Rico Marquez is 62, retired commercial abalone diver, spends most days fixing up old fishing reels for the local bait shop and avoiding his youngest daughter’s constant requests to “get back out there.” He lost his wife to ovarian cancer eight years prior, and has spent every year since clinging to the quiet, uncomplicated routine he’s built for himself—no surprises, no messy feelings, no risk of hurting anyone else or getting hurt himself. It’s a flaw he’s fully aware of, even if he won’t admit it out loud.
He’s manning his taco stand at the annual Morro Bay Fire Department cook-off on a 92-degree August afternoon, sweat beading at the edge of his salt-and-pepper buzzcut, the scar across his left cheek from a 2007 great white encounter tingling in the heat. He’s been entering his smoked abalone tacos in the seafood category for 12 years straight, has nine first place ribbons tucked in a shoebox under his bed, and usually sells out of his 200-taco batch before 3 p.m. The line wraps around the beer tent, the air thick with the smell of grilled tri-tip, coconut sunscreen, and salt coming off the bay.
He’s just wiped grease off his calloused hands on his faded dive team hoodie when she steps up to the counter, and his throat goes dry. Clara Hale, 48, his daughter’s former high school volleyball coach, the woman he’d sat across from at dozens of parent-teacher conferences back when Lila was 16, the one who’d benched Lila for three games after she skipped practice to go to a concert, the one he’d always secretly thought was too sharp, too bright, to be stuck coaching small town high school sports. Her curly auburn hair has more silver strands at the roots than he remembers, she’s wearing cutoff denim shorts and a faded Cal Poly volleyball tee, a sunburn blushing across the bridge of her nose, a half-drunk hazy IPA in one hand.
“Three of the abalone tacos, please,” she says, grinning, and her voice is rougher than he remembers, like she smokes a couple cigarettes a day after practice. He nods, fumbles with the paper plates, his hands shaking a little for no reason he wants to name. When he hands her the plate, their fingers brush, and he feels a jolt run up his arm, like when he’d accidentally touched a live underwater wire back in 2019. She doesn’t pull away right away, her thumb grazing the scar on his knuckle from a reel accident, before she takes the plate, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
She leans against the counter while she eats, close enough that he can smell her lavender lip balm over the smoke from the grill, her knee brushing his when a group of kids dart past chasing a runaway beach ball. He keeps catching her looking at him, not glancing away when he meets her eye, like she’s not embarrassed to be caught staring. He’s equal parts flustered and furious at himself for noticing how her freckles go down past the neckline of her tee, how she laughs so hard at a bad joke one of the firefighters tells that she snorts a little, how she licks lime juice off her thumb like she doesn’t care who’s watching.
Part of him is disgusted, if he’s honest. He’s known her for 14 years, has always thought of her as Lila’s coach, an off-limits authority figure, not someone he could be attracted to. It feels like a betrayal, to his wife, to Lila, to the unspoken rules of small town life that say you don’t date people you knew in a parental context. He almost makes an excuse to go restock limes in the cooler, to get away from her, when she wipes her hands on her shorts and leans in a little closer, her voice low enough that only he can hear it over the noise of the crowd.
“I don’t suppose you’re free after you wrap up here?” she says, tilting her head. “I’ve got a cooler of cold beer down at the driftwood logs by the water. Been trying to work up the nerve to ask you out for three years, figured if I didn’t do it today I never would.”
He freezes, his hand halfway to the stack of napkins. Every part of him wants to say no, to stick to his routine, to avoid the mess of wanting something again. But he looks at her, at the tiny crinkle at the corner of her eyes when she’s nervous, at the chipped navy nail polish on her fingers, and he finds himself nodding before he can think better of it.
He wraps up his stand an hour later, after he sells his last taco to a kid in a shark costume, and meets her down at the beach. The sand is still warm through his scuffed work boots, the waves crashing low enough that the sound is almost a lullaby. She pats the spot next to her on a weathered driftwood log, and he sits, their shoulders pressing together when she shifts to hand him a cold beer. She tells him she retired from coaching last month, is starting a small business running beach volleyball camps for teen girls, that she’d always noticed him at the games, how he’d bring Lila extra oranges for halftime, how he’d stay late to help pick up the nets even when the other parents left early. He tells her about his wife, about how scared he’s been to let anyone new in, about how stupid he feels for being attracted to her when he’s always thought of her as Lila’s coach.
She laughs, soft, and reaches up to brush a strand of hair off his forehead, her calloused fingers grazing the scar on his cheek. “Lines are just made up by people who are too scared to be happy,” she says, and she doesn’t pull her hand away, cupping his jaw for a second, before she leans in and kisses him, slow, the taste of lime and IPA on her lips.
They stay there until the sun dips below the horizon, the air turning cool enough that he wraps his hoodie around her shoulders. He texts Lila when he gets home that night, says he’s taking Coach Hale out for oysters next Saturday. Lila texts back 20 seconds later, a string of eye roll emojis followed by FINALLY. I’ve been placing bets with the team moms that you two would get together for four years. He snorts, sets his phone down on the kitchen counter, and looks out the window at the moon glinting off the bay, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth he can’t fight even if he wanted to.
