Javi Mendez, 53, has built custom western saddles for every ranch within 120 miles of his central Texas town for 22 years, and he’d rather sand down a full hide of roughout leather with a sheet of printer paper than attend the annual summer chili cookoff. His niece all but dragged him out of his workshop at 4 p.m., reminding him he’d signed up for a vendor spot to show off his new youth saddle line three months prior, before he’d forgotten and scheduled a tool sharpening session for the same night. The air reeks of cumin, charred mesquite, and cheap domestic beer, the crowd so thick he has to tuck his elbows to his sides to avoid knocking over paper bowls of chili sloshing with melted cheddar. He’s 90 seconds from grabbing his keys and bailing when he steps backward to avoid a toddler sprinting with a popsicle, and his shoulder slams into someone holding a bowl of brisket chili.
His first instinct is to shut down, mumble another apology, and go back to pretending he doesn’t exist outside his workshop, the old guilt gnawing at his ribs—four years since his wife passed, and he still feels like he’s breaking some unwritten rule every time he so much as smiles at a woman who isn’t his sister or niece. But she’s leaning against the edge of his vendor table, nodding at the half-finished saddle propped against the leg, asking about the tooled acorns along the skirt, and he finds himself talking without overthinking it, pointing out the difference between full grain and top grain leather, the way he carves each design freehand instead of using a stamp. She leans in closer when he points out the tiny stitch detail along the seat, her wrist brushing his, the callus on the side of her palm from roping horses rough against his skin, and he has to pause for half a second to catch his breath. No one’s asked him about his work for fun in years, not even his regular clients, who only care about fit and turnaround time.
When she complains the chili stain isn’t coming out with the napkins, he offers to grab the industrial stain remover he keeps in his workshop for leather dye spills, half-expecting her to say no, to brush him off like the grieving widower everyone in town tiptoes around. She says yes before he finishes the sentence, tucking her hair behind her ear and asking if he minds if she stops by his truck to drop off her bag first. The walk to his beat-up Ford F-150 is quiet, the hum of the cookoff fading behind them, and when they climb in, the old Johnny Cash CD he left in the player is crooning Folsom Prison Blues, she hums along under her breath, and he doesn’t reach for the dial to change it like he usually does when anyone else is in the truck. She rests her hand on the center console two inches from his, her knuckles sun-kissed, a tiny scar across her index finger from a branding iron, he notices. He doesn’t move his hand away.
The workshop smells like leather conditioner and cedar when they step inside, the overhead string lights he strung up last Christmas glowing soft gold over the workbench. He hands her the stain remover, and she leans against the edge of the bench while she works on the shirt, asking him about the stack of handwritten order forms taped to the wall behind him, laughing when he tells her about the rancher who asked him to tool a portrait of his pet pig on the back of a saddle last year. The guilt that’s been sitting heavy in his chest all evening melts away, slow, like butter on warm cornbread, and he realizes he hasn’t felt this light since before his wife got sick.
She finishes dabbing at the stain, holds the shirt out to show him the spot is almost gone, and asks if he wants to grab coffee at the 24-hour diner on the edge of town after he locks up. He nods, reaching for his keys on the hook by the door, his knuckles brushing hers when she hands him back the stain remover. He doesn’t pull away, and neither does she.
