Manny Rios, 58, retired air traffic controller, hadn’t wanted to come to the fire department beer tent in the first place. His niece had begged, saying her 10-year-old son’s little league team was manning the food booth to fund new uniforms, and Manny couldn’t say no to the kid who showed up at his workshop every Saturday to help him fix up old fishing reels. He’d lurked by the keg stand for 20 minutes, nursing a lukewarm Pabst, avoiding eye contact with everyone he’d lived next to for three years, his default grumpy scowl fixed in place. Manny’s biggest flaw, the one his late wife had teased him about until the day she died, was that he planned every single minute of his day down to the second, and detested any interruption to his routine. He’d gone seven years without a single date, without so much as a casual conversation with a woman that didn’t involve discussing hardware store inventory or stray cat feeding schedules.
His fingers brushed someone else’s when he reached for a fresh cup of beer, and he jumped like he’d touched a live wire. The woman laughed, a low, warm sound that cut through the din of the country cover band and yelling kids running between folding chairs. It was Lila Marlow, 54, who ran the herbal apothecary on Main Street, the same woman he’d rolled his eyes at a hundred times driving past her shop window full of quartz crystals and dried lavender bundles. She was also his old air traffic control supervisor’s ex-wife, a man Manny had hated for 20 years for breathing down his neck during every shift, for writing him up twice for “unprofessional demeanor” when he’d snapped at the guy for micromanaging a minor weather diversion. Manny’s first instinct was to mumble an apology and walk away, but she didn’t let go of the cup they were both holding for two full beats, her knuckles warm against his, the faint scent of cedar and orange hand cream drifting up to his nose.
She leaned in to be heard over the band, her bare shoulder brushing the sleeve of his faded cotton work shirt, the heat of her skin seeping through the thin fabric. “I see you leave half a can of tuna behind my shop every Tuesday and Thursday for the tabby with the torn ear,” she said, her mouth almost close enough to his ear that he could feel her breath on his neck. “Figured you were the type to act like you hated everyone, but secretly have a soft spot for something.” Manny felt his face heat up, something he hadn’t experienced since he was a teenager getting caught making out in the back of his dad’s pickup. He’d thought no one saw those trips to the back of her shop, that he’d timed them perfectly when she was closed for lunch. She had streaks of silver in her auburn hair, pulled back in a messy braid, and tiny silver sunflower rings on three of her fingers, calluses at the pads of her fingers from digging in her herb garden.
He didn’t walk away. He found himself leaning in too, telling her about how the tabby had showed up on his porch three years prior, skittish, and he’d started following it to her shop after he realized it had kittens tucked under her back step. She teased him about the time he’d stood in the grocery store for 10 minutes yelling at the self-checkout machine because it wouldn’t scan his can of baked beans, and he laughed so hard he spilled a little of his beer on his jeans. He kept waiting for that familiar urge to bolt, to make an excuse about having to get home to feed his own cat, to go back to his quiet house where no one bothered him and every minute was scheduled, but it never came. She smelled like summer, like cut grass and the hard cider she was drinking, and when she tossed her head back laughing at a story he told about his old supervisor’s terrible 90s mullet, he forgot for a second that he was supposed to hate anyone associated with the guy.
When she asked him if he wanted to walk down to the lake to get away from the noise, he hesitated for half a second, his brain running through the list of chores he’d planned for the rest of the evening: oil the reel he was fixing, water the tomato plants, watch the recorded Cubs game he’d saved. Then he looked at her, at the crinkles around her hazel eyes when she smiled, at the freckles across her nose from spending all weekend working in her community garden plot, and he nodded.
The gravel path crunched under their boots, the noise of the tent fading behind them, crickets chirping in the tall grass lining the path, the lake smelling like algae and driftwood and distant campfire smoke. She sat down on a weathered wooden bench half-hidden by oak trees, and patted the spot next to her. When he sat, their knees brushed through their jeans, and she didn’t move away. She told him she’d left his old supervisor 12 years prior, that he was the same controlling, arrogant jerk at home that he’d been at the office, that she’d moved up to the lake town the second the divorce was final to get as far away from him as possible. She took his hand, her fingers lacing through his, and said she’d been wanting to talk to him for months, that she’d seen him sitting on his porch every evening watching the sunset, that he looked lonely, like he needed someone to pull him out of his own head.
Manny felt that familiar war in his chest, the part of him that said this was wrong, that you don’t go near your old boss’s ex-wife, that you don’t disrupt a routine that’s kept you safe for seven years, fighting with the part of him that hadn’t felt this light, this seen, in longer than he could remember. He tilted his head down, and kissed her, soft at first, like he was scared she’d pull away, and when she kissed him back, her hand cupping the side of his face, the cool metal of her rings pressing against his stubble, he let all the tight, planned parts of him relax. She tasted like cinnamon and hard cider, and when she pulled back, she was smiling, her cheeks pink.
They sat on that bench for an hour, his arm slung over her shoulder, talking about nothing important, about her herb garden, about the fishing trip he was planning for the fall, about the tabby cat’s kittens that had all found homes earlier that summer. When she told him she had a fresh peach pie sitting on her kitchen counter, still warm from the oven, and asked if he wanted to come over to share a slice, he didn’t hesitate.
He stood, held out a hand to pull her up, and for the first time since he retired, he didn’t feel the need to plan every second of what comes next.
