Javi Mendez, 52, makes his living rebuilding 1970s-era Hondas and Harleys in a cinder block shop off East 6th in Austin, and he hasn’t so much as shared a coffee with anyone who wasn’t a customer or parts dealer in eight years. His ex-wife left him for a corporate consultant who wore custom loafers and never had grease crusted under his fingernails, and Javi took that as a sign he was better off sticking to carburetors and spark plugs, things that didn’t lie or leave without a half-written note taped to the fridge. The only time he leaves the shop before 8 PM is Thursdays, for the all-you-can-eat crawfish boil at The Rusty Tackle two blocks over.
He’s three pounds deep in shellfish, a sweating Shiner Bock perched on the warped plastic picnic table next to a pile of discarded tails, when he spots her. It’s Lila, the new county public health inspector who’d shown up at his shop unannounced three days prior, written him up for an expired fire extinguisher and a stack of oil rags sitting too close to the space heater, left him with a 30-day deadline to fix it or face an $800 fine. He’d been gruff with her, short, had written her off as another pencil pusher with a stick up her ass, until she’d glanced at the half-restored 1972 CB750 in the corner of his shop and said her dad had one just like it when she was a kid.
She’s wearing cutoff denim shorts and a faded Texas Longhorns tank top, a slung canvas bag over one shoulder, and when she waves and starts walking toward his table, he tenses up like he’s about to get another citation. The bench he’s on only has room for two more people, and when a pack of screaming kids chasing a golden retriever cuts her off mid-step, she slides onto the bench right next to him instead of across, her bare knee brushing the frayed hem of his work jeans for half a second. He can smell coconut sunscreen and lime seltzer on her, cutting through the briny Old Bay and boiled corn scent hanging over the whole patio.
“Came to make sure I’m not serving crawfish out of my shop?” he teases, peeling another crawfish, his fingers slick with cajun butter. She laughs, a low, throaty sound, and leans back against the bench, her shoulder brushing his bicep when she reaches for a paper plate off the stack next to him. “Off the clock,” she says, holding up her hands like she’s surrendering, no clipboard in sight. “I live three blocks over, this is my weekly cheat meal. Also, I saw your CB750 when I was leaving the other day. You’re doing a frame-off restore?”
He talks to her for 45 minutes straight without thinking about his self-imposed rules, about the list of repairs he has to knock out this week, about the fact that he hasn’t chatted with a woman this easy in almost a decade. She tells him she’s been separated for six months, waiting on divorce papers from a husband who hated motorcycles, hated her working weekends, hated that she didn’t want to move to the suburbs and pop out three kids before she turned 40. When they both reach for the same bowl of buttered corn at the same time, their hands brush, and he feels the rough callus on her left thumb from hauling inspection clipboards around all day, and neither of them pulls away for a beat too long, like they’re both testing the other to see who flinches first.
He’s the one who pulls away first, wiping his hand on his work pants, suddenly hyperaware that he’s got grease caked under his nails, that he’s 14 years older than her, that she could still fine him out the ass if she wanted to, that she’s still technically married, for God’s sake. He feels a twist of disgust in his gut, angry at himself for even entertaining the idea that this could be anything more than a casual chat, that he’s stupid enough to let himself get sucked into something that’s only going to end badly. He goes quiet, staring at the pile of crawfish shells in front of him, and she notices, leaning in a little closer, so her breath is warm on the side of his neck.
“I’m not here to bust your chops, Javi,” she says, quiet enough only he can hear it, over the ZZ Top playing from the bar’s speakers and the crowd yelling over a cornhole game a few tables over. “I meant what I said about that CB750. I’ve wanted to learn how to ride since I was 16, my ex never let me. If you’re not busy Saturday morning, you could teach me. No clipboard. No fine. Just us.”
He sits there for ten full seconds, his brain warring between the voice that’s been telling him for eight years to avoid any kind of connection at all costs, that this is a stupid, risky, borderline taboo idea, and the part of him that’s been so lonely for so long he’d forgotten what it felt like to have someone look at him like he was interesting, not just a guy who fixes bikes and pays his taxes on time. He glances over at her, and she’s holding his gaze, no smirk, no game, just honest, and he nods before he can talk himself out of it.
She grins, small and private, and squeezes his forearm once, her palm warm through the thin cotton of his work shirt, before she stands up, slinging her bag back over her shoulder. She says she’ll meet him at the shop at 10 AM, will bring her own hand-me-down helmet, and if he changes his mind, she’ll never mention it again. He watches her walk over to a group of her friends by the bar, her hips swaying a little when she laughs at something one of them says. He picks up his beer, takes a long sip, the cold lager cutting through the butter and spice still sitting on his tongue. The spot on his forearm where she touched him still feels like it’s humming, even ten minutes later.
