Rafe Calderon, 53, makes his living rebuilding vintage outboard motors out of a cinder block shop tucked between a bait shop and a laundromat on the edge of Minnesota’s Leech Lake. He’s got a scar slashing across his left eyebrow from a 2019 motor explosion, and a habit of turning down any social invite that doesn’t involve a toolbox and a paid invoice, ever since his wife packed her bags and left for Arizona with a real estate agent eight years prior. He only showed up to the annual town fish fry to drop off a fully restored 1978 Evinrude to Mr. Henderson, the 82-year-old retiree who’d been bringing Rafe homemade rhubarb pie every spring since he opened the shop.
The air reeks of fried walleye, charcoal lighter fluid, and cheap light beer, kids screaming as they chase each other along the sandy shore, the local country cover band slurring through a 90s Travis Tritt track off to the side. Rafe’s wiping the last of the motor grease off his hands with a frayed paper towel, already mentally running through the list of repairs he has to finish by Saturday, when a woman slams into his side hard enough to slosh half her glass of iced tea down the front of his worn Carhartt jacket.
He’s about to snarl a complaint before he looks down and recognizes her: Elara Voss, the woman who moved into the log cabin across the lake from his three months prior, ex-wife of the county sheriff who’d forced Rafe to yank his dock two feet back two years ago, even after a licensed survey proved it was fully on his property. He’d avoided her on purpose since she moved in, figured anyone who’d ever been married to that smug, power-hungry asshole wasn’t worth his time.
She’s dabbing at the wet splotch on his jacket with a crumpled napkin before he can step back, her palm brushing his forearm for half a second, and he can feel the thin callus on her index finger from turning hundreds of book pages—he’d seen her driving the beat-up mobile bookmobile around the county last month, dropping off stacks of YA novels for the kids on the remote rural roads. Her perfume smells like pine and lavender, not the cloying rose stuff his ex used to douse herself in, and her hazel eyes are crinkled at the corners like she’s already amused by his scowl.
“Sorry about that,” she says, leaning in a little so he can hear her over the band, her shoulder brushing his bicep when a group of drunk fishermen stagger past. “Tripped over a cooler. I’d offer to pay for the dry cleaning, but something tells me you’d just throw that jacket in the wash with your shop rags anyway.”
He huffs a laugh he didn’t know he had in him, and she grins, stealing a tater tot off the paper plate he’d grabbed on his way over before he can protest. She chews it slow, nodding like it’s the best thing she’s eaten all week, and he finds himself leaning in too, like the noise of the party fades out a little when he’s looking at her. She tells him she found a rusted 1962 Johnson motor in the boathouse when she moved into the cabin, has been trying to work up the nerve to knock on his shop door for weeks, was scared he’d slam the door in her face because of her ex.
He doesn’t say anything at first, his brain warring between the anger he still holds for the sheriff, the years of practice he has at shutting people out, and the sharp, warm hum in his chest that’s only gotten louder every time her hand brushes his, every time she laughs at his dumb joke about how most people bring their motors in looking like they dragged them through a swamp for fun. She’s not wearing any fancy jewelry, her nail polish is chipped pale blue, and when she rests her hand on the picnic table an inch away from his, he doesn’t move his away.
She asks him if he wants to come over to her cabin tomorrow to look at the motor, says she’s got a bottle of 12-year-old bourbon her brother sent her from Kentucky, no fine print, no obligation to fix anything if it’s too far gone. He hesitates for three full seconds, thinking about the survey bill he still has taped to his shop fridge as a reminder of how much he hates her ex, thinking about the last time he let someone inside his space, how badly it ended. He brushes his pinky against hers, light, intentional, and says yes.
He leaves the fish fry 20 minutes later, the wet splotch on his Carhartt still damp, the faint smell of her perfume clinging to the collar. He stops by his shop on the drive home, grabs the set of vintage carburetor screwdrivers he only breaks out for jobs he actually cares about, tucks them into the passenger seat of his beat-up Ford F-150. The sun’s fully down by the time he pulls into his driveway, and he can see the soft glow of her porch light across the lake, steady and bright.
