Rafe Marquez, 52, wipes sweat from his brow with the back of a grease-stained denim sleeve, the cold edge of his Shiner Bock bottle pressing into his palm. He’s spent the last six hours manning his chili booth at the Gillespie County fair cookoff, tending to a pot of smoked brisket chili spiked with ancho chile and dark roast coffee he’d spent three days prepping, and his feet are sore from standing on loose gravel. The country band on the main stage has switched to slow, twangy deep cuts, the air smells like charred grilled corn, burnt sugar from the cotton candy stand, and the sharp, savory tang of 27 different competing chili recipes. He’d taken second place an hour prior, the certificate crumpled in the folding chair next to him, and he’d been planning to pack up and head home to his shop apartment 20 minutes ago, but he can’t bring himself to leave just yet.
He spots her first, weaving through the thinning crowd, sunglasses pushed up into wavy auburn hair that falls just past her shoulders, a half-eaten churro in one hand and a paper chili bowl in the other. He’d know that lopsided grin anywhere, even though the last time he saw her she was 19, wearing a frilly bridesmaid dress at his wedding, begging him to fix the broken lawnmower that was ruining the reception cocktail hour. Clara Bennett, his ex-wife’s youngest cousin. He freezes, his beer halfway to his mouth, and for half a second he considers ducking behind his booth, but she’s already seen him, waving as she picks her way around a group of drunk ranch hands in scuffed cowboy hats.
She stops right in front of his booth, leaning in just close enough that he can smell coconut shampoo and the cinnamon dust on her breath from the churro, her elbow brushing the edge of his folding table. “Heard the guy with the brisket chili that tastes like heaven was the same Rafe Marquez my cousin used to be married to,” she says, and her voice is deeper than he remembers, warmer, no trace of the teenaged squeak she’d had back then. He fumbles for a plastic sample spoon, his calloused, grease-streaked fingers brushing hers when he hands it over, and a jolt runs up his arm that he hasn’t felt in years. He’s immediately disgusted with himself. She’s his ex’s family. This is off-limits, stupid, the kind of messy drama he’s spent seven years avoiding by holing up in his vintage camper restoration shop and only talking to people who need a transmission replaced or a panel patched.
She takes a bite of the chili, her eyes fluttering shut for half a second, and makes a soft, satisfied noise that makes the back of his neck go hot. “Holy shit, that’s even better than I thought,” she says, pulling the folding chair next to his out and sitting down without asking. Her knee presses against his thigh through their denim, and she doesn’t move it. She tells him she moved to town three months prior, took a part-time job at the small town library, inherited a 1968 VW Camper from her dad that’s been rotting in a barn for 15 years, and she’s been asking around for someone who knows how to restore old vans without charging her an arm and a leg. She teases him about the permanent black grease under his fingernails, says all the guys she’s gone on bad dates with since she moved here have perfectly manicured nails and talk about nothing but hay prices and the lift kits on their pickup trucks. He finds himself laughing, a real, deep laugh he hasn’t pulled out in months, telling her stories about the 1972 Westfalia he’d restored last year for a retired teacher who drove it all the way to Alaska and sent him postcards every week.
The sun dips below the treeline, the string lights strung across the fairgrounds flicker on, casting soft gold across her face, and he realizes most of the other booths are packed up, the crowd is down to a handful of stragglers lingering by the beer tent. He’s been fighting the urge to say something stupid, to acknowledge the spark between them, for two hours now, torn between the sharp, old guilt of being attracted to his ex’s cousin and the warm, thrumming desire that’s been building in his chest since she sat down. He finally says it, quiet enough that only she can hear over the faint sound of the band, that he probably shouldn’t be thinking about how pretty she is, that it feels wrong.
She snorts, leaning in even closer, her shoulder pressing against his, and touches his wrist for half a second, her fingers soft, a tiny silver Orion ring on her index finger. “My cousin cheated on you with a guy who wears boat shoes to family barbecues,” she says, grinning. “I’ve had a crush on you since I watched you fix that lawnmower in a suit at your wedding. No rules here except the ones we make.”
He grabs the crumpled second place certificate from the chair next to him, scribbles his personal cell number on the back in the blue ballpoint he keeps in his shirt pocket, and hands it to her. “Bring oat milk lattes from that bakery on Main Street tomorrow at 10,” he says. “I’ll take a look at your camper, give you a quote.” She tucks the paper into the front pocket of her jeans, leans up, and presses a quick, warm kiss to his stubbled cheek, the faint taste of cinnamon on her lips still lingering when she pulls away.
She waves over her shoulder as she walks to her beat-up Subaru, her boots tapping on the gravel, and he lifts his half-empty beer in return, the grease under his nails suddenly not feeling like a flaw that makes him unlovable, just a mark of the work he loves.
