Manny Rios, 62, retired federal pipeline safety auditor, leans against the cinder block wall of the small Texas hill country VFW, plastic cup of cloyingly sweet tea in one hand, fried catfish crumbs dusting the thigh of his faded charcoal Carhartts. He’d let his buddy Ron talk him into coming out to the monthly fish fry, a thing he’d avoided for three years straight since moving to town, convinced any casual social gathering came with the same kind of hidden fine print he’d spent 35 years hunting for in pipeline welds and company safety reports. His ex-wife had left him 8 years prior for a pharmaceutical rep she’d met at a conference, and he’d spent the years since wrapped up in his side gig restoring vintage travel trailers, shutting out any connection that didn’t involve power tools or a paint scraper.
The air smells like scorched grease, cedar smoke from the fire pit out back, and a sharp, sweet whiff of gardenia perfume that cuts through the rest of the noise and scent all at once. He looks up, and his throat goes dry. Elara Voss is standing by the folding table of side dishes, holding a red plastic cup of cheap beer, dark hair pulled back in a loose braid, a smudge of charcoal gray on the curve of her left cheek. He’d met her once, 15 years prior, when he’d cited her father’s small pipeline company for 17 unaddressed safety violations that would have almost certainly killed her two older brothers, who worked the line full time. She’d tracked him down to a diner outside of Oklahoma City to thank him, and they’d sat across from each other for an hour, drinking bad coffee, both wearing wedding rings, the air between them so thick with unspoken tension he could still remember the way his palms had sweated when their hands brushed reaching for the creamer. She’d moved out of state a month later, and he’d never seen her again.
She spots him before he can look away, her face lighting up so fast it’s like someone flipped a switch. She walks over, scuffed work boots crunching on the gravel lot between the wall and the picnic tables, and stops so close he can feel the heat off her arm through his flannel shirt. “Manny Rios. I would’ve bet good money that was you,” she says, her voice lower and rougher than he remembered, like she’s spent years singing too loud in pickup trucks. She leans in for a quick hug, her shoulder pressing firm against his chest, her hair tickling the edge of his jaw, and he freezes for half a beat before he pats her back, his palm brushing the soft, worn cotton of her green flannel. She smells like gardenia and beer and citrus soap, and he has to fight the urge to lean in closer.
She tells him she moved to town two months prior, opening a small stained glass shop on Main Street, that her husband died of a heart attack three years ago, that she’d been looking for a change. He finds himself talking more than he has to anyone who isn’t a parts store clerk in years, telling her about the 1972 Airstream he’s restoring for a couple from Austin, about the way the oak trees in his front yard drop so many acorns in the fall he trips over them walking to his shop every morning. She leans in when he talks, her elbow brushing his every time she laughs at his dumb joke about the time he found a family of raccoons living in a trailer he’d picked up at an auction, her eyes never leaving his face, like she actually cares what he’s saying. He’s torn the whole time, half of him buzzing with a giddy excitement he hasn’t felt since he was a teenager, the other half screaming at him to leave, that this is going to end badly, that she’s got some hidden flaw he’s going to miss until it’s too late.
By 9 p.m. the rain starts, soft warm April drizzle that makes the gravel glisten under the string lights strung between the oak trees. She admits she walked to the fish fry from her shop, left her truck there because she’d planned to have one beer and walk home, and he offers to drive her, no hesitation. They walk out to his beat up 2008 Ford F150, the rain picking up a little, dampening the collar of his shirt. She steps off the curb wrong, her boot sliding on a patch of wet gravel, and grabs his bicep to steady herself, her fingers wrapping tight around his arm, calloused from cutting glass, warm through his shirt. She looks up at him, raindrops clinging to the ends of her braid, and says, “I thought about that coffee in Oklahoma City a lot. Always wondered what would’ve happened if we’d both been single back then.”
He doesn’t say anything for two full beats, the sound of rain on the truck’s roof and the distant hum of the jukebox playing George Strait the only noise between them. He lifts his hand, brushes the charcoal smudge off her cheek with his thumb, his skin brushing hers soft and slow. “We could get coffee tomorrow,” he says, his voice steadier than he feels. “No old baggage, no fine print. Just coffee.”
She grins, squeezing his arm before she lets go, and says she’d like that more than anything. He opens the passenger door for her, and she climbs in, wiping rain off her neck with the sleeve of her flannel. He gets in the driver’s seat, turns the key, the radio flicking on to a Strait deep cut he hasn’t heard in years, and pulls out onto the dark two-lane road, the tires splashing through small puddles dotted across the asphalt.
