Manny Rocha, 53, makes his living rebuilding vintage Japanese motorcycles out of a converted cinder block garage outside La Grande, Oregon. He’s spent the last eight years perfecting a routine that keeps small town gossip at arm’s length: wake at 6 a.m., drink black coffee while polishing carburetors, eat a bologna sandwich for lunch at his workbench, stop at the gas station for a beer on the way home, and avoid any community event that doesn’t involve motorcycle swap meets. His closest companion is his 12-year-old border collie, Red, and his biggest flaw is his stubborn refusal to admit he’s lonely. He’d told himself the fire department rib cookoff was a waste of time, but his former apprentice begged him to come, said the crew was giving away free merch to anyone who donated $20 to their new gear fund, so Manny showed up in dust-stained work jeans and a faded Motörhead t-shirt, half a tube of chrome polish still crammed in his back pocket.
The sun beat down on the picnic tables, turning the grass under his boots crispy and the cheap domestic beer in his red plastic cup warm enough to make him wince when he sipped it. He’d already turned down three invitations to sit with neighbors who would inevitably ask when he was going to sell his shop and move somewhere warmer, when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. It was Lena Marquez, the county sheriff who’d ticketed him for expired tags on his 1987 Ford F-150 back in January. He’d grumbled about that ticket for three straight days, told every customer who walked through his door that the new sheriff was a power-hungry hardass with nothing better to do than hassle hardworking people. He tensed, ready to make a snarky comment about her not being on duty if she tried to write him up for something else, but she smiled when she got within three feet of him, and he forgot what he was going to say.
She was out of uniform, in cut-off denim shorts, a faded fire department t-shirt, and scuffed cowboy boots caked with dust from the dirt parking lot. Her badge was pinned to her belt loop next to her holster, and he could smell coconut sunscreen and the faint, sharp scent of gun oil when she stepped close enough to reach past him for a stack of napkins on the table behind him. Her bare forearm brushed his sun-warmed bicep as she grabbed the napkins, and he didn’t pull away, even though every instinct told him to step back, to keep the space between them. “I’m not here to ticket you,” she said, leaning against the edge of the picnic table a foot away from him, holding eye contact long enough that he felt the back of his neck get hot. “I need a hand with my 1972 Honda CB350. It’s been sitting in my garage for a year, won’t turn over. Everyone says you’re the only guy within 50 miles who knows how to fix those old bikes right.”
Manny blinked. He’d spent six months assuming she hated him, that she’d targeted him for the ticket on purpose, but she was grinning like she thought he was funny, not like she thought he was a problem. “You’re the one who owns that CB?” he said. He’d heard someone picked up the mint condition bike at an auction last spring, had been jealous as hell when he heard the news. “I thought it was some kid from Pendleton who bought it.” She laughed, a low, rough sound that made him smile before he realized he was doing it. “Nope. I’ve wanted one since I was 16. I just don’t know the first thing about rebuilding engines.”
They talked for 20 minutes, the noise of the cookoff fading into the background as she told him about growing up on a cattle ranch outside Baker City, about joining the sheriff’s department after her dad died, about seeing him fix a 10-year-old’s mini bike for free at the swap meet back in May, which was when she first decided to ask him for help. He told her about the ticket, about forgetting to renew his tags because he’d been up for 36 hours straight finishing a rebuild for a customer in Seattle, and she laughed so hard she snort-laughed, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
When they both reached for the same paper plate of ribs at the same time, their hands brushed, calloused from wrenching on bikes on his end, calloused from shooting and handling cuffs on hers, and neither pulled away for three long seconds. She leaned in a fraction, close enough that he could see faint flecks of gold in her dark brown eyes, and said she’d been meaning to ask him out for months, but had been scared he hated her. He admitted he hadn’t hated her, he’d just been embarrassed he’d let his tags lapse like an idiot, that he’d been avoiding her because he didn’t want to look like a fool. He knew half the town already whispered about him being the reclusive guy whose wife left him for a tech job in Portland, that if he started seeing the sheriff, the gossip would be nonstop, but for the first time in eight years, he didn’t care.
He scrawled his cell number on the back of a rib sauce-stained napkin, told her to bring the CB by his shop at 8 a.m. the next day, he’d make a pot of strong black coffee. She tucked the napkin into the back pocket of her shorts, brushing her knuckles against his wrist when she turned to leave, said she’d bring the glazed donuts he bought every Tuesday from the gas station, she’d seen him grab a dozen on her way to patrol last month. He stood there for a minute after she walked away, sipping his warm beer, Red curled at his feet, watching her wave at a group of firefighters across the lot. He wiped a smudge of rib sauce off his thumb, already counting down the hours until sunrise.
