Manny Ruiz, 53, spends 90% of his days covered in aluminum shavings and sealant fumes, restoring vintage Airstreams out of a cinder block garage on three acres of rolling east Tennessee pasture. Eight years out from a messy divorce that left him convinced he was better off alone, he avoids community events like they’re contagious, only talks to other people when he needs to pick up parts or close a sale. His only consistent companion is a three-legged hound dog named Duke, and he’s perfectly fine with that. Or so he tells himself, when his next door neighbor bangs on his door at 2 p.m. on a Saturday, shoves a cold beer in his hand, and drags him to the local fire department’s annual chili cookoff.
The lot is packed, full of pickup trucks and folding tables strung with fairy lights, the air thick with the smell of cumin, smoked pork, and cheap lighter fluid. Manny hangs back by the fence, paper plate loaded with chili he has no intention of eating, already mentally mapping his escape route, when he turns too fast and slams into someone coming up behind him. Half his beer sloshes over the rim of the plastic cup, soaking the front of a pair of high-waisted denim jeans. He sputters an apology, grabbing a handful of napkins off a nearby table, and only looks up when he hears a familiar laugh.
It’s Lila Marlow, 29, the graphic designer who’s done all the custom decals for his last three Airstream builds, daughter of Jeb Marlow, his closest friend and the owner of the local feed store who’s sold him hay for his small herd of goats for five years. Manny has deliberately avoided being alone with her for the entire time he’s known her, partly because Jeb carries a 9mm on his hip and has bragged about running off three different guys who broke his daughter’s heart, and partly because every time they talk he can feel his chest tighten, like he’s a teenager again fumbling through his first date. He dabs at the wet spot on her thigh before he realizes how it looks, his calloused fingers brushing the soft denim, and she doesn’t flinch, just smirks and plucks the napkins out of his hand.
“Relax, Manny, I’ve spilled worse on these jeans,” she says, nodding toward the empty space at the back of a parked Ford F-150, away from the crowd. He follows her, and they lean against the truck’s tailgate for the next 20 minutes, talking about the half-finished 1972 Airstream he’s been restoring for the last three months. He notices she keeps shifting closer, her flannel-covered shoulder brushing his bicep every time a group of people walks past, she holds eye contact for a beat longer than necessary when he’s talking about how he strips the old aluminum siding, and when he makes a dumb joke about the time Duke chewed through a roll of sealant, she laughs so hard she rests her hand on his arm for a full three seconds before pulling away, like she didn’t even realize she did it. She smells like cinnamon gum and citrus shampoo, and Manny has to force himself not to lean in closer.
When she asks if he wants to drive back to his place so she can see the 1972 build in person, he hesitates for half a second. He can already hear the small town gossip, the comments about a 53-year-old guy hanging out alone with his friend’s 29-year-old daughter, the jokes that he’s having a midlife crisis. But she’s looking at him like he’s not just the guy who fixes old campers, like she actually cares about the work he does, so he nods.
The garage is lit by string lights strung across the ceiling, the radio playing a low 90s country station he left on that morning. Lila steps up into the Airstream first, turning around to hold her hand out to help him climb the small step, and their fingers lace together for a long, warm second before he pulls himself up. The inside is half gutted, the original wood floors sanded down, new windows propped against the counter waiting to be installed. She runs her hand along the aluminum wall, turning to face him, and says she’s been wanting to ask him out for six months, was scared he’d turn her down because of the age gap, because her dad is his friend.
Manny feels his throat go tight. He’s spent so long convincing himself no one would be interested in him for anything other than a free camper repair that he didn’t even notice the signals she’s been sending for months. He admits he’s been avoiding her for the exact same reasons, and before he can say anything else, she leans in and kisses him. It’s slow, soft, he can taste the root beer and chili she was eating earlier, her hand resting on the back of his neck, his own hand hovering for a second before he rests it on her waist, light, like he’s scared she’ll pull away.
He hears a truck pull up outside the garage a minute later, and pulls back, his stomach dropping when he sees Jeb through the Airstream window, holding a case of beer, waving. Lila just laughs, wiping a smudge of chili off his chin with her thumb, and says she texted her dad earlier, told him she was gonna ask Manny out, said Jeb told her he always thought Manny was a good guy, as long as he didn’t break her heart he had no problem with it.
Jeb comes in, cracks three beers, sits on the floor of the Airstream with them for 20 minutes, talking about a coffee shop owner in Knoxville that wants a custom Airstream pop up, a client Lila referred. When he leaves, he claps Manny on the shoulder, winks, and tells him to have Duke walk Lila to her car later if it gets dark.
Lila leans against Manny’s side, and he wraps his arm around her, running his thumb over the back of her hand as she rambles about the custom neon decal she wants to design for the coffee shop Airstream. Somewhere outside a cricket chirps, and for the first time in eight years, Manny doesn’t feel the urge to rush anyone out of his space.
