Elias Voss, 53, makes his living restoring vintage travel trailers out of the cinder block shop behind his house outside Asheville, and he’s carried the same stupid flaw for eight full years: he runs from any hint of romantic interest like it’s a faulty propane line waiting to blow. The habit stuck after his ex-wife left, said he cared more about rusted Airstream frames than he ever cared about her, and he’s never bothered arguing the point. He showed up to the small town fall beer festival straight from patching a 1971 Scotty’s axle, grease crusted under his fingernails, frayed Carhartt flannel still dotted with metal shavings, planning to drink two pumpkin ales and slip out before anyone tried to set him up with their cousin or their divorcee coworker.
The bluegrass band on the makeshift stage was cranking a fast cover of a John Prine track when she walked in, and he froze mid-sip before he could stop himself. It was Mara, his next door neighbor’s 47-year-old niece, the botanical illustrator who’d been in town three weeks, the woman he’d actively avoided since she showed up because hitting on your closest friend’s family felt like a line you just didn’t cross, no matter how many times you caught her staring at you while you worked out in the driveway. She was wearing a flannel almost identical to his, faded dark plaid, cuffs rolled up to her elbows, scuffed work boots, a leather-bound sketchbook tucked under one arm. She spotted him immediately, grinned, and cut through the crowd of flannel-clad locals and tourist families so fast she almost knocked over a kid holding a cotton candy cone.
She stopped so close their shoulders brushed when she leaned in to yell over the music, the cedar scent of her shampoo mixing with the smell of fried oreos and hops coming off the beer tent. “You and I are matching,” she said, plucking at the sleeve of his flannel with one finger, her calloused index finger (from holding pencils 12 hours a day, she’d mentioned once in passing) brushing his wrist so lightly he almost shivered. He mumbled something about not noticing, held up his beer, and she arched one eyebrow, held out her hand. He handed it over, watched her take a long sip, her Adam’s apple bobbing, and had to look away for a second to remind himself his neighbor would kill him if he so much as thought about kissing her.
They talked for 45 minutes, her leaning in every time he spoke like he wasn’t just rambling about the difference between aluminum and steel trailer frames, like she actually cared. She told him she’d found a beat up 1969 Scotty listed 20 minutes outside town, wanted to restore it to drive cross country for her next illustration job, asked if he’d come look at it with her the next morning. He almost said no, almost made up an excuse about a client deadline, before she rested her hand on his forearm for half a second, light as a sparrow landing on a fence post, and he found himself saying yes before he could think better of it.
The drizzle started right as the band wrapped their set, fat cold raindrops spotting the shoulders of their matching flannels, and he offered to walk her to her aunt’s house three blocks away. The street was quiet, most of the festival crowd still crowded around the beer tent or the food trucks, and their shoulders kept bumping as they walked, neither of them moving away. She fumbled with her keys when they got to the porch, dropped her sketchbook, and he bent to pick it up before she could, the book falling open to a page full of sketches of him: him bent over a welding torch, him squinting at a tape measure, him sipping coffee on his porch at sunrise, even the little grease streak he always gets on his left jaw when he’s working drawn in perfect detail.
He looked up, and she was bright red, shifting her weight from foot to foot, staring at a crack in the porch floor. “I’ve been trying to work up the nerve to talk to you for weeks,” she said, quiet, like she was scared he’d laugh. “Thought you hated me, the way you always hurried inside when you saw me outside.” He didn’t say anything, just stepped closer, close enough he could smell the peppermint lip balm she wore under the beer on her breath, and kissed her, slow, his hand coming up to cup her cheek, her fingers tangling in the hair at the back of his neck before he could second guess it.
She pulled back after a minute, grinning, swatting playfully at his chest. “9 a.m. tomorrow,” she said, already unlocking the front door. “Don’t be late, and bring your tape measure.” He nodded, walked back to his beat up Ford pickup, sat in the driver’s seat for a full two minutes, rain tapping on the windshield, staring at the grease crusted under his fingernails. He twisted the key in the ignition, turned up the old John Prine CD he had stuck in the player, and pulled out of the driveway, smiling so wide his cheeks hurt.
