Rafe Marquez, 53, vintage travel trailer restorer, had spent the last three months holed up in his garage sanding 1962 Airstream aluminum so smooth you could see your reflection in it, avoiding neighbors, avoiding calls, avoiding any situation that required more than a two-word answer. His biggest flaw, if you asked his next door neighbor Margot, was that he’d turned into a hermit the second his ex-wife drove away with the moving truck seven years prior, convinced every local within a five mile radius only wanted to ask him about the split, or set him up with their boring, tennis-obsessed sister. Margot had dragged him to the block party that night by threatening to stop bringing him her famous peach pie every Sunday, so he’d showed up in his grease-stained work jeans, beat up Red Wings, sipped sweet tea from a plastic cup, and leaned against the oldest oak tree on the street planning his escape.
He was ten seconds from slipping back to his house when Lena stepped in front of him. She was his ex-wife’s younger cousin, 48, in town from Portland to help her mom recover from knee replacement surgery, and he hadn’t seen her since the divorce papers were signed. She was barefoot, her strappy sandals broken by a kid on a scooter that had zoomed past her ten minutes earlier, wearing cutoff denim shorts frayed at the hem and a faded 1980s Willie Nelson tour tee that hung loose off one shoulder. She moved close to get out of the way of a group of teens carrying a keg, her shoulder brushing his sun-warmed bicep, and he caught a whiff of coconut sunscreen and lavender linen spray, the same scent her mom had used for decades when they’d visit for Thanksgiving back when he was still married.
He froze, half tempted to lie and say he had an emergency at the shop, but she smiled, the same gap between her two front teeth he’d always thought was unfairly cute, and teased him about still wearing the same boots he’d had on his wedding day. He laughed before he could stop himself, and they talked for 45 minutes, leaning closer and closer as the noise of the party faded into background buzz. She told him she’d always thought his ex was an idiot for leaving him because he’d rather spend weekends restoring trailers than going to stuffy country club galas, that she’d never met anyone who cared as much about making old things feel like home as he did. He fought the pull in his chest, half disgusted with himself for even entertaining the thought of being attracted to her—she was family, or had been, his ex would scream so loud the whole county would hear if she found out—but the desire was sharper, warmer, more real than anything he’d felt in seven years.
When she asked if he wanted to walk back to his place to see the Airstream he’d just finished, he hesitated for three full heartbeats before saying yes. They walked slow down the sidewalk, their hands brushing every few steps, the summer air thick with the smell of cut grass and grilled hamburgers from the party behind them. When he flipped the garage light on, she gasped, stepping past him to run her palm along the polished aluminum side of the Airstream, her fingers catching on the tiny engraved star he’d added above the door as a signature for every build he finished. She turned to look at him, her dark eyes glinting under the fluorescent shop lights, and said she’d had a crush on him since she was 19, when he’d showed up to her high school graduation with his ex and brought her a vintage 35mm camera she still used to this day.
He didn’t say anything, just leaned in and kissed her, and she tasted like peach seltzer and mint gum, her hands fisting in the front of his worn flannel shirt as she pulled him closer. An hour later they were curled up on the built-in linen couch inside the Airstream, his border collie Mabel asleep at their feet, the side window propped open so the sound of crickets drifted in. She said she was staying in town for three more weeks, and he told her he didn’t have a single client lined up for that entire stretch. He reached for her hand, laced his calloused, aluminum-dusted fingers through hers, and didn’t even care if his ex found out by the end of the week.
