Manny Ruiz, 53, has restored vintage outboard motors out of his cinder block panhandle shop for eight years, ever since his wife left him for a Tampa real estate broker who owned three waterfront condos. His biggest flaw is that he’s built his entire routine around avoiding anything that could disrupt the quiet he fought so hard for: he eats the same breakfast every morning, drinks the same IPA at the same waterfront beer garden every Saturday, hasn’t let anyone inside his house beyond the AC repair guy in three years. He still has grease permanently crusted under his fingernails no matter how hard he scrubs, and a thin pale scar on his left jaw from the time he tried to water ski behind a friend’s jet ski at a family cookout in 2013.
He looks up, and he recognizes her before she speaks: Lena, his ex-wife’s younger cousin, the one who used to bring him homemade chocolate chip cookies at holiday cookouts, who laughed so hard at his jet ski crash she snort-laughed into her punch. She’s 49 now, her dark hair streaked with silver at the temples, a small silver nose ring he doesn’t remember her having, wearing high-waisted jeans and a faded Tom Petty tee, work boots caked with red clay. She leans forward, elbows on the table, and taps the scar on his jaw with one calloused finger, her hazel eyes crinkling at the corners when she grins. “I knew that was you. I’d recognize that stupid scar anywhere.”
His first instinct is to make an excuse to leave. His ex still has family in town, half the people at the festival know who he is, gossip spreads faster than wildfire in this part of Florida, and he doesn’t want to mess up the quiet life he’s built for a stupid old crush he thought he’d buried a decade ago. But she sits down before he can get a word out, and he finds himself staying, talking more than he has in months, answering her questions that aren’t just polite small talk: what’s the hardest motor he’s ever restored? Does he ever take one of the old skiffs he fixes up out on the gulf himself? She doesn’t flinch at the grease under his nails, says she has clay crusted under hers half the time from her pottery studio in Asheville, where she’s lived for the past six years.
She leans closer as they talk, their knees brushing under the table, the heat of her leg seeping through the denim of his jeans. He tenses up at first, then relaxes, doesn’t move his leg away. When she reaches across the table to grab the last smoked oyster off his paper plate, her knuckles brush his wrist, and a jolt of heat climbs up his arm he hasn’t felt since he was in his 20s. She doesn’t pull her hand away right away, her thumb brushing the edge of his calloused palm for a beat, like she’s testing the water, before she pops the oyster into her mouth and grins.
The emcee announces the fireworks are starting over the speaker, and the crowd surges to their feet, a group of kids with glow sticks knocking into their table. She grabs his hand to keep from stumbling, her fingers lacing through his automatically, and he curls his fingers around hers without thinking. They walk to the edge of the wooden dock, the dark gulf water reflecting the first pink and blue bursts of the fireworks, her shoulder pressed tight to his, the smell of coconut sunscreen and spiced rum rolling off her. She turns to him, her face lit up by the bursts of light in the sky, and her voice is low enough only he can hear it over the boom of the fireworks. “I always thought you got a raw deal, you know? She never appreciated how good you were. I’ve thought about that stupid jet ski scar every time I see someone with a jaw line scar, for 10 years.”
He hesitates for half a second, thinking about all the rules he’s made for himself, the empty quiet house he goes home to every night, the way he hasn’t let anyone touch him longer than a handshake in eight years. Then he leans down and kisses her, her lips warm and tasting like rum and cherry hard candy, her free hand coming up to curl in the curly gray hair at the nape of his neck. No one notices them, everyone’s staring up at the sky, the fireworks booming loud enough to drown out the sound of his heart hammering in his chest.
When the last firework fades, the crowd cheers, and they pull apart, both grinning like stupid teenagers. They walk back to his beat up 2004 Ford F150 parked a block away, their hands still laced together, and she stops at the passenger door, tilting her head up at him. “You said you have a shop full of old motors? I want to see it. Unless you have other plans.” He shakes his head, opens the passenger door for her, and she slides in. He walks around to the driver’s side, gets in, turns the key in the ignition. The radio cuts on to a Garth Brooks song they both sang at his ex’s 30th birthday party, back when they were all still family, back when he thought he had his whole life figured out. He turns the volume up a little instead of reaching for the dial to change it.
