Rafe Mendoza is 52, makes custom fishing rods for a living out of a cinder block workshop behind his Pensacola cottage, and he’s held the exact same grudge against his ex-wife for eight years straight. That grudge is why he’d skipped the annual Gulf Coast Seafood Cookoff every year since she left him for a timeshare developer with a perfectly trimmed goatee and a boat he didn’t know how to operate. He only broke the streak this year because his 19-year-old niece had entered her first gumbo contest, begged him for a ride, and threatened to hide all his favorite epoxy dyes if he said no.
He’d parked himself under a gnarled pine at the edge of the park, cold Miller High Life in one hand, baseball cap pulled low enough to avoid making eye contact with his ex, who was manning the welcome booth in a neon orange volunteer shirt. The air smelled like grilled shrimp, cayenne, and salt off the bay, and every time a group of people he knew walked past he’d pretend to be fascinated by the tag on his beer bottle. He was five minutes from bailing entirely when he saw her.
Lila was his ex’s younger cousin, 47, just moved back to the area six months prior after her husband died in a logging accident up in Oregon. He’d only met her a handful of times when he was married, always thought she was quieter than the rest of her loud, overbearing family, the kind of woman who’d sit in the corner at family dinners reading a book instead of screaming about college football. She was carrying a paper plate piled high with smoked oyster appetizers, flip flops slapping the dirt path, when her foot caught on a stray cooler cord.
She stumbled directly into his chest. His beer sloshed a little over the edge, her free hand clamped around his bicep to steady herself, the muscle hard under years of hauling fishing coolers and sanding rod blanks, scarred in spots from stray epoxy burns, and he caught the sharp, sweet scent of coconut sunscreen mixed with grilled garlic before he even looked down. Her hazel eyes, flecked with gold, locked onto his, and she didn’t pull away for three full beats, just laughed, low and warm, as a drop of oyster butter dripped off the edge of the plate and onto the sleeve of his faded gray flannel.
He tensed immediately. Everyone within a 20 foot radius knew who she was, knew his history with her family. The last thing he needed was gossip winding back to his ex, who’d already spent the last eight years telling anyone who’d listen that he was a reclusive asshole who cared more about graphite rod blanks than people. He tried to step back, but his work boot caught on a pine root, and he leaned in closer instead, their shoulders pressing together, the fabric of her thin cotton sundress soft against his arm.
“Sorry about that,” she said, running her thumb over the butter stain on his flannel, her skin warm and a little calloused at the edges, like she worked with her hands too. He glanced down and spotted the tiny blue marlin tattoo on the inside of her wrist, the exact same design he’d gotten inked on his ribs when he was 22, right after he caught his first 300 pounder 40 miles out. “I’ve been trying to get over here to talk to you for an hour, kept getting cornered by my cousin’s weird real estate friends.”
The mention of his ex made his jaw tighten, but she didn’t let go of his arm. She said she’d inherited her dad’s old deep sea rod when he passed, the one he’d used to win the town marlin tournament three years in a row back in the 90s, it had a cracked handle and the guides were rusted out, and she’d heard he was the only person within 100 miles who could restore it right. She said she knew he didn’t like her cousin, wouldn’t mention a word of it to anyone if he agreed to take the job.
He was halfway to saying no when his ex walked over, neon orange shirt glowing, her eyebrows raised like she was about to start a fight. Lila didn’t flinch, just smiled, held up the oyster plate, and said she’d been bugging Rafe for 20 minutes to fix her dad’s old rod, he finally caved. His ex stared at them for a long second, huffed, and walked off, muttering something about him wasting his time on stupid old junk.
Lila winked at him as soon as she was out of earshot. “Didn’t lie about the rod,” she said, pulling a crumpled napkin out of her shorts pocket and scribbling her phone number and address on it in blue ballpoint. “But I did use it as an excuse to talk to you. You make the best old fashioneds in the county, right? I’ve got a bottle of that small batch Kentucky bourbon you used to hide from my cousin at family Christmas. Stop by after the cookoff. I’ll even have the rod waiting.”
He stayed long enough to watch his niece take third place in the gumbo contest, scream loud enough to make the people next to him jump, and drop her off at her mom’s house with half the leftover gumbo in a Tupperware. He drove to Lila’s cottage 15 minutes later, it was tucked right on the bay, a little weathered blue porch swing hanging off the front, and she was sitting on the steps holding the beat up old fishing rod in one hand, the bourbon bottle in the other. He parked his beat up Ford F150, turned off the engine, and climbed out. The screen door creaked shut behind her as she stepped down the porch steps to meet him, barefoot, the salt wind tangling the ends of her hair.
