Javier Mendez, 59, has restored 17 vintage tour buses in his East Austin shop over 22 years, and his most well-known flaw is that he’d rather sand a rusted wheel well for 12 hours straight than make small talk at a neighborhood event. His ex-wife left seven years ago, saying he cared more about a 1968 Peterbilt’s transmission than their anniversary trips, and he’d leaned into that reclusiveness ever since, only leaving the shop for parts runs and the occasional Saturday breakfast taco. When his regular parts delivery guy banged on his roll-up door last week raving about the neighborhood fall taco crawl’s new Oaxacan tamale pop-up, Javier surprised even himself by saying he’d go.
The air smelled like smoked pork and charred pineapple when he showed up, paper plate in hand, already halfway through an al pastor taco so juicy it dripped down his wrist. A kid with a powdered-sugar-dusted churro darted around a folding table, and a woman stepping back to avoid him bumped square into Javier’s chest, her elbow knocking the half-eaten taco out of his hand. He grunted, then froze when he looked down. It was Lila, his next-door neighbor who’d moved in three months prior, the one he’d only exchanged stiff, two-second waves with through their respective fence slats. Horchata dripped down the leg of her high-waisted jeans, her dark hair pulled back in a messy braid dotted with stray fall leaves, and she laughed so hard her shoulders shook.
She apologized three times in a row, offering to buy him three more tacos to make up for it, and Javier found himself saying yes before he could talk himself out of it. They stood off to the side of the crowd, their shoulders brushing every time someone squeezed past, and he noticed she smelled like coconut sunscreen and cinnamon, even though the temperature had dipped to 58 degrees an hour earlier. When she leaned in to ask him what the clanging sound coming from his shop every weeknight was, her hair brushed his forearm, and he had to pause half a second to remember how to speak. He told her about the 1972 Greyhound he’d been refurbishing for three years, the one he planned to drive all the way down to the Yucatán once it was finished, a secret he hadn’t told a single other person.
He’d spent years convincing himself anyone who wasn’t as obsessed with old buses as he was would find his plans boring, that dating at his age was just a recipe for another messy, disappointing end, but Lila leaned in even closer, her hazel eyes flecked with gold, nodding like what he was saying was the most interesting thing she’d heard all month. A mariachi group started playing a few feet away, and she had to press her whole side to his to hear him talk about the custom hardwood paneling he’d installed in the bus’s sleeping area the week before. Her hand brushed his when she passed him a carnitas taco, and the spark of the contact made his ears go hot, something he hadn’t felt since he was a teenager fumbling with his high school girlfriend’s seatbelt at the drive-in.
When the crawl started wrapping up, vendors packing up their grills, Lila asked if she could see the bus. Javier’s first instinct was to say no, to make up an excuse about the shop being a mess, about it being too late, but she bit her lower lip like she was nervous he’d turn her down, and he nodded. They walked the two blocks back to his shop in silence, their knuckles brushing every few steps, neither pulling away. He rolled up the shop door, string lights strung across the ceiling casting warm gold over the polished Greyhound, and Lila stepped past him, her hand brushing the small of his back as she went.
She ran her fingers along the wood paneling inside the bus, palm gliding over the custom leather seats he’d reupholstered himself, and when she turned to face him, she was so close he could taste lime and horchata on her breath. He didn’t overthink it, didn’t run through the list of reasons he shouldn’t, just cupped her jaw with his calloused, grease-stained hand and kissed her. She kissed him back immediately, her hands fisting in the front of his faded work shirt, and for the first time in seven years, Javier didn’t feel the urge to rush back to a project to avoid being vulnerable.
She pulled away a minute later, grinning, and dug a crumpled Tupperware of chocolate chip cookies out of her crossbody bag, saying she’d baked them for him two days earlier but had been too nervous to knock on his door. He led her over to the folding table by his workbench, pulled out a chair for her, and laced his calloused fingers through hers when she set the Tupperware down between them.
