Moe Alvarez is 62, retired sign painter, spent 38 years hand-painting billboards and neon marquees across central Texas before he sold his shop three years back. His biggest flaw, the one his old drinking buddies rib him about every other week, is that he holds grudges longer than he holds a paintbrush steady even on his shakiest arthritis days. He’s had a grudge against Lila Marquez for 18 years, ever since the dart bet at his ex-wife’s 40th birthday where she called him out for shifting the board a half inch to sink a game-winning triple 20, he called her a sore loser, and they haven’t exchanged a single word since.
He’s perched on his usual scuffed vinyl bar stool at The Rusty Spur on a Wednesday, $2 Shiner Bock sweating on the coaster in front of him, half-eaten carnitas taco on a paper plate, when he hears that laugh. The same smoky, sharp laugh he’d secretly thought was hot even when he was married to her cousin, back when he knew better than to look too long. He glances up, and she’s leaning on the bar two stools over, waving at the bartender, wearing a faded Willie Nelson tee and scuffed white leather cowboy boots, the same pair she wore to that birthday party. She turns her head, locks eyes with him immediately, and smirks instead of rolling her eyes like he expected.
She slides onto the stool next to him before he can pretend he didn’t see her. The margarita she’s holding sloshes a little over the rim when she sets it down, and her elbow brushes his bicep through his thin work flannel. He can feel the heat of her skin through the fabric, and he tenses up like he’s just touched a live neon wire. “Figured I’d find you here,” she says, and her voice is a little rougher than he remembers, like she’s spent too many years yelling over hospital monitors. She’s a traveling ER nurse, he remembers, spent the last decade bouncing between rural clinics in west Texas before moving back to Austin last month to settle her mom’s estate.
He grunts, takes a sip of his beer, doesn’t say anything. He’s torn between two impulses: call her a sore loser again and walk out, or lean in closer so he can smell the coconut shampoo she’s still wearing, the same scent he’d caught a whiff of at that birthday party and thought about for weeks after, even when he was lying next to his wife in bed. That’s the part that disgusts him, the quiet, unacknowledged desire he’s carried for almost two decades for a woman he’s supposed to hate, a woman who’s tied to the messiest, most humiliating chapter of his life.
She reaches for the basket of tortilla chips between them at the same time he does. Their hands brush, and he feels the thick callus on her index finger, the kind you get from holding IV lines steady for screaming patients, and she doesn’t pull her hand away for a full two seconds. “You still cheating at darts?” she teases, and he snorts, a real laugh, before he can stop himself. He admits he tilted the board that day, says his ex-wife had been nagging him for three hours about forgetting to pick up the cake, and he was desperate to win the $50 bet so he could go to the bar alone after the party. She laughs so hard she snorts, and he feels something tight in his chest loosen, like a screw he’d forgotten he’d cranked too tight finally giving.
They talk for three hours, through the entire trivia night, ignoring the rest of the bar. She leans in when he talks about the vintage neon signs he restores in his garage, her knee brushing his under the bar, her eyes never leaving his face, no eye rolling, no judgment, just curiosity. He teases her about the time she got so drunk at a family barbecue she fell off a horse into a trough of pig slop, and she throws a crumpled napkin at his chest, grinning the whole time. He forgets he’s supposed to hate her, forgets she’s his ex-wife’s cousin, forgets every stupid rule he’s made for himself since his divorce to keep himself from getting hurt again.
The bar closes at midnight, and the bartender flicks the lights on to usher them out. It’s pouring rain, the kind of warm Texas downpour that soaks you through in ten seconds flat, and Lila groans, says she walked here, didn’t check the forecast, doesn’t have an umbrella. Moe says he’s got his old Ford F-150 parked around the corner, offers to drive her home to the rental she’s staying in a few blocks away. They run through the rain, and she grabs his arm to keep from slipping on a puddle-slick patch of sidewalk, and he pulls her close to steady her, their faces inches apart, rain dripping off the brim of his cowboy hat onto her cheek. She kisses him first, tastes like tequila and lime and salt, and he doesn’t pull away, doesn’t overthink it, just kisses her back, the rain soaking through his flannel, the distant rumble of thunder drowning out the noise of the city around them.
He drives her to her rental, the wipers slapping against the windshield, neither of them saying anything, her hand resting on his thigh the whole ride. When they pull up to the curb, she turns to him, says she picked up a vintage 1970s Shiner Bock neon sign at a garage sale last week, it’s cracked, doesn’t light up, asks if he wants to come in and take a look at it. He nods, kills the engine, follows her up the slippery wooden steps to her front door. She holds the screen door open for him, and it slams shut behind them, loud enough to scare a stray cat off the porch rail.
