, who he’d avoided ever since, making excuses about busy nursery stock when she invited him to dinner. He turned his head, his nose almost brushing the top of her curly dark hair, a chili powder smudge bright on her left cheekbone. She held a paper plate loaded with Fritos and red chili, her fingers calloused from throwing clay, a chip of blue glaze under her thumbnail. He nodded, throat tight, and she laughed, the sound cutting through mariachi music from the far stage. “I tried a sample earlier. Tastes like you’re hoarding good smoked chiles. You gonna tell me where you get them, or do I have to bribe you with peach preserves I canned last week?”
The emcee’s voice boomed over the speakers then, calling everyone in for award announcements, and Marisol didn’t step back. She stayed pressed just close enough that he could feel heat radiating off her through her denim jacket, her elbow brushing his every time she took a bite of chili. Ray’s chest felt tight, half panic, half something he hadn’t felt in years: warm, slow, hungry, the kind of feeling he’d written off for people who didn’t carry a scar across their left forearm from that same bust that hurt Ajax. When they called third place, his name, Marisol cheered so loud the old guy next to them jumped, and she grabbed his arm, her hand wrapping around his bicep hard enough that he felt the ridges of her calluses through his shirt. He stared down at her hand, then up at her grinning face, no pity, no awkwardness, just uncomplicated excitement for him. He picked up the cheap wooden plaque, and she insisted on taking his photo with it, even when he said he hated having his picture taken.
They walked back to their trucks after the ceremony, the sun dipping low over the mesquite trees, painting the sky pink and orange, the crowd thinning out as people packed up coolers and folding chairs. Marisol was telling him about a custom mug order she’d just landed for a new coffee shop in town, when she tripped over a loose cinder block half-buried in the dust. Ray reacted on instinct, the same reflex he’d honed on patrol, catching her around the waist before she hit the ground, his hand splayed across her back, her chest pressed to his for half a second before she steadied herself. She didn’t step back right away. She looked up at him, her dark eyes soft, and she said, quiet enough that only he could hear, “You don’t have to keep shutting everyone out, Ray. I know you think you’re protecting people, but you’re just lonely.”
He froze, because no one had said that out loud to him, not even his sister. He’d spent four years convincing himself he was better off alone, that the risk of someone getting hurt wasn’t worth the company, but standing there with his hand still on her waist, smelling jasmine and vanilla, he knew he was tired of lying to himself. He lifted his other hand, brushed the chili powder smudge off her cheek with his thumb, her skin soft under his calloused finger, and said, “I know. I’ve just been bad at remembering that lately.” She smiled, leaned in just enough that her forehead rested against his, and said, “I can help you remember. If you want.”
He followed her back to her adobe, Mabel curled on his truck’s passenger seat, the plaque propped on the dash. She hung it on her fridge next to her state fair stoneware award, pulled out a jar of peach preserves, and they sat on her back porch. He gave her his flannel when she shivered, bit into a preserve-slathered saltine, sweet and tart, better than any chili he’d ever made. She rested her hand on his knee, warm and solid, and he didn’t pull away. Mabel curled at their feet, snoring soft, as the last of the sun slipped below the horizon.
