Woody Pritchard, 59, has spent the last 12 years avoiding every small town gathering within a 20-mile radius of his vintage motorcycle restoration shop outside Asheville. He’s got a flaw he doesn’t bother hiding: he still holds a petty grudge against half the town for taking his ex-wife’s side when she left him for an amateur flat track racer he’d considered a friend, and he hates the pitying side-eye people shoot him when they think he’s not looking. The only reason he’s at the fire department’s annual chili cookoff at all is because his 19-year-old apprentice signed him up without asking, begged him to bring the smoked short rib chili he only makes once a year for Christmas, said if he bailed he’d leave all the rusted carburetor parts stacked on his workbench for a week.
He’s camped by the beer cooler at the back of the community center parking lot, plastic cup of hazy IPA in one hand, work boots planted in a patch of clover, when he turns to grab a second can and his elbow knocks a glass jar of pickled okra out of the woman’s bag at his side. He catches it before it shatters on the asphalt, their hands brushing as they both reach for the stray paper napkin that flutters to the ground between them. Her hands are soft, ink-stained on the thumb and index finger from stamping library books, nails trimmed short and painted a deep terracotta that matches the finish on the 1968 Triumph Bonneville he’s been restoring for a client all summer. When they straighten up, they’re so close he can smell her perfume: sandalwood and bright citrus, exactly like the orange polish he uses to buff out old gas tank scratches.
She’s Clara, the new town librarian, moved here six months prior from Chicago after she quit her job rather than pull 23 queer and Black memoirs off the shelves per the local school board’s demand. He recognizes her immediately, even though he’s never spoken to her: she’s knocked on his shop door three times in the last two months, and he’d hidden in the back office every time, assuming she was just another town resident looking for a favor or a pity chat. She grins like she knows it, too, teases him about the “gone fishing” sign he hangs on the door even when he’s definitely inside sanding down fenders.
He doesn’t want to like her. Tells himself he’s too old for new people, too set in his routine of work, beer, and old westerns on the couch alone to make space for anyone else. But she doesn’t look at him like he’s the sad widowed-adjacent guy the town gossips about at the diner. She looks at the grease under his fingernails that never fully scrubs out, the frayed patch on his leather jacket with the logo of the motorcycle club he used to ride with, and asks him about the CL350 her dad left her when he died, the one she hauled down from Michigan in the back of her pickup, the one that won’t turn over no matter how many YouTube tutorials she watches.
They sit at a wobbly folding table in the far corner, far enough from the crowd that no one stops to bug them, while the judges taste test the chili entries. She tells him about the hidden shelf she’s got in the library back room for all the banned books, lets him know he can come by anytime and borrow whatever he wants, no questions asked, no check-out slip needed. He tells her about the Triumph he’s rebuilding, about the race he won in Daytona back in 1992, about how he still has the trophy on the shelf above his workbench. He doesn’t realize he’s leaning in until his knee brushes hers under the table, and she doesn’t move away. She just holds his gaze, that half-smirk still on her face, and takes a sip of her peach hard seltzer.
When the fire chief announces his chili took first place, the crowd cheers, and Woody freezes. He hates being the center of attention, hates the thought of all those eyes on him, but Clara squeezes his wrist, her thumb brushing the scar across his knuckle from a time a bike chain slipped and cut him open, and says “C’mon. They’re cheering for the chili, not your sad backstory. You earned this.” He laughs, stands up, walks to the stage to grab the stupid trophy: a cheap plastic chili pot glued to a pine base, with a sticker of a fire truck on the side.
By the time the cookoff wraps up, the sun’s gone down, the air’s cool enough that he can see his breath when he laughs, and the remaining attendees are packing up folding chairs while a classic country track plays low over the speakers. He walks her to her beat-up silver pickup, and when they stop by the driver’s side door, she leans in and kisses him first on the cheek, then slow on the mouth, her hand curled around the back of his neck, no rush, no pressure. He can taste the peach seltzer and the hint of chili on her lips, and for the first time in 12 years, he doesn’t feel like running.
She hands him a crumpled slip of paper with her cell number and the address of the cottage she rents on the edge of town, says the CL350’s parked in the carport, she’s got a bottle of 12-year bourbon and a stack of 1970s *Cycle World* magazines she found at a garage sale if he wants to come over tomorrow. He tucks the paper in the inner pocket of his leather jacket, watches her pull out of the parking lot, and climbs into his own truck, the stupid chili trophy propped on the passenger seat next to him. He pulls out his phone before he even turns the key in the ignition, types out a text saying he’ll be there at 10, and brings extra orange polish for the bike’s gas tank.
