Javi Mendez, 52, makes his living rebuilding vintage outboard motors out of a converted boathouse on the north shore of Lake Travis. He’s spent the last eight years intentionally flying under the local radar, ever since his ex-wife left him for a real estate developer who sold her on a condo in downtown Austin with a walk-in closet bigger than their old lake house. His biggest flaw is that he’d rather spend three days troubleshooting a seized 1967 Evinrude than make small talk with anyone who might bring up his divorce, or the gossip that still lingers about who left who first.
He only showed up to the volunteer fire department fish fry because the chief owed him a free motor rebuild, and he’d promised to drop off the parts while he was there. He’s leaning against a loblolly pine, half a plate of soggy coleslaw and overcooked catfish in one hand, a lukewarm Shiner Bock in the other, watching a group of teens race golf carts across the grass when she walks up. He recognizes her immediately, even though he hasn’t seen her in 15 years, back when he was still married, when she was a college kid crashing his wedding reception for the free bar. Lila. His ex-wife’s first cousin.
She steps close enough that he can smell coconut sunscreen and the fried dill pickle she’s holding crinkling in its paper wrapper, close enough that he can see the faint smattering of freckles across her nose that he’d forgotten about. “You still wear that beat up Willie Nelson cap,” she says, nodding at the faded brim perched on his head, and her voice is lower than he remembers, warm, like she’s laughing at a joke only the two of them get. He opens his mouth to say something polite, to make an excuse to leave, when she reaches up to pluck a pine needle off the shoulder of his grease-stained work shirt, her knuckles brushing the thin, silvery scar on his forearm from the motor explosion that put him in the ER last spring. The contact sends a jolt up his arm that he hasn’t felt since before his ex moved out.
He tells himself he should walk away. That his ex would raise hell if she found out they were even talking, that the local gossip mill would run wild with it by sunrise, that it’s wrong, messed up, that he’s just bored and lonely and starved for any attention that isn’t about carburetors or spark plugs. But she’s asking about the 1968 Evinrude he posted about on the lake community Facebook page last week, says she’s been looking for one for the old aluminum fishing boat she just bought, and he finds himself talking, rambling even, telling her about how he tracked the motor down in a barn outside Waco, how he’d spent three months sanding off the rust, replacing the gaskets, tuning the carburetor until it purred like a kitten. She listens, leaning in, her eyes locked on his, no polite nods, no checking her phone, just genuine curiosity.
When the line for the beer tent dies down, he offers to buy her a cold one. She nods, and when he hands her the can, their fingers brush for half a second, the cold aluminum pressing between both their skin, and he swears he can feel heat radiating off her hand even through the can. She teases him about the time he got so drunk at his wedding he jumped into the hotel pool fully clothed, suit and tie and all, and he laughs so hard he snorts, a sound he hasn’t made in so long he barely recognizes it. He tells her about the otter family that’s made a home under his boathouse, about the way the lake glows pink at sunset this time of year, and she says she hasn’t seen a sunset over the water since she moved to the area three weeks prior, that she’s been too busy unpacking and lesson planning for her new high school biology job.
She asks if he’d drive her out to the boathouse to see the Evinrude, maybe catch that sunset while they’re there. He freezes for a beat, his brain screaming that this is a terrible idea, that crossing this line will burn every last bridge he has to his old life, that the small town gossip will be impossible to outrun. But then she tilts her head, a small, teasing smile playing on her lips, and he nods before he can talk himself out of it. He tosses their half-empty plates in the trash by the picnic tables, holds the passenger door of his beat-up 2006 Ford F150 open for her, and she climbs in, her shoulder brushing his chest as she leans across the seat to roll down the window.
He pulls out of the parking lot, turning down the rutted dirt road that leads to his boathouse, the sun dipping low over the water, painting the sky streaks of tangerine and lavender. The wind blows her dark hair into her face, and he reaches over without thinking, tucking a loose strand behind her ear, his fingertips grazing the soft skin of her cheek. She doesn’t pull away. She turns to him, that same teasing smile still on her face, and rests her hand on his forearm, right over the scar, her palm warm through the thin fabric of his work shirt. He doesn’t take his eyes off the road, but he laces his fingers through hers, squeezing gently, and for the first time in eight years, he doesn’t care who sees.
