Elias Voss is 57, makes his living restoring vintage pinball machines out of a cinder block shop on the edge of Grand Rapids, Michigan. He’s spent the last 13 years living alone, his ex-wife having left him for a real estate agent 15 years her junior, and he’s developed a rigid, unbreakable rule: no customers, no friends, no one at all in his shop after 7PM. He’s only at the county harvest festival beer tent because his childhood buddy Mike begged him to show up, said he’d buy him three of the dark lagers he loves if he’d stop hiding in his shop for one night.
The tent smells like fried oreos and burnt wood smoke, the hum of the bluegrass band on the nearby stage thrumming low in his bones. He’s half listening to Mike rant about the local city council race when a woman slides into the empty picnic table seat next to him, so close her wool coat brushes his bicep. It’s Clara Hale, 38, married to Matthew Hale, the pastor running for council on a platform of “restoring family decency” to the area, the same guy who’d put up a billboard last month bashing local businesses that stayed open past 10PM as “dens of moral decay.” Elias knows her from the occasional church potluck he’d dragged himself to when his ex was still around, has avoided making eye contact with her for years because of the stupid, unshakable spark he’d felt the first time they met, the way she’d laughed at his dumb joke about broken flipper springs like he was the funniest guy in the room.
Mike excuses himself to go say hi to his grandkids, leaving them alone. Clara orders a spiked apple cider, leans across the table to grab a napkin, and her shoulder presses fully into his for three full seconds, warm through the thick fabric of their coats. He can smell vanilla lotion on her skin, cinnamon from the cider on her breath when she turns to him, and he catches her staring at his hands, calloused and smudged with faint machine oil, a thin fresh scar across his left knuckle from a 1978 Bally Star Trek machine he’d spent 12 hours fixing earlier that week. “That the injury you posted about on the local hobby group page?” she asks, nodding at his hand, and he blinks, surprised she even follows that page. When he says yes, she reaches across the table to pass him a bowl of salted peanuts, her fingers brushing his for half a beat longer than necessary, and he feels his neck heat up, stupid, like a teenager at his first makeout.
He knows this is wrong. He hates her husband, hates the way the guy parades their two kids around campaign events like props, hates that he’s spent the last six months talking about cracking down on “unapproved social gatherings” that don’t fit his narrow view of respectable life. But he also knows he hasn’t felt this seen, this curious, in over a decade. He’s spent so long closing himself off that the smallest bit of attention from her feels like a shot of whiskey straight to the chest. She tells him Matthew’s across town at a campaign fundraiser right now, that he’d told her she couldn’t come because she “didn’t have the right look” for the donor crowd, that she’s sick of being a prop for his campaign, sick of never getting to do anything that doesn’t serve his image.
She asks if she can come see his shop, the one he posts about online, says she used to play pinball at the local arcade as a kid before her parents made her stop because it was “too unladylike.” He hesitates for 10 full seconds, his rule about no one in the shop after 7PM screaming in the back of his head, then nods. They slip out of the beer tent separately, meet up by the oak tree at the edge of the festival grounds, and walk the 10 minutes to his shop, the crisp fall air stinging their cheeks, crunching through orange and red maple leaves underfoot. Every time a group of campaign volunteers passes by carrying Matthew’s signs, she steps closer to him, her arm brushing his, like she doesn’t want anyone to recognize her, like she wants to hide with him.
When they get to the shop, he fumbles with his keys for a second before unlocking the door, flipping on the string lights strung across the ceiling that cast warm golden light over the rows of half-restored pinball machines, their score displays flickering faint red and blue, the faint hum of old electronics filling the room. He locks the door behind them, out of habit, and when he turns around she’s standing right in front of him, so close he can feel her breath on his jaw. She puts one hand on his chest, right over his beating heart, and tells him she’s watched him for years, thinks he’s the only man in this whole town who doesn’t pretend to be someone he’s not. He doesn’t pull away. He reaches up to brush a stray piece of hair that fell in her face, his calloused fingers grazing her cheek, and she leans into the touch, her eyes fluttering shut.
The pinball machines hum soft and steady in the background, no one around to see them, no campaign signs, no stupid rules, no one telling them what they’re supposed to do. He kisses her slow, the taste of cinnamon cider and vanilla on her lips, and for the first time in 13 years, he doesn’t feel like running.
