Manny Ruiz is 64, a retired airshow pilot who runs a one-man vintage prop plane restoration shop on 12 acres of scrub oak outside Dripping Springs, Texas. He’s spent the last eight years letting the town write him off as the quiet widower, the guy who shows up to fundraisers only to drop a check and leave before anyone can corner him into small talk about his late wife, or whether he’s “finally ready to get back out there.” His biggest flaw is that he believes them—he’s convinced any attempt to want something for himself at his age is sad, cringey, a betrayal of the 32 years he had with Maria.
He’s leaning against the dented passenger side of his 1998 Ford F-150 at the fire department summer cookout when it happens. The humidity hangs thick enough to drink, heavy with the smell of mesquite brisket, citronella candles, and cheap light beer sloshing in plastic cups. A local cover band is cranking through a terrible version of “Folsom Prison Blues” so loud he can feel the bass rattle in his molars. He’s halfway through his second Shiner Bock, mentally calculating if he can sneak out in the next ten minutes without anyone noticing, when a boot scuffs the toe of his worn work boot hard enough to make him look down.
“Shit, sorry, that’s entirely my fault.”
The voice is warm, a little rough, like she’s spent the day yelling over wind or music. He looks up, and it’s Lena—the new neighbor who moved into the old white farmhouse three quarters of a mile down his dirt road three months prior. They’ve waved at each other a dozen times from their respective driveways, him covered in aviation grease, her hauling hiking gear or a cooler of groceries out of her Subaru, but they’ve never spoken. He knows from idle feed store gossip she’s 49, a traveling nurse practitioner who spends half her week working free clinics in the Rio Grande Valley. Her dark hair is pulled back in a messy braid, streaked with a single strip of silver at the temple, and she’s wearing cutoff jean shorts, a faded Led Zeppelin tank top, and scuffed white hiking boots. A neon pink fanny pack slung across her chest has a stethoscope sticking out the top, and she holds a lime seltzer in one hand, a plate of brisket and coleslaw in the other.
She steps closer to yell over the band, and her bare forearm brushes his bicep when she gestures at the sticker on his truck window, the one that says “Prop Heads Do It With More RPM.” He can feel the callus on the inside of her wrist, rough from rock climbing she later mentions, and she smells like coconut sunscreen and smoked paprika. Her hazel eyes have little flecks of gold in them, and she holds eye contact for two beats longer than polite, no awkward glance away, no nervous laugh. He finds himself leaning in too, like they’re sharing a secret no one else at the cookout is allowed to hear.
They talk for 45 minutes, leaning against his truck, while people mill around them yelling about cornhole scores and raffle tickets. She teases him about the permanent smudge of grease on his left jaw, he teases her about the fanny pack, which she swears is the most practical thing she owns for working in the field. He finds himself telling her about the 1954 Beechcraft Bonanza he’s been restoring for two years, the one he’s planning to fly to Oshkosh next summer for the airshow, and she doesn’t nod politely and change the subject like most people do. She asks specific questions about engine rebuilds, about how you source original parts for a plane that old, like she actually cares.
When a group of drunk firemen starts yelling so loud they can barely hear each other, she nods toward the tree line at the edge of the park, where a small creek cuts through the oak trees. “Wanna walk? I can’t handle another minute of that guy’s Johnny Cash impression.”
He hesitates for half a second, the old voice in his head yelling that people will talk, that the town gossips will see them walking off together, that he’s too old for this, that he’s making a fool of himself. But then she grins, lopsided, and takes a sip of her seltzer, and the voice shuts up. He nods, pushes off the truck, and follows her.
The grass is still damp from the afternoon rain, seeping through the holes in the toes of his work boots, and the sound of the band fades the farther they walk, replaced by the hum of crickets and the gurgle of the creek. Fireflies blink on and off in the underbrush, and the sun dips low enough to paint the sky pink and orange at the edges. Their hands brush three times in the first five minutes of walking, neither of them pulling away, neither of them mentioning it.
They stop under a huge old live oak at the edge of the creek, and she leans back against the trunk, setting her empty seltzer can on a flat rock at her feet. He leans against the tree next to her, their shoulders pressed together, and she turns to look at him, that same unflinching eye contact. He’s about to say something stupid, about how he hasn’t talked to anyone this much in months, when she leans in and kisses him.
He freezes for half a second, shocked, before he kisses her back, his hand coming to rest lightly on her hip, his fingers brushing the warm skin above the waistband of her shorts. She tastes like lime and cherry lip balm, and her hand tangles in the short gray hair at the nape of his neck, and for a second he forgets where he is, how old he is, what the town will think. He pulls back a minute later, breathless, and says the stupid thing he’s been thinking all night: “I’m 64, you know. Haven’t done this since my wife died. I’m probably terrible at it.”
She laughs, loud and warm, and taps the smudge of grease still on his jaw. “I know how old you are. I asked the guy at the feed store about you two weeks ago. And for the record, you’re not terrible at it. Also, I don’t care what anyone in this town thinks. I’ve been wanting to ask you out since I saw you carry a whole plane propeller across your driveway by yourself last month.”
He grins, something he hasn’t done without effort in years, and holds his hand out to her. She takes it, her fingers lacing through his, calluses catching on his own work-worn knuckles. They walk back to his truck, slow, and he opens the passenger door for her, holding it while she slides into the worn leather seat. She leans over, turns the key in the ignition before he can, and the radio flickers on to a scratchy old Willie Nelson track, soft enough that they can hear each other over it. He climbs into the driver’s seat, and she rests her hand on his thigh, warm and steady, while he turns the truck onto the dirt road leading back to his shop, his house, and the half-restored Bonanza sitting in the hangar out back.
