Manny Ruiz, 53, vintage camper restoration specialist, has run his shop out of a weathered cedar barn outside Fredericksburg, Texas, for eight years, ever since his ex-wife packed their Subaru and drove north to Portland without a forwarding address. His biggest flaw? He’d rather spend three nights straight stripping rust off a 1968 Winnebago than make small talk with anyone who shows even a flicker of romantic interest. He’d written that part of his life off, convinced it only led to paperwork and heartache.
He only showed up to the county fire department chili cookoff because his 72-year-old next door neighbor had broken her ankle the week prior and begged him to drop off her award-winning brisket chili entry. He was wearing a faded gray Carhartt flannel dotted with epoxy stains, work boots caked in red dirt, planning to drop the crockpot, grab a free beer, and hightail it back to his shop before anyone could corner him into chatting about the latest county permit nonsense the commissioner had dreamed up.
He turned too fast around a folding table stacked with paper plates, and bumped straight into Lila Marlow. Her half-full sample cup of chili sloshed, a dollop of red sauce landing square on the front of his flannel. She yelped a quiet apology, grabbing a crumpled napkin from her jeans pocket and leaning in to dab at the stain before he could protest. Her knuckles brushed the sparse hair peeking out of his flannel collar, and he caught the scent of cedar shampoo and lime seltzer on her, sharp and bright over the smoky tang of grilled sausage and chili powder hanging over the park. She held eye contact for three beats too long, hazel eyes crinkling at the corners when she noticed he wasn’t stepping back.
He knew who she was, of course. She’d dropped off her 1972 Airstream Sovereign at his shop three weeks prior, asking for a full frame-up restoration, including custom walnut cabinetry and a solar setup powerful enough to run a full-size espresso machine. She was married to the county commissioner, the same man who’d delayed Manny’s shop expansion permit for six months last year over a trivial zoning technicality, just because he’d refused to donate to his re-election campaign. Manny had been dodging her follow-up texts for ten days, equal parts annoyed at the association and flustered by the way she’d leaned against the Airstream’s aluminum shell that first day, sunlight gilding the ends of her auburn hair, asking him if he ever took off work long enough to go camping.
He stepped back finally, shoving his hands in his jeans pockets, mumbled that the stain was no big deal, he had plenty of shirts covered in worse. She laughed, a low warm sound that cut through the noise of the crowd yelling over the chili contest announcements. “I was starting to think you were ignoring my texts,” she said, tilting her head, and he felt his ears go pink. He’d told himself a hundred times that getting mixed up with the commissioner’s wife was the dumbest possible move, that the man would make his life a living hell if he caught so much as a whiff of anything between them, that he didn’t need that kind of drama. But he couldn’t look away from the faint smattering of freckles across her nose, or the way her denim shirt was unbuttoned just enough to show a thin silver necklace shaped like a bird in flight.
She nodded toward an empty picnic table under a gnarled live oak at the edge of the park, and he followed before he could talk himself out of it. They sat close enough that their knees brushed under the table, the rough denim of his work jeans scraping against her softer, darker pair, and she told him she was leaving the commissioner at the end of the month. She’d bought the Airstream with her own money, she said, planning to drive it down to the Gulf Coast and rent out beachfront campsites for a few months before she decided where to settle next. She’d been married for 18 years, and she was tired of smiling for campaign photos and pretending she cared about county road funding bills.
The weight he’d been carrying around about her, the stupid internal fight between his resentment of her husband and the dumb, persistent pull he felt toward her, evaporated in half a second. He leaned in a little, the oak leaves rustling overhead, and told her he’d had the custom cabinet plans drawn up for a week, he’d just been too much of a coward to send them over. She smiled, reaching across the table to brush a fleck of dried chili off his jaw, her thumb lingering on the coarse gray stubble there for a beat longer than necessary. He told her he could push her build to the front of his queue, have it done two weeks earlier than he’d quoted, no extra charge, if she wanted to test drive the Airstream down to Padre Island with him for a long weekend when it was finished.
She laughed, squeezing his hand where it rested on the table, and said she’d like that more than he knew. A loud voice called her name from across the park, and they both looked over to see the commissioner waving at her, holding a campaign sign next to the mayor. She stood up, adjusting her shirt, and told him she’d text him that night to pick out paint colors for the cabinet trim. He watched her walk back toward the crowd, the hem of her denim skirt swishing against her calves, and picked up the napkin she’d used to dab his shirt, still faintly scented with lime. He lifted the cold beer he’d grabbed earlier to his lips, already mentally rearranging his work schedule for the next three weeks.
