Rafe Ortega, 57, spends 40 hours a week on his back in a drafty garage outside Fredericksburg, Texas, prying rust off 1970s Triumphs and Hondas for collectors who pay top dollar to relive their teenage glory days. His biggest flaw, one he’s never bothered fixing, is that he holds grudges like they’re custom engraved tools—too valuable to toss, even when they haven’t seen use in decades. He’s carried one against Lila Mae Carter for 35 years, ever since she ratted him out to her dad for sneaking her older sister out to a ZZ Top show, getting his first ever motorcycle impounded for two weeks and costing him his part-time job at the local auto shop. He hasn’t spoken to her since high school graduation.
The annual Gillespie County Chili Cookoff is the last place he expects to run into her. The air smells like mesquite smoke, cumin, and cheap beer, the ground under his work boots crunches with discarded peanut shells and paper napkins, and the crackle of a cover band playing Johnny Cash cuts through the hum of a few hundred people yelling over each other. He’s just accepted his third-place plaque, $150 in cash stuffed in the pocket of his oil-stained flannel, and is leaning against the fully restored 1972 Bonneville he brought to show off, when he spots her walking toward him.
She’s 52 now, he calculates, auburn hair streaked with strands of silver pulled back in a loose braid, wearing a faded Willie Nelson cutoff tee, high-waisted jeans, and scuffed work boots caked with cow manure. She’s a ranch hand out on the 7D Ranch north of town, he remembers hearing from a buddy a few years back, never got married, runs the ranch’s horse training program on the side. She stops two feet away, close enough that he can smell lavender laundry soap mixed with campfire smoke, and grins like she knows exactly what he’s thinking about that night in 1988. Her eyes are the same warm hazel they were when she was 17, crinkled at the corners from years of working in the sun.
He tenses up, half ready to make a snarky comment about her being a narc, when she nods at the Bonneville’s glossy forest green gas tank. “That the one you were rebuilding last spring? I drove past your shop every Saturday for three months watching you sand the frame.” Her voice is lower than it was, rough from too many years of yelling over spooked horses and country music blaring from her truck speakers. She reaches out to run a finger along the tank’s pinstriping, and her knuckle brushes the back of his hand where he’s holding a cold Shiner Bock, the warmth of her skin a sharp contrast to the condensation dripping down the can. He doesn’t pull away.
She apologizes before he can say anything. Says her sister was the one who lied to their dad, told him Rafe had pressured her into sneaking out, when really she’d begged him to take her so she could meet her older boyfriend at the show. Lila had gone along with the lie, she admits, because she’d had a stupid teenage crush on him, hated the idea of him paying attention to her sister instead of her, and didn’t have the guts to admit it for decades. He blinks, thrown. He’s spent 35 years mad at her for ruining his month, and she’d been into him the whole time.
They talk for an hour, leaning against the bike, ignoring the calls from their friends to come join other groups. He buys her a fried Oreo from the food truck by the entrance, and when she takes a bite, powdered sugar dusts the corner of her mouth. She leans in to wipe a smudge of chili off his jaw a minute later, her thumb brushing the rough gray stubble on his cheek, and he feels his chest tighten like he’s 22 again, nervous to talk to a girl he thinks is out of his league. She teases him about the terrible mullet he had back in high school, he teases her about the neon leg warmers she used to wear to football games, and for a second the 35 years between then and now disappear.
The sun dips below the hills as the cookoff winds down, string lights strung between the oak trees flicker on, and most of the crowd has packed up their coolers and headed home. He asks her if she wants to go for a ride, and she nods so fast her braid slips over her shoulder. He hands her the extra helmet he keeps strapped to the back of the bike, watches her pull it on, her cheeks pink from the cold and three glasses of peach sangria. She climbs on behind him, wraps her arms tight around his waist, and he can feel the warmth of her chest against his back, her fingers laced together over his stomach through his flannel.
He pulls out onto the empty county road, cranks the throttle, and the Bonneville roars to life, wind whipping past their helmets, crickets chirping loud in the brush lining the shoulder. She leans into him when he takes a curve a little faster than he should, laughing so loud he can hear her through the helmet, and he feels the last of that old grudge dissolve like smoke in the wind. He doesn’t have a plan for the rest of the night, doesn’t know if they’ll go back to his place for coffee or stop at the dive bar on the edge of town for another beer, but for the first time in 8 years, he doesn’t feel the need to overthink it. He flicks on the bike’s brights, hits a straight stretch of road, and accelerates.
