Rico Marquez, 53, leans against the side of the grouper taco truck, beer can sweating through the paper coaster in his calloused hand, sugar sand from the nearby beach sticking to his bare calves, and curses Mabel for talking him into this stupid block party. He’s a custom fishing rod builder, spends 10 hours a day sanding graphite blanks, wrapping silk thread around guide eyes, and testing prototypes off the pier after dark, and he’d rather be knee deep in Gulf surf right now than navigating small talk with people who can’t tell a spinning rod from a fly rod. His left calf still has a faint scar from the time a 30 pound redfish dragged him off a sandbar two years back, and he’s still sore about the city council voting to raise his small business license fee 22% last month, so his mood is already sour before the woman responsible for that vote steps right up next to him, close enough that her bare shoulder brushes his bicep.
She’s Lena Hale, 48, the new city council rep who moved to town three months ago from Atlanta, the one he yelled at for 15 minutes during the public comment period two weeks prior, holding a crumpled sign that read “STOP TAXING GUYS WHO ACTUALLY WORK FOR A LIVING.” He can smell coconut sunscreen and fried key lime pie on her, and when she reaches past him to grab a stack of napkins from the truck counter, her hip presses into his side for half a second too long to be accidental. He tenses, ready to snap, until she smirks up at him, hazel eyes flecked with gold, and says “Your sign’s handwriting was garbage, for the record. But your rod reviews on the Gulf Coast fishing forums? Impeccable.”
He blinks, thrown off. He’d assumed she only saw him as the loud, stubborn guy who’d disrupted her first official council meeting. He grunts, takes a sip of beer, says the fee hike is gonna put half the home-based small businesses in town out of business, guys who don’t have storefronts or extra cash lying around to throw at the city’s mismanaged budget. She nods, leans against the truck next to him, her elbow brushing his forearm every time she gestures as she explains the previous council left a $120,000 budget shortfall for the local fire department, she had to make cuts somewhere to avoid laying off firefighters, and she’s already drafting a revision that exempts home-based businesses making under $75,000 a year from the hike. She offers to buy him another beer to make up for the stress, and he agrees, mostly because he’s curious, partly because he hasn’t talked to a woman who doesn’t want to yell at him about a late rod order in six months.
She grabs his wrist before he can overthink it, her palm warm, a rough callus on the heel of her hand from the rose bushes she told him she plants in her backyard, and pulls him toward the makeshift dance area set up in the middle of the street. He protests at first, says he hasn’t danced since his wedding, but she tugs harder, and he goes, letting her lead. Their hands are sweaty when they lace their fingers together, she steps so close her chest presses against his shoulder when they sway, and she murmurs against his neck that she’s been driving past his shop every morning on her way to city hall, has had a half written email asking him to teach her how to tie saltwater flies sitting in her drafts for two weeks, was too nervous to send it after he yelled at her at the council meeting.
The song ends right as she pulls back to look up at him, and neither of them step away. He brushes that stray curl behind her ear, his thumb brushing her cheekbone, and she tilts her chin up, just a little. He leans down, kisses her, tastes like lager and lime, she tastes like key lime pie and coconut, and he doesn’t even hear the group of guys at the beer tent whoop and cheer when they see them. When they pull apart, she grins, says she’ll be at his shop at 10 a.m. Saturday, and he tells her he’ll have a beginner’s fly tying kit set out, and an extra beer in the fridge, if she’s not sick of him by then. She laughs, laces her fingers through his again, and pulls him toward the pie truck to get another slice.
