Rico Morales is 52, has run a vintage outboard motor restoration shop out of a cinder block building on the edge of Coos Bay, Oregon, for 22 years. He’s stubborn to a fault, has avoided any situation that could stoke small town gossip since his very public divorce 8 years prior, when his ex-wife left him for a commercial salmon fisherman and half the town picked sides. He still has a faint scar on his left knuckle from punching a guy at the local bar who made a crude joke about it, hasn’t so much as bought a woman a drink since.
The annual lower bay fish fry is the only community event he forces himself to attend, mostly because his niece begs him every year to man the fryer for an hour. He’s leaned against the bed of his dented 1998 F150, sipping sweet tea from a chipped plastic cup, when Lila steps into his line of sight. She’s 38, the county park ranger who moved to town 18 months prior, her husband deployed with the Army National Guard for the last three months on a training rotation in Germany. Her uniform sleeves are rolled to her elbows, freckles dark across her nose from 6 hours of clearing downed cedar off the coastal trail that morning, work boots caked in mud so thick it’s flaking off onto the gravel.
She stops so close her shoulder brushes his when she reaches for the stack of paper napkins tucked under his truck’s side mirror, the scent of coconut sunscreen and pine needles rolling off her, sharp enough to cut through the thick hickory smoke and fried cod hanging in the air. She holds eye contact for three full beats too long, grinning, the corner of her mouth tugging up higher when he fumbles his tea cup a little. She says her 1972 Boston Whaler’s motor has been sputtering so bad she can’t make it past the jetty, has been trying to track him down for three days to ask him to look at it.
He tells her he’s swamped, three client motors stacked against the shop wall he needs to finish before the end of the month, doesn’t have time for side jobs. She laughs, the sound bright over the screaming kids chasing each other with water guns, says she’ll bring the peach pie she baked last night, the crumb top one he raved about at the farmers market two weeks prior. He can’t say no. He’s thought about that pie, and about the way she tucked a strand of auburn hair behind her ear when she handed him a sample, every night that week. He nods, tells her to stop by the shop around 7, after his last client leaves for the day. She winks, turns and walks away, her boot heels crunching on the gravel, and he kicks himself for agreeing. He saw three of the church ladies from the congregation down the street watching the whole interaction, knows they’ll be texting their group chat before she makes it to the park service truck.
He’s distracted the rest of the afternoon, fumbles a spark plug so it clatters across the shop floor, drops a half inch wrench on his foot hard enough that he curses loud enough the stray cat under his workbench bolts out the door. He goes back and forth between the hot, tight pull of desire he’s felt for Lila since she brought him a thermos of spiced coffee during the January snowstorm when his shop heater died, and the sharp, cold disgust he feels at himself: 52 years old, acting like a horny 16 year old, chasing a married woman half his age, risking the reputation he spent 8 years rebuilding after the divorce. He types out a text canceling three separate times, deletes it every time.
She shows up at 7 sharp, a foil covered pie tin in one hand, a six pack of cold IPA in the other, the Whaler hitched to the back of her truck. The shop smells like gasoline and cedar shavings, Merle Haggard’s voice crooning low over the radio, the roll up door propped open to let the cool coastal breeze blow through. She leans against the edge of his workbench while he kneels to run a diagnostic on the motor, her knee brushing his shoulder every time he shifts his weight, the heat of her leg seeping through the thin flannel of his shirt. He stands up 10 minutes later, wipes his grease-streaked hands on his work jeans, tells her the carburetor is shot, he’ll have to order a vintage part that’ll take three days to ship.
She smirks, sets the pie down on the workbench next to a pile of spark plugs, says she knows. She had her cousin who runs a boat repair shop up in Newport look at it last week. He blinks, confused, asks her why she bothered asking him to check it then. She steps closer, so close he can smell the faint peach on her breath, says she just wanted an excuse to be alone with him, without the whole town watching over their shoulders.
He hesitates for half a second, the voice in his head screaming that this is a bad idea, that the gossip will be unbearable, that he’s too old, too set in his ways, too broken from his divorce to do anything but mess this up. Then he reaches up, brushes a smudge of pine sap off her cheek, his thumb lingering on the soft skin of her jaw. She doesn’t pull away, leans in a little, her hand coming to rest on his chest right over his heart, beating so fast he’s sure she can feel it through his shirt. He leans down, kisses her slow, the taste of peach and IPA on her lips, the faint crash of waves a few blocks away mixing with the radio.
They eat half the pie sitting on the tailgate of his truck, watching the sun dip below the Pacific, painting the sky streaks of tangerine and lavender. They trade dumb stories: her about the tourist who tried to feed a granola bar to a sea lion earlier that week, him about the client who brought in a 1957 Evinrude he’d found buried in his backyard under a pile of rotting firewood. He walks her out to her truck at 9, kisses her one more time, slow, before she climbs in and rolls the window down.
He knows the rumors will start before lunch tomorrow, that the church ladies will tsk when they see her truck parked outside his shop, that his ex-wife will probably call him to yell about him setting a bad example for their niece. He doesn’t care. He picks up the half-eaten pie tin from the tailgate, tucks the leftover beer under his arm, and locks the shop door behind him.
