Milo Rourke, 52, makes his living rebuilding vintage outboard motors out of a cinder block shop tucked between two boat ramps on Michigan’s Torch Lake. He hasn’t voluntarily attended a community event since his divorce eight years prior, when his ex-wife traded their half-finished lake cabin and 20 years of marriage for a real estate developer with a vacation home in Naples. His only flaw, if you ask the few people who know him well, is that he’s convinced any situation that requires small talk will end in disappointment, so he avoids them like bad gasoline in a 1960 Evinrude. He only showed up to the fire department’s summer beer tent fundraiser because his childhood best friend, now the fire chief, threatened to drag his shop hose into the lake if he skipped.
He’s leaned against a wooden support pole at the far edge of the tent, half-empty craft ale in one hand, a tattered copy of Raymond Carver’s short stories sticking out the back of his oil-stained Carhartt work pants, when a woman carrying a stack of neon jello shots slams into his side. The tray wobbles, she catches it before any spill, her palm pressing firm to his forearm for half a second to steady herself. The first thing he notices is she smells like coconut sunscreen and old, ink-stained paper, the kind you find in used bookstores that haven’t been renovated since the 70s. She’s wearing a faded Fleetwood Mac *Rumours* t-shirt, cutoffs that show a tiny tattoo of a leather-bound book on her left ankle, scuffed white Converse caked in lake mud. “Jesus, I’m so sorry,” she says, laughing, and her hazel eyes crinkle at the corners like she spends most of her time smiling. “I forgot the ground under this tent is all rutted from the fire trucks.”
He’s already got a dismissive retort on the tip of his tongue, the same one he uses to turn down the local women who stop by his shop asking if he wants to come to dinner or a bonfire, but he stops when she nods at the grease crusted under his fingernails. “You’re Milo, right? The outboard guy? I’ve been asking around for someone who knows how to work on a 1978 Evinrude 55. My dad left it on his old fishing boat when he passed last year, it’s been sitting in my garage gathering dust.” She’s standing closer than most people do, close enough he can see the faint smattering of freckles across her nose, the tiny silver hoop through her left nostril. He teases her first, says most county librarians he’s met don’t know the difference between an outboard motor and a trolling motor, and she snorts, says most outboard mechanics she’s met don’t carry Raymond Carver in their back pocket. Turns out her name is Elara, she moved to the county three months prior to take over the small library in the downtown strip, she fishes every chance she gets, she hates the overpriced rosé all the country club women drink, she’d rather drink cheap beer and fish for bluegill off a dock than go to any fancy restaurant.
The air cools off fast once the sun dips below the trees, and she shivers, pulling her thin flannel tighter around her shoulders. He doesn’t even think before he’s pulling the heavy, oil-stained work flannel off his own shoulders, handing it to her. When she reaches for it, her fingers brush his, and he feels a jolt go up his arm, the same kind he gets when he accidentally touches a live wire while working on a motor. She pulls the flannel on, it’s too big, sleeves hanging past her wrists, and she grins at him, leaning in so their shoulders are pressed together. He doesn’t pull away. He admits he’s been avoiding people for years, that he thought he’d never care about talking to someone new again, and she nods like she gets it, says she moved here after a messy breakup of her own, that she’s been taking things slow too.
He pulls a crumpled business card from his wallet, the same ones he hands out to boat owners looking for repairs, and scribbles his cell number on the back in permanent marker, right under the line that says *Milo’s Vintage Outboards: We Fix What The Big Shops Won’t Touch*. “I’m free Saturday morning,” he says, handing it to her. “If you want to bring that Evinrude by the shop, we can take a look at it, drink some bad coffee, maybe go down to the dock and fish for an hour after if it’s a nice day.” She tucks the card into the neck of her t-shirt, patting the spot over her heart like she’s making sure she doesn’t lose it, then leans in and presses a quick, warm kiss to his cheek before she hops off the tailgate to walk to her beat-up Subaru. He stays sitting there for ten minutes after she drives away, holding the half-empty jello shot cup she left on the tailgate next to him, watching the fireflies blink on over the lake, even as the mosquitoes bite red welts into his forearms.
