Rafe Mendez, 52, makes his living rebuilding vintage outboard motors out of a cinder block garage behind his coastal North Carolina cottage, and for eight years straight he’s held firm to one rule: no getting mixed up with anyone who even knows his ex-wife’s name. The rule hasn’t been hard to follow, mostly. He spends most days up to his elbows in two-stroke oil and rust, weekends manning a parts table at local fishing tournaments, avoids small talk that lasts longer than it takes to quote a carburetor rebuild. His biggest flaw, if you ask the few people he talks to, is he holds grudges like they’re custom-tooled parts he can resell later, and for the last month he’s held a particularly sharp one against Elara Voss, the new county parks and rec director who denied his shop expansion permit without so much as a phone call to explain why.
He’s leaning against the side of his beat-up 2004 Ford F-150 at the post-tournament fish fry when she walks up, her work boots squelching in the red mud that’s still soft from last night’s rain, and before he can step out of the way she stumbles, her hand flying out to grab his bicep to steady herself. Her palm is warm even through the thick flannel of his work shirt, and when she pulls back she huffs a laugh, wiping a smudge of clay off her khakis. “Sorry about that. Some genius decided to put the beer tent at the bottom of a hill.”
Rafe grunts, taking a sip of his cheap lager from a foam koozie printed with a marlin logo. He’s got grease under his fingernails he’s been trying to scrub out for three days, a fleck of it stuck to the edge of his jaw, and he’s already halfway to a snarky comment about the permit when she meets his eyes, steady, no trace of the stuck-up bureaucrat he’d built up in his head. She’s 48, he remembers, used to spend summers at her grandma’s house down the road when they were kids, moved back to the county three months ago after a decade working in state government in Raleigh. She smells like coconut sunscreen and pine all-purpose cleaner, the same stuff he uses to wipe down his workbench, and when she nods at the stack of motor manuals on the seat of his truck behind him, her shoulder brushes his, close enough that he can feel the heat of her through his shirt.
“Look, about the permit,” she says, leaning in a little to talk over the bluegrass band playing on the makeshift stage 20 feet away, a group of kids screaming as they chase each other with handfuls of cotton candy between them. “I didn’t deny it to be a jerk. You forgot to mark the 25-foot wetland buffer on your survey. Fix that, and it’s approved before the end of next week. I left three voicemails on your shop line, by the way. You never called back.”
Rafe blinks. He never checks his shop voicemail, never has, figured if someone needed him bad enough they’d show up at the garage. He’s halfway to apologizing when a group of tournament winners walks past, slapping him on the back and yelling about the 12-pound red drum they caught, and she has to step even closer to avoid being knocked into the mud, her chest pressing against his arm for half a second before she pulls back, a faint pink tinge high on her cheekbones. He feels that pressure for 10 full seconds after, sharp and warm, and for the first time in eight years he doesn’t immediately shut down the thought that creeps into his head, the one that says he could get used to being this close to someone.
They talk for another 45 minutes, the sun dipping low over the marsh, painting the sky pink and orange, and every time someone walks past they have to lean in a little closer, their faces inches apart. Their hands brush when she takes a hushpuppy off his paper plate, her fingers soft against his calloused ones, and she holds eye contact when she takes a bite, grinning when he admits he’s been avoiding her at every county meeting for the last month because he thought she had it out for him. “Your ex-wife always said you were the grumpiest man on the coast,” she says, laughing, and he flinches a little, the old rule popping back into his head, but then she shrugs. “She also said she never should have left you for that golf pro who couldn’t change a flat tire, so I don’t put much stock in her opinions.”
It starts drizzling right as the band packs up, people rushing to their cars with coolers and folding chairs, and Elara groans when she checks her phone, saying her 10-year-old Honda died in the parking lot on the other side of the park, her roadside assistance won’t be there for two hours. Rafe offers her a ride before he can think better of it, and she nods, grabbing her canvas work bag off the ground. The cab of his truck smells like motor oil and peppermint gum, the heat blowing hard enough to fog up the windows as he pulls out of the park, and when he stops at a red light she reaches over, her thumb brushing the edge of his jaw to wipe the fleck of grease off. He doesn’t pull away.
He drives her to the small rental cottage she’s staying in on the edge of the marsh, the porch strung with fairy lights, and when he puts the truck in park she turns to him, her knee brushing his. “You wanna come in for coffee?” she says, and she’s not playing games, no coy smile, just steady eye contact, the same look she had when she told him about the permit. Rafe nods, already reaching for the door handle, already mentally rearranging his schedule tomorrow to redo that survey first thing. She leans over the center console before he can get out, pressing a soft, quick kiss to his mouth, the faint taste of sweet tea on her lips. He reaches up to touch the corner of his mouth, still warm from the contact, as she grabs her bag and opens the passenger door, calling over her shoulder that she’s got extra creamer in the fridge, the vanilla kind he mentioned he liked 20 minutes earlier.
