Manny Ruiz is 53, makes his living restoring vintage travel trailers out of a cinder block barn 12 miles outside Bend, Oregon, and hasn’t willingly attended a local social event in eight years. His cousin, who sits on the Rotary board, all but frogmarched him to the summer beer garden fundraiser, saying he’d spent too much time alone with his hound dog and half-finished Airstream projects, and Manny caved only because he was promised no one would corner him to ask about his ex-wife, who’d left him for a commercial real estate broker in Portland back in 2015. He’s leaning against the trunk of a gnarled oak at the edge of the park, condensation from his cold IPA dripping down his wrist into the cuff of his grease-stained flannel, already mentally mapping the fastest route back to his property, when he spots her behind the silent auction table.
When he reaches the table, he stretches for the bid sheet at the same time she does. His knuckles brush the ink smudge on her wrist, and he freezes for half a second—her skin is warm, she smells like lavender and lemon Pledge, the kind of scent that hits him right in the chest like a memory he didn’t know he had. She doesn’t pull away, just grins and nods at the book. “My great uncle owned that. Spent 32 years patrolling Crater Lake, wrote all those notes in the margins about where he camped, which trails had the best huckleberries.” Her voice is low, a little rough, like she spends half her day talking over rowdy kids at story time. He finds out ten minutes later that’s exactly what she does: she’s the new head librarian, moved to town three months prior from Seattle, hates the rain but loves that she can see the mountains from the library’s back porch.
He bids $40 on the book, then a retired high school principal he’s known since high school bids $50, so he bids $75, and when the auction closes no one tops it. She brings him the book an hour later, along with a paper plate of grilled corn slathered in butter and chili powder, and leans against the oak next to him. Her shoulder presses against his bicep for three full seconds, and he can feel the heat of her through the thin cotton of his flannel, even through the layer of grime from working on a 1969 Scotty that morning. He tells her about the trailer he’s almost finished restoring for a veteran who lost his leg in Afghanistan, who wants to drive around all the national parks, and she leans in, her elbow brushing his, like she actually cares about the story, not just making small talk. She teases him about outbidding the principal, who’d been asking about that book for two weeks, and he teases her about sneaking extra chili powder on the corn for people she likes, and she snorts so loud a couple walking by glance over.
The fundraiser wraps up at 9, when the sun’s almost completely gone and the air has that sharp, piney chill that comes with Central Oregon summer nights. He walks her to her beat-up Subaru Outback, the book tucked under his arm, and hands her his business card, the edge a little crumpled from being in his pocket for three weeks. “Got a 1971 Scotty fully restored out behind my shop. Stocked with cold beer, a camp stove, and a fold-out bed. If you ever want to go up to Crater Lake, find those huckleberry spots your uncle wrote about. I’m free most weekends.” She takes the card, tucks it into the pocket of her denim dress, and leans up to press a soft, quick kiss to his cheek, her lips warm against his stubble. “I’ll call you tomorrow before the library opens at 10. Don’t sleep in.” He stands there in the parking lot, holding the book, his hound dog who’d ridden along snuffling at his work boot, watching her taillights fade down the road. He sets his alarm for 8:30 when he gets in his truck, twice as early as he usually wakes up on Saturdays.
