Manny Ruiz, 53, has spent the last 16 years restoring vintage neon signs out of a cinder block garage in east Austin, his knuckles perpetually smudged with solder, his flannel shirts dotted with tiny burn holes from wayward torch sparks. He’s a lifelong people-pleaser, the kind of guy who stays late to fix a diner’s open sign for free if the owner is a single mom, who drove 3 hours every weekend for 4 years to watch his daughter Lila play club soccer, who hasn’t been on a date since his divorce finalized 12 years ago, convinced any time for himself was time he was taking away from Lila. Now that Lila’s graduated college and moved to Portland for a graphic design job, he’s been adrift, spending most weekends wandering local food truck rallies just to be around people without having to talk too much.
He’s leaning against a splintered cedar fence post nursing a cold lager, the smell of smoked brisket and charred corn tangling in the warm May air, when he hears someone say his name. He turns, and his throat goes dry. It’s Jess Carter, Lila’s old club soccer coach. He hasn’t seen her in 3 years, not since Lila’s last senior game. She’s traded her usual windbreaker and soccer cleats for high-waisted denim cutoff shorts and a faded Willie Nelson tee, her blonde hair pulled back in a loose braid, a smudge of dirt on her forearm that he knows from their brief past conversations is from the landscape design side gig she’s had for years. She steps closer, and he catches a whiff of lavender hand lotion and the citronella candle she’s probably been standing next to, her shoulder brushing his when a group of kids dart past chasing a stray dog.
He fumbles for something to say, his brain short-circuiting between the polite, distant “coach” he used to greet her with at games and the dumb, flirty one-liner he’d never actually say out loud. For years, he’d had a quiet, unacknowledged crush on her, the kind he’d push down immediately because it felt wrong, sleazy even, to be attracted to the woman in charge of his 16-year-old daughter’s team. He’d avoided one-on-one conversations with her back then, only lingering long enough to grab Lila’s gear and say thanks before heading out, even when he’d catch her looking at him across the field during practice.
She laughs at the dumb, stammered comment he makes about burning his thumb on a neon transformer earlier that day, leaning in so her arm presses against his, the heat of her skin seeping through the thin cotton of his shirt. She says she quit coaching last month, is going full time with her landscape business, has been stopping by his workshop every other week for the last two months to ask about a custom neon cactus sign she wants for her home office, but was too nervous to knock. He blinks, surprised, his internal conflict spiking: part of him is screaming that this is crossing a line, that people will talk, that Lila will think it’s weird, the other part of him is hyper-aware of the way her knee brushes his when she shifts her weight, the way her eyes hold his for a beat longer than normal, no trace of the professional, distant coach she used to be around him.
The mariachi band down the row cranks up a loud, brassy cover of a country song, and she leans in closer, her mouth almost touching his ear to ask if he wants to walk over to the nearby greenway to get away from the noise. He hesitates for half a second, the old people-pleaser voice in his head yelling that he should go home, work on the sign he’s supposed to deliver for the new whiskey bar next week, not do something impulsive. Then he nods.
They walk along the gravel path lined with oak trees strung with fairy lights, fireflies blinking low over the grass. She passes him a fried Oreo she grabbed from the dessert truck before they left, her fingers brushing his when he takes it, the rough callus on her index finger from digging planting holes catching on his knuckle. She says she always thought he was cute back when he came to games, the only dad who never yelled at the refs or screamed at the girls for missing a shot, who always brought extra orange slices and cold water for the whole team even when Lila was benched with an ankle sprain. He admits he’s had a crush on her for years, but never acted on it because he thought it was inappropriate, that she’d think he was a creep for hitting on his daughter’s coach. She snorts, and tells him Lila texted her two weeks ago, told her Manny was moping around the workshop alone all the time, that she should stop being a coward and ask him out already.
The tension he’s been carrying in his shoulders for the last hour melts, and he laughs, loud and genuine, the kind of laugh he hasn’t let out in months. He asks her if she wants to come back to his workshop to see the whiskey bar sign he’s been working on, a 12-foot tall neon outline of a longhorn that glows deep burnt orange when it’s plugged in. She says yes, and they walk back toward the garage side by side, their fingers brushing every few steps, neither of them pulling away. He holds the garage door open for her, the warm glow of half-restored neon signs spilling out over her shoulders, and he realizes he hasn’t felt this light since he was in his 20s.
