Manny Ruiz is 52, runs a vintage arcade repair shop out of a cinder block strip mall off I-4 in central Florida, has not so much as asked a woman out for coffee since his wife packed up their silverware and left for a guy who sold custom golf carts eight years prior. His biggest flaw: he tracks every spare dollar spent on non-work expenses in a beat-up spiral notebook, convinced any indulgence that doesn’t pad his retirement fund is a reckless mistake. He’d dragged himself to the small town fall street fair that Saturday only to drop off a fully restored 1980 Pac-Man cabinet he’d fixed pro bono for the local historical society, fully planning to duck out 10 minutes later to get a burger and watch the Rays game alone at his apartment.
Then he spotted Lila. She’s the part-time town librarian who’d been showing up at his shop every other week for three months, checking on the progress of her late dad’s Donkey Kong cabinet, bringing him homemade chocolate chip cookies every time even though he kept telling her she didn’t have to. The town council had just passed that widely mocked ordinance the week prior, banning unlicensed gatherings of more than six unrelated people in private homes, fining hosts $250 a pop if someone ratted them out. Half the town had been showing up to public events just to socialize without risk, the air thrumming with that dumb, giddy energy of people skirting a stupid rule.
She waved when she saw him, her rain boots caked in mud from the wet grass of the fairgrounds, a half-eaten cherry snow cone in her other hand. He’d almost dropped the side of the Pac-Man cabinet when she walked over to help steady it, their palms brushing against the chipped yellow paint of the cabinet edge for a full three seconds before he pulled his hand away, his ears burning. She smelled like cinnamon gum and wet pine from the Christmas tree lot set up at the end of the fair strip, her flannel shirt tied loose around her waist, the sleeve of her white t-shirt smudged with blue ink from stamping library books earlier that day.
They ended up hanging around the historical society booth after he got the cabinet plugged in and running, him playing a round of Pac-Man while she leaned against the table next to him, teasing him about taking twice as long as he’d quoted to fix her dad’s machine. When a blue ghost snuck up behind the Pac-Man on screen, she leaned over his shoulder to point at it, her wavy auburn hair brushing the edge of his ear, and he tensed up so hard he lost the round immediately. He could feel the heat of her arm pressed against his bicep, hear the laugh rumble in her chest when he swore under his breath, and for a second he almost forgot to remind himself he didn’t have time for this, that he was too old for silly crushes, that she was just being polite.
He kept waiting for the awkward lull that would let him excuse himself, but it never came. They talked about the stupid ordinance, about the way the local high school kids had been hosting pop-up block parties on the main street just to troll the council, about how her dad used to bring her to the same fair every year when she was a kid, spending half the day playing the old arcade games the historical society used to set up. Every time a group of people squeezed past the narrow booth space, she’d shift closer to him, their shoulders pressing together, and she’d hold his eye contact a beat longer than necessary when they both laughed at the same dumb joke.
The sky turned dark gray fast, the wind picking up enough to blow the paper flyers off the booth tables, and the fair organizer grabbed the megaphone to announce they were shutting down early, the storm front rolling in faster than expected. He offered to walk her to her car, parked three blocks away on a side street, and she agreed, tucking her empty snow cone cup in a nearby trash can as they started walking. The first drops of rain hit them two minutes in, cold and sharp, and she grabbed his hand to keep from slipping on a wet patch of sidewalk, her fingers laced through his tight like she’d been waiting for an excuse to hold it.
They ducked under the awning of a closed hardware store to catch their breath, rain pouring down so hard they could barely see across the street. She told him she’d been dropping hints for three months, that she’d even asked the historical society to hire him for the Pac-Man repair just so she’d have an excuse to run into him outside the shop, that she’d noticed the way he’d tensed up every time she got close, like he was scared she’d bite. He admitted he’d been avoiding making a move, convinced dating at 52 was just setting himself up for more heartbreak, that he’d spent so long prioritizing work and saving money he’d forgotten how to have fun for fun’s sake.
She kissed him before he could finish rambling, soft, her lips tasting like cherry syrup from the snow cone, her hand resting light on his chest. He kissed her back, no overthinking, no mental math about how much time or money the date would cost, just the rain pounding on the awning above them, the distant rumble of thunder. When they pulled apart, she smiled, that crinkle at the corner of her eyes that he’d been daydreaming about for weeks, and wrote her personal cell number on the back of a crumpled library checkout receipt, shoving it in the pocket of his work flannel. She told him to bring the Donkey Kong cabinet to her place Saturday, they’d order pepperoni pizza, drink cheap beer, and the town could fine them if someone wanted to be a Karen about it.
He walked her the rest of the way to her car, stood on the curb waving until she turned the corner out of sight, then headed back to his work truck parked by the fairgrounds. He fumbled for his keys in his jeans pocket, already forgetting the stack of repair invoices he’d planned to sort through when he got home that night.
