He turns to set his beer down, misses the edge of the table by an inch, and sloshes a third of the can down the front of a woman’s faded red flannel shirt. He swears, grabs a handful of scratchy paper napkins from the dispenser, and freezes when she looks up. It’s Lena. Her dark hair is streaked with gray now, pulled back in a messy braid, and there’s a new laugh line fanning out from the corner of her left eye. She’s wearing scuffed work boots, mud caked in the treads, and the silvery scar on her left wrist—from the time they crashed a dirt bike they’d rebuilt together in his garage back in 2001—is still there, faint but visible. She smirks, the same expression that made his stomach flip when he was 29 and too stupid to act on it.
“Still as clumsy as you are stubborn, huh Manny?” She says, wiping at the beer stain on her shirt with the napkins he’s holding out. Their fingers brush when she takes them, and he feels a jolt run up his arm, like he touched a loose spark plug wire. She smells like pine, horse shampoo, and peach seltzer, and he can hear the jingle of the horse rescue keychain hanging from her belt loop, the one with the tiny plastic palomino charm. He mumbles an apology, starts to step away, and she tugs on the hem of his grease-stained work shirt to stop him. “C’mon, sit. I won’t bite. Unless you ask nicely.”
He sits, against his better judgment. The bench is narrow, so their thighs press together through their jeans, and he can feel the heat of her leg through the denim. She tells him she runs a horse rescue 15 minutes outside of town, has for 7 years, and came to the rally to sell custom leather halters she makes to raise money for winter hay. She mentions she dropped off a worn saddle for him to reupholster two weeks ago, left it on his back porch, and he feels his face heat up. He’d seen the saddle, recognized her loopy handwriting on the note attached, and hidden it under a tarp in his back bay, too stubborn to reach out. She teases him about it, and he finds himself laughing, the grudge he’s carried for 11 years shrinking by the second. She doesn’t mention the cornhole bet until they’ve been talking for 45 minutes, the band switching to faster covers, the sun dipping below the tree line and painting the sky pink and tangerine.
“Y’know,” she says, leaning in so her mouth is close to his ear, her breath warm against his neck, “I never actually wanted that CB350. I just wanted you to stop being such a stubborn ass and admit you’d lost fair and square. I’d had a crush on you since you showed up to our family Christmas in 1998, wearing that stupid tasseled leather jacket and bringing a six pack of Pabst instead of a bottle of wine like everyone else. I would’ve given the bike back to you a week later if you’d just talked to me.”
He freezes, his beer halfway to his mouth. He’d spent 11 years telling himself he hated her, that she was a smug cheater, when really he’d just been avoiding the fact that he’d liked her too, that he’d spent his entire marriage daydreaming about what it would be like to take her on a ride, to hear her laugh over the roar of a motorcycle engine. He admits it, quiet enough only she can hear, that he’d hidden the saddle, that he’d avoided the rally, that he’d kept the CB350 under a tarp in his shop for 11 years, polished once a month, waiting for her to call him out. He pulls the keys to the CB350 out of his pocket, dangles them in front of her, and their hands touch again when she takes them, her fingers calloused too, from mucking stalls and braiding horse manes. She leans in, kisses him, tastes like peach seltzer and mint gum, and his hand comes up to cup her jaw, the rough callus on his thumb brushing the laugh line at the corner of her eye. No one looks at them, everyone too busy drinking, dancing, or leaning over the custom bikes lined up along the fence.
They agree to meet at her rescue at 7 a.m. the next day: he’ll bring the CB350, they’ll ride the back roads through the Laurel Highlands, stop for pancakes at the diner off Route 40 that serves pie for breakfast. She walks to her beat-up Ford pickup parked at the edge of the lot, waves over her shoulder, and tucks the keys into her flannel shirt pocket. He leans back against the picnic table, takes a sip of his warm beer, and watches Javi climb up on the stage to accept second place for his KZ400, cheering louder than he’s cheered for anything in years. He watches her pull out of the parking lot, the hem of her jeans flapping around her work boots as she climbs into the driver’s seat, and tucks the spare key to the CB350 into his front pocket, already counting the hours until dawn.
