Rafe Murillo, 62, has made his living restoring vintage travel trailers for the last 18 years, ever since he left his state transportation desk job after his first heart scare. His worst flaw, one he’ll cop to after three beers, is that he judges every person he meets within the first 10 seconds, and he almost never revises that initial call. He’s been single eight years, since his wife passed from a fast-moving lung cancer, and he’s spent every one of those years swearing he’d never waste time on dating, that companionship was for people who couldn’t stand the quiet of their own garage, the low huff of his hound dog Mabel snoring at his feet while he sanded down aluminum paneling.
He’s set up at a small fall festival outside Burnet, Texas, showing off a 1972 Airstream Sovereign he just finished restoring for a client, when he spots Lila walking toward him. She’s got auburn hair streaked with honey gold, a silver snake tattoo curling up her left wrist, smudge of sky-blue acrylic paint under her right eye, and she’s wearing thrifted flannel tied around her waist over faded work pants and steel-toe boots. Rafe’s first thought is that she’s the kind of loud, flighty kid who’d buy a $200 vintage camper on Facebook Marketplace then expect him to fix it for free, so he tenses up, takes a long sip of sweet tea, and prepares to brush her off.
She stops three feet from him, close enough that he can smell the vanilla lotion she’s wearing mixed with the faint tang of turpentine, and holds out a manila envelope. “I’m Lila,” she says, and her voice is lower than he expected, rough around the edges like she spends half her day yelling over a pottery wheel. “I commissioned the Airstream for my dad’s retirement. You sent me a note saying it was ready to view here.”
Rafe blinks, relaxes a little, takes the envelope from her. Their fingers brush when he grabs it, and he’s surprised to feel calluses on her fingertips, same as his, not the soft, polished nails his ex-wife always wore. He nods, steps aside to let her look inside the trailer. She walks past him, her shoulder brushing his bicep, and he catches another whiff of vanilla, feels his ears warm, which is ridiculous, he’s a grown man, not a teen fumbling through his first makeout.
She spends 10 minutes poking around the Airstream, cooing over the floral upholstery she picked out, running her hand along the wood countertop he refinished by hand. When she comes back out, she’s grinning, holds eye contact with him for three full seconds before she says, “You did even better than I pictured. Dad’s gonna cry when he sees it.” Rafe has a snarky comment on the tip of his tongue about how ugly he thought the upholstery was when she sent the fabric swatch, but he swallows it down, just nods, says “Glad you like it.”
Mabel, who never pays any attention to strangers, trots over to Lila, shoves her head under Lila’s hand to be petted. Lila laughs, scratches her behind the ears, and Rafe feels his chest soften, against his will. He’s spent years pushing people away, convincing himself that any new connection would just end in loss, that he was too old to learn how to care about someone again. He opens his mouth to tell her he’s got to get back to the shop, that she can arrange pickup with his assistant, when she says, “You wanna walk over to the fried pie stand with me? My treat. I’ve been dying to try the peach ones all week.”
He’s about to say no, when a group of teens on ATVs zoom past the edge of the festival grounds, way too close to the crowd. Lila grabs his bicep hard, yanks him back a step before one of the ATVs sideswipes him. Her palm is warm through his worn Carhartt shirt, her fingers curling around his arm like she’s been doing it for years. When the ATVs are gone, she lets go, apologizes, her cheeks pink, and Rafe realizes he’s not angry about the near-miss, he’s disappointed her hand isn’t still on his arm.
“Sure,” he says, before he can think better of it. “I’ll come.”
They stand in line for 15 minutes, talking about her dad, who taught high school agriculture for 38 years, about the pottery studio she runs out of her garage, about the time Rafe tried to restore a 1968 Shasta and found a family of raccoons living in the walls. When they get their pies, they sit on a splintered picnic bench off to the side, Mabel curled up at their feet. Lila offers Mabel a bite of her pie, and Rafe doesn’t even scold her for giving the dog people food.
She asks if he’s free next Saturday, to come to her dad’s retirement party, help her roll the Airstream up the driveway as the big surprise. He says yes immediately, no hesitation, no excuses about work piling up, no complaints about driving an hour each way to a party full of strangers. She smiles, reaches across the table to wipe a smudge of peach filling off his chin, her thumb brushing the edge of his jaw for half a second. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t lean away, just holds her gaze, and for the first time in eight years, he doesn’t dread the thought of what comes next.
