Wade Kolchek, 53, vintage travel trailer restorer, sweated through the hem of his faded Carhartt tee as he leaned against a splintered pine picnic table, one hand curled around a sweating can of Pabst, the other holding a cheeseburger so charred the edges crumbled when he bit down. He’d already mentally cataloged three dozen things he’d rather be doing: re-caulking the front window of the 1968 Airstream in his barn, grilling a ribeye that didn’t taste like lighter fluid, napping on his porch with his hound dog Mutt curled on his feet. He’d only shown up because his 72-year-old neighbor Doris threatened to cut off his supply of her famous peach pie if he skipped the annual fire department cookout, the one the whole western North Carolina mountain town turned out for every July.
The tables were packed tight by 6 p.m., so Lila slid into the only empty spot left, right next to him. She wore a pale yellow sundress, scuffed white sneakers, and a thin silver bracelet strung with tiny camper charms that caught the golden hour sun. She smelled like coconut sunscreen and fresh cut clover. She reached for the bag of dill pickle chips next to his elbow at the exact same time he did, their wrists brushing hard enough that her charm clinked against the scuffed metal of his work watch. He flinched like he’d touched a live wire, and she laughed, low and warm, not apologetic. “Sorry. These are the only thing here that isn’t a fire hazard, right?”
He nodded, too thrown to speak at first. He hadn’t been this close to a woman outside of a parts store checkout line in almost seven years, not since his ex-wife left him for a guy who sold essential oils out of a converted Sprinter van. He’d built his whole life around avoiding small talk, around power tools and parts orders and no one asking him for anything more than a new water pump or reupholstered bench seat.
She told him she was the new part-time town librarian, 48, widowed three years prior, moved to town three months earlier to fix up the old cottage her aunt left her. She’d been asking around about him, she said, because she inherited a 1972 Winnebago Brave from her dad and wanted to get it roadworthy, and every mechanic in town had pointed to him as the only guy who didn’t overcharge and actually knew his way around vintage camper wiring. He snorted, told her he didn’t take side jobs for strangers, his plate was already full with the four campers he had in various states of disrepair in his barn. She smirked, leaned in a little so her shoulder brushed his, and said she figured he’d say that, which is why she had leverage: her dad’s entire collection of 1960s and 70s factory service manuals, including the 1969 Airstream Overlander guide he’d been scouring eBay for for two years, the one that went for $350 when it even popped up for sale. He froze, beer halfway to his mouth.
A group of yelling teens sprinted past a second later, one slamming hard into her shoulder. She stumbled sideways, and he reached out automatically, catching her by the waist, his palm splayed over the soft cotton of her dress, feeling the faint curve of her hip under his hand, the warm skin just above the waistband of her dress where the fabric had ridden up. He held her a beat longer than strictly necessary, and she didn’t pull away, just looked up at him, brown eyes crinkling at the corners, gold flecks catching the sun. “You okay?” he said, his voice rougher than he meant it to be. She nodded, grinning. “Yeah, thanks. Thought I was gonna face-plant into the potato salad for a second there.”
They wandered over to the dunk tank after that, laughing so hard at the fire chief getting dunked three times in a row by a 10-year-old girl that he snort beer out of his nose. She handed him a crumpled napkin from her purse, her fingers brushing his when she passed it over, and teased him for the rest of the hour about it. The sun dipped below the pine treeline, fireflies blinking to life in the darkening grass, string lights strung between the oak trees glowing warm. She leaned in again, her breath smelling like the strawberry popsicle she’d just finished, and said she had peach iced tea, her grandma’s recipe, chilling in her fridge, and the manuals were spread out on her kitchen table. “You wanna come take a look? No pressure if you don’t.”
He hesitated, that old familiar urge to run curling tight in his chest, to go back to his quiet barn, his hound dog, his predictable life where no one surprised him. But then he looked at her, the way she was biting her lower lip just a little like she was nervous he’d say no, the tiny camper charm on her bracelet glinting in the string light. He said yeah, that sounded good.
They stopped by his shop first so he could drop off the extra parts he’d hauled in his truck that morning and let Mutt out to pee. The hound trotted straight to her, tail thumping, and she knelt down to scratch his ears, her sundress riding up just enough to show a tiny sunflower tattoo on her ankle, right above her sneaker. “He likes you,” Wade said, leaning against the barn doorframe, watching her laugh as Mutt licked her cheek. She stood up, brushed dog hair off her dress, and smiled at him, the kind of smile that reached all the way to her eyes. He unlocked the passenger side door of his beat-up Ford F-150, held it open for her, and for the first time in seven years, he wasn’t dreading what came next.
