Manny Ruiz, 59, retired central Florida citrus grove manager, slumps into a scuffed plastic beer tent chair at the Polk County Fair, third cold IPA sweating through the paper coaster under it. He’d lost the annual Valencia orange contest by one point that afternoon, and he’d been glowering ever since, convinced the 22-year-old kid who took first had snuck synthetic fertilizer past the inspectors. It’s the first cool night of October, the humidity finally dropped low enough that he doesn’t have to wipe sweat off his brow every ten minutes, and his faded Gators hat sits low over his eyes so he doesn’t have to make small talk with any of the other old grove guys milling around.
Someone slides into the chair next to him before he can flag the vendor for a fourth beer, their shoulder brushing his hard enough that his elbow jostles his drink. He’s about to snap a gruff excuse me when he smells coconut sunscreen and bright, zesty orange blossom, and glances over to see Lila Marlow, the 31-year-old University of Florida extension agent who’d judged the contest that day. She’s holding a blue raspberry snow cone, neon syrup dripping down her wrist to the cuff of her flannel work shirt, and she’s grinning like she knows exactly why he’s moping alone. “Quit pouting,” she says, leaning in so her voice cuts over the roar of the Ferris wheel mechanics and the kids screaming on the tilt-a-whirl 50 feet away. Her knee brushes his under the rickety folding table, warm through the thin denim of her jeans, and he flinches like he’s been burned. He hasn’t let anyone sit that close to him on purpose since his wife Elena died eight years prior.
He’d turned down three requests from Lila in the last six months to consult on her county-wide citrus greening mitigation project, convinced she was just another out-of-town suit who couldn’t tell a Valencia from a Hamlin orange. He’d built his 40-acre grove from scratch with Elena, sold it the week she got her pancreatic cancer diagnosis, and he’d refused to talk citrus with anyone but the old guys at the diner ever since, too stubborn to let anyone mess with the legacy he’d built with her. He opens his mouth to tell her to leave him alone, but she holds up her phone, screen showing the lab results from the contest entries, and shoves it in his face. “Kid’s fruit had 1.2% higher brix content than yours, fair and square,” she says, and he can’t argue with the numbers on the screen. He huffs a laugh before he can stop himself, and she grins wider, so bright the fair string lights reflected in her hazel eyes make his chest feel tight, a weird flutter he hasn’t felt in almost a decade.
She leans back to take a bite of her snow cone, and the angle makes the syrup drip faster, splattering right on the faded citrus stain on the knee of his work jeans. “Shit, sorry,” she says, and grabs a crumpled napkin from the table, dabbing at the stain before he can stop her. Her fingers brush his thigh through the denim, warm even through the wet napkin, and he freezes, warring between the sharp, hot spike of desire that shoots up his spine and the heavy, familiar guilt that tells him he shouldn’t be feeling this, that any interest in anyone who isn’t Elena is a betrayal. She doesn’t pull away immediately, her hand resting light on his knee for half a beat, and when she looks up at him her smile is softer, no teasing edge to it. “I didn’t keep asking you to work on the greening project just because your name’s on every old grove success story in the county,” she says, quiet enough that only he can hear. “Elena volunteered with the 4-H citrus club I ran when I first moved down here, back in 2019. She talked about you all the time. Said you were the only guy in the county who cared more about feeding people than turning a profit.”
The name hits him like a punch to the gut, but it doesn’t hurt the way he expects it to. It feels soft, like Elena’s laughing at him from somewhere, telling him to stop being an idiot. He stares at Lila, at the smudge of blue raspberry syrup on her cheek, the calluses on her hands from hauling citrus sample crates, the way she’s not pushing him, just waiting, her knee still brushing his under the table. The guilt doesn’t disappear all at once, but it fades, just enough that he can breathe easy for the first time all night. “I’ll do the consulting,” he says, before he can talk himself out of it. “But only if you buy my next beer, and you let me take you to that taco truck off the highway after the fair closes. The one with the al pastor that’s marinated in pineapple and orange juice. You won’t find better in the state.”
She cheers so loud a couple of the guys at the next table glance over, and she flags down the beer vendor, ordering two IPAs, her fingers brushing his when she passes him his cold bottle. The fair lights bleed pink and orange across the field, the smell of fried dough and grilled corn drifting over the tent, and the Ferris wheel creaks as it carries a car full of laughing teens over the top. He takes a long sip of beer, the cold fizz stinging the back of his throat, and when she leans in to ask him what his favorite taco topping is, he doesn’t flinch when her shoulder presses against his again.
