Javi Ruiz is 57, has run his vintage neon sign restoration shop out of a converted East Austin garage for 19 years, ever since he quit his job as an electrician for the city. His biggest flaw is that he’s spent the last 8 years actively avoiding anything that even resembles a date, ever since his wife left him for a guy who sold custom water softeners and owned a boat. He tells everyone he likes the quiet, that he doesn’t have time for small talk or awkward dinner dates, and half the time he even believes it. He’s at the neighborhood spring crawfish boil because he fixed the beer garden’s flickering Lonestar sign last week, and the owner owed him a case of cold IPA and all the crawfish he could eat.
The steam off the giant boil pot curls into the warm April air, thick with the smell of cayenne, garlic, and sweet corn. He’s leaning against a splintered cedar fence, calloused fingers wrapped around a frosty plastic cup of beer, when someone bumps his elbow hard enough that a slosh of beer runs down his wrist. He turns, ready to snap, and stops. It’s Lila, the woman who’s been living with Jake, the auto body shop owner three doors down from his shop, for the last six months. He’s only ever waved at her from his work truck, or glanced at her loading potted plants into Jake’s pickup when he drives by the nursery she works at. She’s holding a paper plate stacked with boiled potatoes, laughing so hard her eyes crinkle at the corners, apologizing so fast the words run together, saying she was dodging a kid with a water gun and didn’t see him standing there.
Her forearm is still pressed to his, warm from the sun, and he can smell coconut sunscreen and citrus on her skin. He tells her it’s fine, wipes the beer off his jeans with the hem of his faded work tee, and she nods, gesturing at the neon sign graphic printed on his chest, says she’s been meaning to stop by his shop for months, asks how he gets the glass to glow that soft hot pink he used for the taco shop up the street. They end up leaning against that same fence for 40 minutes, talking. She shifts closer every time someone walks past with a heavy tray of crawfish, her shoulder pressed firm to his bicep, and she never looks away when he’s talking, not even when a group of Jake’s friends holler her name from across the field. She mentions offhand that she and Jake broke up two days ago, that he cheated on her with the front desk girl at his shop, and Javi’s chest tightens. Half of him is screaming that this is a terrible idea, that Jake has given him discounted body work on his work truck for 10 years, that the whole neighborhood gossips faster than the boil water bubbles, that he’s too old for this kind of mess. The other half of him is fixated on the way she tucks a strand of honey blonde hair behind her ear when she laughs, the chipped cherry red polish on her nails, the way her knee brushes his when she shifts her weight to stand more comfortably.
The sky opens up without warning, fat cold raindrops splattering hard against the top of his head, and everyone around them scrambles for cover. She grabs his wrist before he can even think to move, her fingers tight around his bone, and pulls him toward the small covered porch of the event office tucked behind the beer garden. The door slams shut behind them, the sound of rain lashing the tin roof so loud it drowns out every other noise, and they’re both breathing hard, damp spots blooming across their shirts. She steps closer, so close he can feel her breath on his jaw, and says she’s been wanting to talk to him since she moved in, that Jake always complained Javi was too stubborn and too slow, but she liked watching him carry neon tubes out of his shop at the end of the day, like he was carrying something fragile and important, like he was the kind of guy who actually finished what he started. He doesn’t overthink it. He cups her jaw with one calloused hand, the other resting light on her hip, and kisses her. She tastes like crawfish spice and lime seltzer, her hands fisting the back of his shirt, and he can feel the heat of her skin through the damp fabric, the small scar on her wrist from when she fell off a bike as a kid, the way she smiles against his mouth like she’s been waiting just as long as he has.
They pull apart when they hear the crowd outside cheering, the rain slowing to a soft drizzle, the sun peeking through the clouds again. She tugs a stray piece of Johnson grass out of his hair, grinning, and says she’ll knock on his shop door tomorrow at 2, wants to see that pink neon sign he’s been working on for the new burlesque club downtown. He nods, can’t think of anything to say that doesn’t sound stupid, so he just takes a sip of his now warm beer, watches her walk back out into the field, her jeans damp at the cuffs, her shoulders loose. He tucks the crumpled napkin she used to wipe a spot of crawfish butter off his cheek into the pocket of his work jeans, already counting down the hours until 2 PM tomorrow.
