Elio Rizzo, 52, has made custom work boots for Austin ranch hands, construction crews, and even a handful of touring country singers for 18 years, and his only consistent personality flaw is that he holds grudges longer than he breaks in a pair of full-grain leather uppers. His wife left him four years prior, and he’d stuck to quiet, predictable routines ever since, no surprises, no unnecessary interactions with people who’d once messed with his life. He still rolls his eyes when he thinks about the 1989 senior year soccer playoff he missed, suspended after 16-year-old Mara Hale told the school principal he’d snuck a case of Shiner Bock to the pre-game bonfire. He hadn’t spoken to her since, hadn’t even thought of her in six years, until he hauled his crate of leather conditioner and display boots to his usual Saturday farmers market spot and found her setting up glass jars of honey right next to him, the usual salsa vendor out with a stomach bug.
The air smelled like burnt chorizo from the taco stand wedged between their booths and crisp oak leaves blowing in from the park across the street. Mara was 48 now, a faint streak of silver running through the honey-blonde braid slung over her shoulder, beeswax smudged along the line of her jaw, work boots caked in dark mud from the bee farm she’d just moved outside the city limits after her divorce. She looked up when he dropped his crate, huffed a laugh, and wiped her hands on the flannel tied around her waist. “Elio Rizzo. You still look like you’re two seconds away from yelling at a kid for stepping on your lawn.”
He bristled at first, already gearing up to remind her she’d cost him the only shot he ever had at a college soccer scholarship. Then she reached past him to grab a stack of napkins from the taco stand counter, her forearm brushing the bare skin of his wrist, and he caught a whiff of clover honey and cedar off her flannel. No one had smelled like that since his grandma used to bake honey bread in her kitchen outside San Antonio. He shut his mouth.
The morning moved slow. He watched her laugh with regulars, hand out free samples of wildflower honey on saltine crackers, swat a stray bee away from a toddler’s sticky hand without even flinching. Mid-afternoon, a harried mom carrying three kids knocked over a full pint jar of honey, the golden syrup pooling across the toe of his most expensive display pair, a custom set of water buffalo boots he’d made for a cattle rancher out in Fredericksburg. Mara was over the counter before he could even grab a rag, kneeling next to him, her shoulder pressed tight to his for ten full seconds as they blotted the syrup off the leather. Her hair fell forward, brushing his cheek, and he could feel the heat of her leg through his jeans where they knocked together under the table.
“Sorry about that,” she said, when they got the boot clean, no damage done. “For the honey, and for 1989, for what it’s worth.” She leaned back against her booth, picking at a loose thread on her jeans, and grinned. “I didn’t rat you out because I was a goody two shoes, you know. I had the biggest crush on you that year. Saw you making out with my sister behind the cooler at the bonfire, got mad, decided to ruin your week.”
Elio stared at her, stunned. He’d spent 33 years mad at a petty teenaged girl with a crush, not a hall monitor with a stick up her ass. He laughed, loud enough that a few customers turned to look. “You’re kidding.”
“Dead serious,” she said, and held up a hand like she was swearing on a bible. “Thought you were the coolest guy I’d ever seen. Still kind of do, if we’re being honest.”
The market closed an hour later, drizzle starting to fall, fat cold drops spotting the top of his display cases. They packed up slow, dragging their feet, neither of them in a hurry to leave. She grabbed a quart jar of wildflower honey off the last shelf, held it out to him as a peace offering, and their fingers brushed when he took it, the calluses on her palm from handling hive boxes rough against his own calluses from cutting leather. They held eye contact for three beats too long, the rain picking up, and Elio didn’t even think before he asked. “You wanna get a beer at the dive down the street? I got a pair of work boots in the back of my truck that’d fit you perfectly. Yours have a hole in the sole, I can see it.”
She nodded, grinning, and slung her bag over her shoulder. They walked to the bar under his flannel, held over their heads to keep the rain off, their sides pressed tight together the whole three blocks. They sat in a booth in the back, her wearing the new boots, the leather still stiff, the jar of honey sitting on the table between their beers. She reached over halfway through their second round, wiped a fleck of peanut from the bar mix off his cheek with her thumb, and he didn’t pull away, his hand coming to rest on her knee under the table, warm through the thin denim of her jeans.
