Rafe Mendez, 62, spent most days hunched over a workbench in his garage restoring antique typewriters, his knuckles crisscrossed with scars from decades of prying stuck metal keys and tinkering with rusted internal springs. He’d avoided the annual Maple Street block party for seven straight years after his ex-wife left him for a retired PGA instructor she’d met at a country club open house, but his 16-year-old granddaughter had begged him to make an appearance this year, to help haul supplies for her lemonade stand. He’d caved, showing up in his usual faded denim jacket and oil-stained work boots, a lukewarm Pabst in one hand, a 1956 Royal Quiet De Luxe he’d spent three months restoring tucked under the other arm to donate to the library’s used book sale table.
The air smelled like charred bratwurst, cut grass, and the sickly sweet cotton candy the fire department was selling out of a beat-up trailer. The PA system blared Fleetwood Mac’s *Rumours* on loop, tinny and distorted, and kids screamed as they bounced on a neon inflatable castle set up in the empty lot next to the hardware store. Rafe leaned against the trunk of an ancient oak, half watching his granddaughter banter with customers, half plotting his escape back to his quiet garage before any of his old work buddies could corner him and badger him about dating again.
He’d lasted 47 minutes when he finally worked up the nerve to carry the Royal over to the book sale table, his boots sticking a little to the melted popsicle residue on the sidewalk. The woman running the table had silver streaks in her wavy dark hair, a faded *Tusk* tour t-shirt under a loose linen overshirt, and pale blue paint flecks spattered across the knees of her jeans. She looked up when he set the typewriter down, and their hands brushed as she reached out to run a finger along the polished black case. Her skin was cool, a small callus rough against the side of his index finger, and he flinched like he’d touched a live wire—he hadn’t had any physical contact with someone who wasn’t blood related in more than eight years.
“Elara Voss,” she said, holding out her hand properly, her dark eyes crinkling at the corners when he hesitated before shaking it. She didn’t let go for a beat longer than necessary, her thumb brushing the thick scar across his left knuckle he’d gotten in 1998 pulling a 7-year-old kid out of the path of a speeding construction truck when he’d worked for the city’s public works department. “I’ve been looking for one of these for months. I’m writing my late husband’s Coast Guard memoir, and I can’t stand typing on a laptop. The screen gives me migraines.”
Rafe found himself talking before he could stop himself, explaining how he’d replaced the rusted carriage spring, re-inked the ribbon, adjusted the keys so none stuck, even tracked down a brand new carrying case for it online. She leaned in as he talked, her shoulder barely three inches from his, not pulling away when a group of teens ran past, jostling him a little into her side. She held his eye contact steady, no nervous glancing away, no polite nods while she checked her phone, just listened, asking questions about how he’d gotten into typewriter restoration, what the hardest model he’d ever fixed was.
A small, stupid part of him was screaming to leave the whole time, that this was a trap, that she’d get bored of his quiet, grumpy ass in ten minutes, that he didn’t get to have nice things after his marriage blew up in his face. The rest of him was hyper aware of the smell of lavender and old paper clinging to her hair, the way her silver hoop earrings caught the golden hour sun, the rough, warm sound of her laugh when he told her about the time a customer had brought in a typewriter full of dead cockroaches he’d had to pick out with tweezers.
The first firework went off ten minutes earlier than the schedule posted on the telephone pole, a bright red burst that made the kids cheer. The second was a dud, sputtering low across the grass straight for the edge of the book sale table. Rafe reacted on pure instinct, yanking Elara back by the waist, pulling her tight against his chest so the fizzing firework landed harmlessly in the dirt two feet from where she’d been standing. He could feel her heart hammering against his ribs, her hair brushing his jaw, the soft fabric of her overshirt under his calloused hands, and for a long three seconds neither of them moved, her wide eyes locked on his.
She stepped back first, brushing a stray strand of hair off her face, a faint pink flush high on her cheeks. “Thanks,” she said, her voice a little shakier than before, bending to pick up a stack of poetry books that had fallen off the table when she’d stumbled. “I swear, the fire department lets the new recruits run the fireworks every year, and they always mess it up.”
By the time the full display started, painting the darkening sky pink and blue and green, Rafe had forgotten all about his planned early exit. He sat on the curb next to Elara, their shoulders brushing every time one of them leaned forward to point out a particularly bright burst, and he didn’t pull away. When the last firework faded, she asked him if he wanted to get pancakes at the diner on Main Street tomorrow morning, said she wanted him to show her how to use the Royal, maybe tell her more about that construction accident story he’d mentioned earlier.
He hesitated for half a second, the old voice in his head screaming that he was making a mistake, that it would all end badly, and then he said yes.
She brought him a warm chocolate chip cookie from the bake sale table before she left, scribbling her phone number on a scrap torn from a beat-up copy of *To Kill a Mockingbird*, tucking it into the breast pocket of his denim jacket before she loaded the Royal into the back of her forest green Subaru. He stood next to his old Ford pickup, watching her drive away, his granddaughter bouncing over to nudge him in the ribs and tease him about talking to the pretty book lady for almost two hours. He didn’t answer, pulling the scrap of paper out of his pocket to run his thumb over the smudged blue ink, taking a bite of the cookie so the melted chocolate oozed over his thumb.
