Rafe Mendez, 67, has spent four years treating small-talk with single women like a contact sport he’s determined to lose. A retired pinball machine restorer with knuckles crisscrossed with old solder scars and a habit of wearing steel-toe work boots even to summer festivals, he’d shown up to the town’s annual craft beer pop-up only to drop off a restored 1978 Space Invaders cabinet for the local pub’s temporary arcade, and planned to be home in time for the 8PM baseball broadcast. He’d even made a $50 bet with his nephew that he’d leave with no phone numbers, no awkward small talk, no bullshit.
He finds out her name is Clara, she’s the town’s new library director, and she’s been using his old, low-budget YouTube repair tutorials to fix up the vintage game cabinet collection for the library’s monthly senior game nights. She keeps glancing down at his calloused, scarred hands as he talks, then back up to his face, like she’s matching the hands she’s watched take apart flipper assemblies and re-solder circuit boards to the man standing in front of her. Every time their knees brush under the bar table he tenses up, half ready to make an excuse and leave, half desperate to stay, the familiar war of disgust and desire coiling tight in his chest. He’d spent four years telling himself wanting anyone other than his late wife was a betrayal, that any man his age chasing that spark was just making a fool of himself, but every time she smiles, the corners of her eyes crinkling, that resolve chips a little more.
The crowd gets louder as the sun dips lower, and she leans in so close her breath brushes his ear when she asks if he wants to walk down to the riverfront to get away from the noise. He hesitates for three full seconds, thinks of the bet, thinks of his wife’s chipped blue coffee mug sitting on his kitchen counter, thinks of how long it’s been since he wanted to be anywhere with anyone that wasn’t his old hound dog. He says yes.
The path to the river is lined with wild clover, the grass soft under his worn work boots, and their hands brush three times in the first hundred feet before he stops overthinking it and laces his calloused fingers through hers. She doesn’t pull away, just squeezes his hand once, light, like she’s been waiting for him to make the first move. They sit on a weathered, splintered wooden bench half hidden by willow branches, and he spots the smudge of blueberry pie on her left cheek before she does. He stares at it for a full minute, fighting the urge to wipe it off, before he finally lifts his hand and brushes his thumb across her skin, the soft warmth of her jaw under his touch making his chest feel light, like it hasn’t since before his wife got sick.
She tilts her face up before he can pull his hand away, and kisses him slow, the taste of peach hard seltzer and mint on her tongue, the distant noise of the festival fading to a soft hum in the background. He doesn’t pull away, doesn’t feel the sharp stab of guilt he expected, just feels present, the cool river breeze on his neck, her hand resting on his thigh, the faint chirp of crickets in the grass around them.
They sit there until the sky turns pink and purple at the edges, the heron that’s been fishing in the shallows flying off into the trees. She asks him if he wants to come back to her place to take a look at the library’s broken 1981 Pac-Man cabinet she’s been fighting with for three weeks, the one none of his tutorials could fix. He nods, grabs his canvas work bag slung over the bench leg, stands, and pulls her to her feet with a grin he hasn’t let cross his face in four years. He doesn’t even care that he lost the bet.
