Manny Ruiz is 53, runs a small-batch hot sauce operation out of the converted garage behind his bungalow in southeast Austin, and hasn’t gone on a single date since his wife left him for a cloud software sales rep seven years ago. His worst flaw, if you ask his older sister, is that he’ll choose a night of monitoring fermenting habanero batches and watching 90s Western reruns over any social obligation that doesn’t involve his weekly trivia spot at The Rusty Tap or volunteering at the city’s animal shelter on Saturdays. He’d built his routine so tight it was practically bulletproof, until his regular trivia teammate called an hour before kickoff to say his 8-year-old had a sudden fever and he couldn’t make it.
The host paired Manny with the woman who’d slid into the opposite end of his booth ten minutes prior, the one he’d recognized immediately as his new next-door neighbor, the one he’d only waved at from his driveway while he loaded cases of mango scotch bonnet sauce into his delivery van the past three weeks. She introduced herself as Clara, worked as a youth services librarian, had moved to Austin from Portland to take care of her ailing retired firefighter dad, and when she shifted closer to grab the shared basket of salted crinkle-cut fries off the table, her frayed denim sleeve brushed his forearm, and he caught a whiff of vanilla candle and cedar sawdust on her shirt. The jukebox in the corner rumbled through a Tom Petty deep cut, the cheap draft beer was cold enough to make his teeth ache, and when she leaned in to murmur that she knew the answer to the 1998 rom-com category because she’d watched *There’s Something About Mary* 17 times as a teen, her knee pressed against his under the booth, warm through the worn denim of his work jeans.
He’d spent the first three rounds fighting the urge to make an excuse and leave. He had a batch of garlic habanero fermenting in his garage that needed a pH check at 10, he told himself. He didn’t have time for small talk, didn’t want to mess up the quiet, low-stakes life he’d spent half a decade building after his marriage collapsed. But every time he opened his mouth to say he had to bounce, she’d glance up at him with those hazel eyes, hold his gaze a beat longer than polite, and crack a joke about how the middle schoolers she worked with would riot if she didn’t bring home the $50 bar tab grand prize to buy them pizza for their next true crime book club. When they both reached for the trivia answer sheet at the same time, her hand brushed his, her nails painted a deep burgundy, chipped slightly at the edges like she’d been working on a home repair project that morning, and he felt a jolt in his chest he hadn’t felt since he was 20 and sneaking into his college girlfriend’s dorm after curfew.
The host announced they’d won by three points, beating the regular team of UT grad students who’d held the title for six weeks straight. Clara whooped, grabbed his arm to squeeze it, and leaned in so close her wavy auburn hair brushed his cheek when she yelled over the crowd that she knew they’d pull it off. He almost made the excuse about the fermenting sauce when she asked him if he wanted to come back to her place to split the peach pie she’d baked that morning, but then she tilted her head, grinned, and said she’d known who he was the second he walked in the bar. She sat on the board of the Texas Small Business Association, she said, had kept the plaque for the 2022 Best New Artisanal Food Product in her office for three months after the guy who won never showed up to accept it.
Manny’s face burned. He’d snuck out of the awards ceremony halfway through because he hated public speaking, hated the idea of standing on a stage while a room full of strangers clapped for him, had figured no one would even notice he was gone. He admitted as much, and Clara laughed, soft and warm, and said that’s exactly why she’d spent three weeks working up the nerve to knock on his door. Most guys would have grabbed the mic and bragged for 10 minutes, she said. She liked that he’d rather slip out and go home to his hot sauce and his rescue pit bull, Max.
They walked the two blocks back to their neighborhood together, the air thick with the smell of jasmine from the front yards, crickets chirping in the live oak trees lining the sidewalk. When they got to her porch, she leaned up, kissed him soft, tasted like peach iced tea and mint gum, and he rested his hand on her waist, the fabric of her faded band tee soft under his calloused, sauce-stained fingers. He didn’t even remember the fermenting habanero batch until she unlocked her front door and the smell of cinnamon and baked peach hit him, and he figured it could wait one more night.
