Javier “Rico” Ruiz is 52, runs a custom boot shop out of a cinder block building on San Antonio’s south side, and hasn’t set foot inside the local VFW’s monthly cookoff in three years. He hates small talk, hates the way distant relatives side-eye him when they think he isn’t looking, still carries a chip on his shoulder from the gossip that swirled after his older brother Carlos married Marisol, 12 years his junior, six months before Carlos dropped dead of a heart attack on his ranch. The old ladies at their parish called her a gold digger, said she’d run off with the ranch money within a year, and Rico avoided every event she might be at rather than have to pretend he agreed with them, or worse, admit he’d thought she was far too sharp, far too bright, for the gruff, set-in-his-ways Carlos long before the funeral.
He only showed up tonight because a 72-year-old Army vet he’d made a pair of custom orthotic boots for six months prior begged him to judge the red chili category, said Rico’s famously blunt palate was the only thing that would keep the cheaters from dumping extra habanero in their pots to skew votes. He’s wearing faded denim work jeans stiff with leather dust, a frayed 1998 Pearl Jam tour tee, scuffed work boots he resoled himself three weeks prior, and smells like saddle soap and the peppermint chewing gum he keeps tucked in his back pocket. He’s halfway through his second Shiner Bock, leaning against the side of the beer tent and ignoring a distant cousin waving him over to the family table, when someone slams into his back hard enough to slosh a paper cup of chili down his left forearm.
“Shit, I’m so sorry—” The voice is warm, a little breathless, and when he turns around Marisol is standing there, holding a half-empty cup, wearing a faded Astros hoodie with a cat rescue logo stitched on the chest, silver hoop earrings glinting in the string lights strung above the tents. She dabs at the chili on his arm with a crumpled paper napkin before he can react, her palm brushing his skin for half a second, and he catches the scent of coconut shampoo and cinnamon gum, sees the sunflower tattoo curling around her left wrist, the faint scar at her hairline from the car crash she was in when she was 22.
He stares for a second too long, then grins, wiping the rest of the chili off on his jeans. “No harm done. I’ve had worse than bean juice on my arm at work.”
She laughs, the sound loud and unselfconscious, and nods at the scar slicing across his left knuckle. “I remember that. You got in that fight with the guy at the country bar after Carlos’s bachelor party, right? Said he called the girl Carlos was dating a gold digger before you even met me.”
He flushes, scratches the back of his neck. He’d forgotten she knew that story. “Guilty. Guy was an asshole.”
She buys him another beer to make up for the chili, and they wander over to a splintered picnic table far from the crowd, where the mariachi band playing near the entrance is just loud enough to drown out anyone who might try to wander over and interrupt. She tells him she sold the ranch six months prior, donated half the money to the local veteran’s food bank, moved into a 600-square foot cottage ten minutes from his shop, runs the cat rescue out of a converted garage behind her house. He tells her about the beagle he adopted last year, Hank, who sleeps on the boot cutting table while he works, about the veteran discount he offers that’s closer to 60% off than the 20% he advertises, about how he hasn’t been on a date since his divorce finalized two years prior because most people who live around here already have their minds made up about who he is.
She leans in when he talks, her elbow brushing his on the table, her knee knocking his under the wood every time she shifts to look at a calico cat wandering past the table. She teases him about the time he tried to ride Carlos’s prized bucking bronco when he was 17 and landed in a pile of cow patties, says Carlos used to tell that story every Thanksgiving. She holds eye contact for two beats longer than necessary when he laughs, and he can feel the back of his neck heating up, can hear the crunch of peanut shells under their feet, the distant roar of the crowd cheering for the chili contest winner, the soft hum of her voice when she talks about the 12 special needs cats she’s got at her house right now.
“I’ve been wanting a pair of custom boots for ages,” she says, tapping the sunflower tattoo on her wrist. “Sunflowers stitched up the sides, soft leather, nothing too flashy. Carlos kept saying he’d get them for me, but never got around to it.” She pauses, tilts her head, and grins. “You gonna charge me the veteran discount, or the gold digger family discount?”
He snorts, pulls a small notebook out of his back pocket and scribbles his shop address on a blank page, tears it off and slides it across the table to her. “I’ll give you the friend discount. Half off. Bring tamales tomorrow afternoon, and I’ll take your measurements.”
Her fingers brush his when she takes the paper, and neither of them pulls away for a full three seconds. Her skin is soft, a little calloused at the fingertips from cleaning cat litter and building cat trees, and he can feel his heart thudding a little faster in his chest, the same stupid thrill he felt when he first saw her at Carlos’s wedding, back when he thought he could never, ever act on it.
They stay at the table for another hour, talking about Carlos, about the time they snuck a cooler of beer into the drive-in to watch a bad horror movie when Carlos was out of town, about the new line of leather he’s getting in next week that’s dyed the exact shade of yellow as a sunflower petal. When she says she has to leave to feed her cats, she hugs him quick, her cheek pressing against his, and he can smell the coconut shampoo and the faint smoky scent of chili on her hoodie.
He stands by the picnic table and watches her drive off in her beat up tan Ford pickup, waving out the window as she turns onto the main road. He looks down at the faint brown chili stain still on his forearm, then pulls his phone out of his pocket, opens his reminders app. He types in a note to pick up extra sunflower yellow leather dye on his way to the shop the next morning, and hits save.
