Manny Ruiz is 62, retired oil rig safety inspector, relocated to the tiny east Texas town of Crockett two years prior after his wife’s eight-year battle with lung cancer ended. His biggest flaw is a stubborn refusal to engage with anything that feels like unplanned vulnerability; he’d rather spend 12 hours stripping rust off a 1987 Ford F-150 in his garage than make small talk at the local grocery store, and he’d skipped every community event except the VFW’s Friday fish fry since he moved.
The rain is coming down in fat, cold sheets the Friday he sees her hovering in the VFW doorway, wool coat dotted with raindrops, cat-eye glasses fogged at the edges as she swipes at them with a crumpled paper towel. She’s not wearing the usual veteran’s cap or denim jacket the regulars sport, and her boot slips on the water-slick linoleum before she can take a step inside. Manny is off his corner booth seat before he thinks, hand wrapping around her elbow to steady her, the damp wool of her coat soft under his palm, the faint scent of lavender hand lotion and rain on hot asphalt wrapping around him when she leans close to avoid bumping his chest.
He recognizes her before she speaks. Clara Bennett, 58, the new county library director the local preacher has been screaming about on the town Facebook group for three weeks, after she added three contemporary romance novels to the senior section’s new releases. Half the town has picketed the library twice, calling for her firing, and Manny had written the whole thing off as small town nonsense, too busy with his truck rebuilds to care.
“Thanks,” she says, grinning, as she straightens up, brushing a strand of silver-streaked auburn hair behind her ear. “I swear I followed the GPS to the senior book club meeting, but I think I made a wrong turn. You guys got any of that catfish I keep hearing about, or should I run back out into the rain?”
Manny doesn’t invite people to sit at his booth. He’s guarded that spot for two years, the one with the best view of the parking lot and the least foot traffic. But he nods, pulls out the opposite bench seat for her, and walks to the counter to grab her a plate piled high with fried catfish, hush puppies, and a side of coleslaw, plus a cold sweet tea.
They talk for an hour first about the rain, then about the book ban, her snorting when he says he saw a sign on the way in that read “KEEP SMUT OUT OF OUR LIBRARY”. “Half the women in that book club have been married three times and own more vibrators than I have books on my shelf,” she says, leaning across the table so her knee brushes his under the edge, “and they’re the ones asking for those books. The preacher’s never even stepped foot in the senior section.” Manny laughs so hard he snorts beer out his nose, and he’s so flustered he doesn’t even pull his hand back when she reaches across the table to pat his wrist, her palm calloused from the vegetable garden she mentions she tends on weekends.
The conflict hits when the preacher himself walks in, flannel shirt stretched tight across his gut, and spots Clara at Manny’s booth. He storms over, face red, and starts yelling about “promoting filth to our elderly population” so loud the whole room goes quiet. Manny stands up before he thinks, six foot two, broad shouldered from 30 years climbing rig stairs, and leans in just enough to make the preacher step back. “She’s my guest,” he says, voice low, the same tone he used to use when he caught rig workers cutting safety corners. “Leave.”
The preacher sputters, mutters something about going to the town council, and walks out. Manny sits back down, his hand shaking a little from the unexpected adrenaline, and Clara laces her fingers through his on the tabletop, her hand warm and steady against his. He doesn’t pull away.
By the time they finish their food, the rain has stopped, streaks of pink and orange bleeding across the sky as the sun sets. He walks her to her beat-up Subaru parked at the edge of the lot, and she pauses with her hand on the door handle, grinning up at him. “I got a bottle of 12 year bourbon on my counter at home,” she says, tilting her head. “And one of those ‘filthy’ romance novels, if you’re curious what all the fuss is about. You wanna come over?”
Manny hasn’t been to a woman’s house for anything other than a plumbing repair in eight years. He’s spent every night since his wife died watching old westerns alone in his recliner, convinced any kind of new connection was a betrayal, or just too much hassle to bother with. But he nods, before he can overthink it.
He opens her passenger door for her, his hand brushing the small of her back as she climbs in, and for the first time in 8 years, he doesn’t feel like rushing home to an empty house.
