Manny Reyes is 62, retired electric lineman, 38 years with the Hill Country Electric Co-op, and stubborn enough that he’s turned down every blind date his sister has set him up on in the eight years since his wife Elena died. He’s got a four-inch raised scar snaking up his left forearm from a live wire that sparked mid-repair during Hurricane Harvey, still works 12-hour weekends restoring vintage pickups in the two-bay shop behind his house outside Dripping Springs, and mocks his fishing buddies mercilessly for going to the local senior center dance nights. He showed up to the town’s annual chili cookoff only because they begged him to judge the extra-hot category, and because the entry fee came with unlimited free Shiner Bock.
The air smells like oak smoke, chili powder, and roasted garlic when he steps through the fairground gates, peanut shells crunching under his scuffed work boots. The first booth he hits is the last one he should stop at: Lila Marlow’s. She’s Elena’s step-niece, 48, just moved back to town two months prior after her second divorce, and the church ladies at the First Baptist gossip about her like she’s a walking natural disaster. She’s leaning against the folding table behind a row of dented cast-iron pots, flannel unbuttoned one snap past what most folks in town would call decent, three freckles splayed across her collarbone catching the sun. She grins when she sees him, leans across the table to hand him a small sample cup of chili, and her bare wrist brushes the raised scar on his forearm. The contact sends a jolt up his arm he hasn’t felt since before Elena died.
He tells himself to walk away. This is the kind of small-town mess that’ll have people whispering at the grocery store for a year, that he’s betraying Elena’s memory even lingering this long. But he can’t move. She holds eye contact for three beats too long, the corner of her red mouth tugging up like she knows exactly what she’s doing. He can smell jasmine perfume under the smoke and chili, notices her nails are chipped pale blue, no fancy manicure, a tiny lightning bolt tattoo peeking out from under her flannel cuff, same as the old co-op logo he used to wear on his work shirts. A cover band off to the left grinds through a rough cover of Folsom Prison Blues, a kid screams as he chases a golden retriever through a stack of hay bales, and the habanero in her chili burns so hot his eyes water a little. She hands him a cold lemonade, their fingers brushing when he takes it, and teases him about the time he snuck her a Shiner when she was 17, visiting Elena for summer, lying to the gas station clerk that she was 21. He’d forgotten that happened entirely. She says she thought he was the coolest man alive back then, that she used to sit on his porch for hours watching him work on his trucks.
The sky opens up out of nowhere, fat cold raindrops splattering down so fast they soak through the top of his flannel in 10 seconds. Everyone yells and runs for the nearest tent awning. He grabs her elbow without thinking, yanks her toward his 1978 F-150 parked 20 feet away, and they huddle under the truck’s small passenger-side awning, pressed chest to chest to stay out of the downpour. Her wet hair drips onto his shoulder, she laughs so hard she snorts a little, and says she always knew he was the kind of guy who’d come to the rescue. He hesitates for half a second, then brushes a strand of wet hair off her face, his thumb grazing her cheekbone. She doesn’t pull back, just leans into the touch a little, her eyes going soft.
The rain slows to a drizzle 10 minutes later, leaving the air smelling like wet grass and petrichor. He asks her if she wants to come back to his shop, says he’s got a space heater cranked by his workbench, a pot of dark roast on, and the 1972 Chevy C10 he’s restoring that she mentioned she’s had a soft spot for since she was a kid. She grins, says she’d like that a lot, grabs her scuffed leather jacket off the back of her booth chair, doesn’t even stop to tell her friends where she’s going. He opens the passenger door for her, leans over to fasten her seatbelt once she climbs in, an old habit he never broke from his lineman days of checking every safety measure twice, and her knee brushes his when he leans across her. He turns the key, the engine rumbles to life, and he doesn’t even glance at the group of church ladies staring from the cookoff tent as he pulls out of the parking lot.
