Javier “Javi” Ruiz, 53, makes his living patching dents in 1960s Airstreams and reupholstering frayed bench seats in beat-up Shastas out of his cinder block shop on the edge of Boise. He’s got a scar slicing across his left knuckle from a slip with a rivet gun last winter, and a rule he’s followed rigidly for 8 years: no messing with anyone connected to his ex-wife, not even the distant cousins who used to send him Christmas cookies. He’d built that rule after the divorce, when every family gathering felt like a minefield of awkward questions and pitying stares, so he’d cut all ties entirely, stuck to his Friday night VFW fish fry routine, his two hound dogs, and the steady, predictable work of bringing old campers back to life.
He’s picking crumbs of fried cod off his paper plate and nursing his second Pabst of the night when she walks in. He recognizes her immediately, even with the streaks of silver in her dark hair and the scuffed park ranger boots on her feet: Lena, his ex-wife’s youngest cousin, the one who’d showed up to his wedding reception covered in mud from a backcountry hike, stolen three slices of wedding cake and passed out on his couch before the first dance ended. She’s in town for her grandma’s 90th birthday, he remembers, his buddy who works at the grocery store had mentioned running into her earlier that week.
She spots him before he can duck his head, grins, and cuts across the crowded room, the hem of her flannel shirt brushing the edge of a table stacked with pie tins. “Javi Ruiz. I thought that was you,” she says, sliding into the booth across from him without waiting for an invitation, the scent of pine soap and cherry lip balm wrapping around him before she even sits all the way down. He freezes for half a second, then nods, pushing the extra basket of fries he’d ordered toward her, every alarm in his head blaring that this is a terrible idea, that ex-wife’s family is off limits, that he’s going to regret this before the night ends.
They talk for an hour first, about Yellowstone, where she’s worked as a backcountry ranger for 12 years, about the idiot tourists who try to pet bison every summer, about the 1972 Winnebago guy who keeps showing up at Javi’s shop begging for a discount on a full restoration. She leans in when he tells the story about the guy who brought in a camper infested with raccoons, her shoulder brushing his when she reaches across the table to grab another fry, and when she shifts in her seat, her knee presses against his under the booth, warm and solid, and she doesn’t move it. He’s torn so sharp he can almost feel it: one part of him is squirming with the old, familiar disgust at anything tied to his ex, the life he’d tried so hard to leave behind, the other part can’t stop staring at the laugh lines fanning out from her eyes, the way she twists the silver wolf ring on her index finger when she talks about rescuing a lost kid from a snowstorm last winter.
When the VFW volunteers start stacking chairs around them, she leans in even closer, her voice dropping so only he can hear it. “You mentioned you have a half-restored 1968 Airstream at your shop. I’ve always wanted to check one of those out. You got time to give me a tour?” He hesitates for three full beats, thinks about the rule he’s followed for 8 years, about the way his ex would lose her mind if she knew they were even talking, then nods, grabs his jacket off the back of the booth.
The shop is warm when they walk in, smells like cedar sawdust and the citrus degreaser he uses on old metal frames. The Airstream is parked in the back bay, fairy lights strung along the ceiling inside, the new cedar paneling he’d installed the week before glowing gold in the soft light. She steps up first, turns to face him when he follows, and the door clicks shut behind them, the small space leaving barely six inches between their bodies. She reaches up to adjust a lopsided fairy light above his head, her hand brushing the collar of his flannel, her thumb grazing the scar on his jaw he’d gotten falling off a dirt bike in high school. “I always thought you were too good for her, you know,” she says, holding his eye contact, no hesitation in her voice. “Even back when you were married. She never got how cool what you do is.”
He doesn’t say anything, just lifts his hand, brushes a stray strand of hair that’s fallen in her face behind her ear, his calloused fingers grazing her cheek. She leans into the touch, the corner of her mouth lifting into a small, soft smile. They spend the next three hours sitting on the built-in bench inside the Airstream, drinking the cold Pabst he keeps stashed in the mini fridge for late work nights, talking until his sides hurt from laughing, until the moon is high enough to shine through the small round window above the sink.
He walks her to her rental car at 11, leans against the hood while she unlocks the door, and she leans in, kisses him soft on the corner of his mouth, says she’s in town for another week, wants to help him sand the rest of the cedar paneling if he’s okay with the company. He nods, watches her pull out of the driveway, taillights fading down the dirt road, then pulls his phone out of his pocket, scrolls through his contacts until he finds his ex’s name, the one he’d never gotten around to deleting, and hits delete.
