Manny Ruiz is 53, makes his living sanding rust out of vintage campers and patching dents in aluminum hulls out of a drafty barn on the western edge of Asheville. He’s avoided every county fair, pancake breakfast, and community fish fry for three straight years, ever since his wife left him for a real estate agent with a beach house and the whole town acted like it was his fault for working too much. The only reason he’s here now, boots crusted in funnel cake crumbs and pine straw, is because his old hunting buddy Jimmie begged him to judge the custom truck show, and Manny owed him for yanking his half-restored 1972 Airstream frame out of a frozen creek last January.
He’s lingering by the homemade pie booth, pretending to study the peach cobbler entry so he can dodge the county commissioner who’s been badgering him to teach a camper restoration workshop for the rec department, when someone slams into his side hard enough to slosh iced tea down the front of his faded work shirt. He blinks, ready to snap, and it’s Lila Marlow, the 38-year-old pastor’s wife who’s stopped by his shop three times in the last month asking about restoring a beat-up 1968 Scotsman camper her late dad left her. She’s not wearing the frumpy linen dresses and cross necklace he’s seen her in at the grocery store, just cutoff jean shorts and a faded Dolly Parton tour tee, her dark hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, freckles dusted across her nose from the August sun.
“Shit, I am so sorry,” she says, grabbing a handful of napkins from the pie booth counter and dabbing at the wet spot on his chest before she thinks better of it. Her fingers brush his sternum through the thin cotton, and he can smell lavender perfume mixed with fried dough and the faint, sweet tang of peach tea on her. He freezes for half a second, and she yanks her hand back, cheeks pink, but she doesn’t look away. Her eyes are dark brown, crinkled at the corners like she laughs a lot, and he’s spent too many nights after work replaying the way she leaned on his workbench last week, asking questions about rust remediation, biting her lower lip when he swore about the half-assed repairs the previous owner did to her camper.
Manny’s been short with her every time she’s stopped by, not because he doesn’t want the work, but because he knows exactly how the town gossip mill works. The last time a woman stayed in his shop longer than 15 minutes, the ladies at the diner were whispering he was dating the new waitress before she even got back in her car. A divorced, reclusive camper restorer hanging around the married pastor’s wife? That’s the kind of story that would get people talking for months. He wants to tell her no harm done, make an excuse to leave, but she tugs his wrist lightly, the pad of her thumb brushing the scar on his forearm he got from a slip of the sanding wheel last spring.
“I was just about to text you, actually,” she says, nodding toward the midway where kids are screaming on the Tilt-A-Whirl and the smell of fried Oreos hangs thick in the air. “I finally got the title for the Scotsman sorted out. C’mon, I’ll buy you a fried Oreo to make up for the tea stain. My husband’s at a church conference in Charlotte all weekend, I’ve been wandering around alone for an hour.”
He hesitates, glancing over at the group of church ladies sitting on a nearby picnic bench, who are already staring. But then Lila grins, sharp and playful, and tugs his wrist again, and he caves. They walk the midway together, him winning her a beat-up stuffed black bear at the ring toss after three tries, her leaning into his side when a group of kids running with snow cones cuts between them, her shoulder pressing firm to his bicep for three full seconds before she steps back, no apology, just a small, knowing smile. They sit on a hay bale at the edge of the demolition derby, the roar of engines loud enough to rattle his teeth, and she leans in close to talk directly into his ear, her breath warm against his neck.
“Everyone in town says you’re a total recluse, you know,” she yells over the sound of a Chevy smashing into a Ford. “That you never leave your barn unless you’re picking up parts.”
He laughs, turning his head so his mouth is close to her ear too, and he can feel her shiver a little when his breath hits her skin. “Mostly true,” he yells back. “But some people make leaving the barn worth it.”
He rests his hand on her knee, the denim of her shorts rough under his palm, and she doesn’t move it away. She laces her fingers through his, squeezes once, her nails painted a chipped pale pink, and says something he can’t hear over the crash of a bumper, but he doesn’t need to. He can see it in the way she’s looking at him, no guilt, no hesitation, just the same quiet want he’s been ignoring every time she’s walked into his shop.
The derby ends a few minutes later, and fireworks go off over the fairgrounds, red and gold light painting the sky and turning Lila’s cheeks pink. She stands up, tugging him with her, and doesn’t let go of his hand when they walk past the group of church ladies, who are gawking so hard one of them drops her lemonade.
“I know everyone’s gonna talk,” she says, as they reach his beat-up Ford F150 in the dirt parking lot. “I don’t care. My husband cares more about church attendance and the county newsletter than whether I’m happy. I’ve been bored out of my mind since we moved here.”
Manny unlocks the truck, opens the passenger door for her, and grins. “Got a cooler of cold IPA back at the shop,” he says. “The Scotsman’s pulled up in the main bay if you wanna go over the build plan tonight. No rush.”
She tucks her free hand into the back pocket of his jeans, leans up to kiss his cheek quick, before she climbs into the truck. He shuts the door behind her, glances back at the fairgrounds one last time, and doesn’t give a single shit who saw them leave together.
