Rafe Mendez, 51, has scouted minor league baseball prospects across the Deep South for 22 years, stubborn enough to drive three hours through a thunderstorm to watch a 19-year-old lefty throw 12 pitches, then turn right back around without speaking to anyone. That same stubbornness kept him away from every town charity event for eight years post-divorce, until his old high school buddy threatened to hide all his scouting notes if he skipped the fall chili cookoff. He’d planned to grab one beer, nod at three people, and bolt before anyone could pester him about his love life.
The rec center linoleum is sticky under his scuffed work boots, air thick with cumin, cayenne, and the faint burnt-sugar smell of the cotton candy machine by the door. Country radio hums low over the din of yelling kids and neighbors bickering over whose chili has too many beans, and Rafe is already reaching for his keys when he spots her. Clara Voss, his ex-wife’s younger cousin, leaning against a folding table in a flannel tied at the waist, chili powder smudged on her left cheek, laughing at something the pastor said. He’d not seen her since a week before the divorce, when she’d slipped him a pack of his favorite peppermint chewing tobacco and said her cousin was being an idiot, no further explanation.
She spots him before he can duck out, waves so hard her silver hoop earring swings, and cuts through the crowd before he can think of an excuse to leave. She hugs him before he can brace for it, her perfume cedar and cold orange, the sleeve of her t-shirt brushing his forearm when she pulls back to look at him. “You still driving that beat up 2008 F150 that sounds like it’s gonna fall apart going over 60?” she teases, nodding at the parking lot where his truck sits under an oak tree. He snorts, tucks his tobacco tin back into the pocket of his faded Greenville Drive hoodie, and admits he still changes the oil himself every three months, like clockwork.
She tugs on his wrist to pull him over to her table of vegetarian chili, and he lets her, even though he’s spent 30 years making fun of anyone who doesn’t put beef in their chili. Their knees bump when they sit down on the wobbly metal folding chairs, and she doesn’t shift away. He notices the chipped navy blue nail polish on her fingers, the rough callus on the side of her index finger from hauling 50-pound coffee sacks for the roasting business she runs out of Asheville. She holds his gaze when she says she never bought the story her cousin told everyone about him cheating, that she knew he’d never be that stupid. He feels his throat go tight; no one’s said that out loud to him in eight years, not even his own mom.
The overhead lights cut out all at once, the whole rec center plunging into dim red glow from the emergency exit signs, and a cheer goes up from the kids in the back. Someone yells a tree fell on the power line down the street, it’ll be 10 minutes before it’s fixed. In the dark, Clara leans in, her breath warm against the shell of his ear, and says she’s had a crush on him since she was 17, when he taught her to throw a curveball in his ex’s backyard during a Fourth of July cookout. He freezes for half a second, his brain screaming this is wrong, that everyone in town will talk, that he’s 13 years older than her and she’s his ex’s family, but then she brushes her fingers over the knuckles of his hand where it rests on the table, and he laces their fingers together before he can overthink it.
The lights flicker back on 12 minutes later, and they don’t pull their hands apart right away. The church secretary at the next table gives them a sharp, judgmental side eye, and Rafe just smirks, lifts their joined hands to take a sip of his beer, and doesn’t look away until she huffs and turns back to her own bowl. Clara asks if he wants to drive up to the ridge overlook later to watch the sunset, says she brought a bag of her best dark roast to brew on his truck’s portable stove. He tells her he’s got a cooler of hazy IPA in the backseat he’d planned to drink alone out by the baseball fields that night, so it’s a perfect trade.
They slip out before the chili contest winners are announced, ignoring the few pointed stares from people they’ve known their whole lives. The fall air is crisp when they step outside, crickets chirping loud in the grass by the sidewalk, the sun just starting to dip pink over the pine trees at the edge of town. He holds the truck door open for her, and when she climbs in, she brushes a kiss against his jaw that tastes like chili and cinnamon gum.
