Ronan Hale, 53, vintage travel trailer restorer with a scar splitting his left eyebrow from a 2022 mishap with a rusted Airstream frame, didn’t want to be at the block party. He’d avoided every neighborhood gathering since moving to Bend three years prior, convinced the whole affair was just an excuse for bored retirees to swap gossip and overcook bratwurst. The only reason he was there was Gus, his 10-year-old golden retriever, who’d broken free from his leash mid-afternoon walk and bolted straight for the folding table stacked with smoked sausage. The air reeked of charcoal and pine, sticky with the last of the summer heat, and Ronan grabbed a cold IPA from the cooler by the curb as he apologized to the group of older women Gus had bowled over in his rush for a hot dog.
That was when he saw her. Mia, his new next-door neighbor, who’d moved in two weeks prior, leaning against an oak tree laughing as Gus slobbered all over the knee of her cutoff jeans. He’d heard the neighborhood gossip about her, the whispers that she’d moved across the country after her husband left her for a 22-year-old barista, that she was sharp-tempered, that she’d already yelled at the HOA president for telling her to paint over the mural on her garage door. He’d avoided her on purpose, crossing the street when he saw her outside, leaving the welcome cookies she’d left on his porch on the step for two days before throwing them away, convinced any connection would just be the same messy drama that ended his marriage eight years prior.
She waved him over, and he couldn’t think of a polite way to say no. She was wearing a faded Flaming Lips tee, paint flecks dusting her forearms and the edge of her jaw, and her silver hoop earrings caught the sun when she tilted her head to grin at him. “I heard you’re the guy who fixes up those old tin cans on your property,” she said, nodding toward the row of half-restored trailers visible over the fence between their yards. Her voice was low, rough from years of smoking, and when she passed him a paper plate piled with potato salad their fingers brushed, calloused from his sanding and her sanding, and he felt a jolt run up his arm he hadn’t felt since he was in his 20s. He could smell coconut shampoo and turpentine on her, sharp and sweet, and when she leaned in to yell over a group of kids screaming as they ran past with water guns, her shoulder pressed firm against his.
They traded barbs for an hour, making fun of the HOA president’s terrible Hawaiian shirt, the way the guy three houses down kept trying to force everyone to try his homemade pickles, the gossip they’d both heard about each other. She admitted she had thrown an empty wine bottle at the HOA president’s truck when he yelled at her about the mural, and he admitted he’d hidden inside his house for three days when she moved in because he didn’t want to make small talk. The sun dipped lower, painting the sky pink and orange, and when she asked if she could see the 1968 Scotty Sportsman he’d posted about on the neighborhood Facebook group, he didn’t hesitate to say yes.
Gus trotted ahead of them as they walked through the gate to his property, the noise of the party fading behind them, replaced by the chirp of crickets and the distant hoot of an owl. The Scotty was parked under a carport, its new wood paneling polished to a warm glow, and he held the door open for her to climb inside. She ran her hand over the countertop, her fingers brushing the dials of the old tube radio he’d spent three weeks fixing, and said she’d grown up camping in one just like it with her grandma. They both leaned in at the same time to adjust the radio dial, their shoulders pressing together, and when he turned his head to say something she was already looking at him, her dark eyes bright in the half-light.
The kiss was slow, no rushing, no awkward fumbling, and he could taste the cherry seltzer she’d been drinking on her lips. Her hand came up to brush the scar on his eyebrow, soft, like she was asking permission, and he wound an arm around her waist, pulling her closer. He’d spent eight years talking himself out of wanting anything more than quiet nights with Gus and his trailers, convinced any romantic connection would just end in heartbreak, convinced the gossip he’d heard about her meant she was too much trouble, but all of that melted away the second she smiled against his mouth.
They pulled back after a minute, breathless, and she laughed, quiet, when Gus whined and scratched at the door of the trailer. She said she’d been wanting to kiss him since she saw him hauling a sheet of aluminum across his yard three days prior, covered in sawdust and yelling at a wasp that was buzzing around his head, and he admitted he’d thrown away the welcome cookies she’d brought over because he was scared he’d make a fool of himself if he talked to her. They climbed out of the trailer and sat on the step, Gus curling up with his head in her lap, and watched the last of the sun sink below the Cascade foothills. She said she needed help hauling a 5-gallon bucket of exterior paint up to her second story studio the next day, and he told her he’d bring two cold IPAs, no charge. A cricket’s chirp cut through the quiet, and he laced his calloused, resin-stained fingers through hers, no second thoughts nagging at the back of his mind for the first time in eight years.
