Rafe Mendoza, 52, has built a quiet, predictable life restoring vintage arcade cabinets out of a cinder block shop off Main Street in the small North Carolina mountain town he moved to three years prior. He’s got a scar snaking up his left forearm from a soldering iron accident his first year in business, a habit of leaving half-drunk root beers on every flat surface in his shop, and a flaw he’s never bothered fixing: eight years after his ex-wife left him for a tech bro who offered six figures for his entire collection of rare 80s cabinets, he assumes anyone who shows him even casual interest is only after his inventory. He only leaves the shop twice a week: once for groceries, once for the monthly town beer garden, and he never stays longer than an hour.
He’s leaning against a splintered pine picnic table nursing a cold IPA when he spots her, and he sighs. Elara Voss, the town’s new librarian, has stopped by his shop four times in the last month asking about old arcade machines for a teen after-school program, and he’d brushed her off every time, mumbled he didn’t have anything to spare, pretended he was too busy soldering circuit boards to make small talk. She’s wearing a yellow sundress printed with tiny, pixelated Space Invaders, and Rafe’s throat goes dry before he can stop it. She’s holding a frosted sour ale in one hand, and when she reaches him, she’s close enough he can smell jasmine hand lotion and cut grass on her, the hem of her dress brushing his work boot when she shifts her weight.
He expects her to pull back, apologize, but she just grins, holds his eye contact longer than polite, no hint of awkwardness. “I owe you, by the way. The Donkey Kong cabinet you left by the library back door last month? The teens lose their minds over it every afternoon. I knew it was you. No one else in town even knows what a Donkey Kong jump button feels like.” Rafe’s face heats up. He’d dropped it off at 2 a.m., thought no one saw him, figured the kids would get more use out of it than he would collecting dust in his storage unit. He’d spent three weeks fixing the joystick, replacing the cracked screen, never told a soul.
They sit down on the picnic table bench, their knees bumping every time someone cuts past them to get to the food truck, and neither of them moves away. She tells him about growing up in Detroit, spending every weekend at her dad’s corner arcade, mastering Centipede before she was tall enough to reach the coin slot without standing on a milk crate. He tells her about the time he drove 12 hours to Ohio to buy a working Asteroids cabinet out of a guy’s garage, found out the guy was using it to store old hunting gear in the back. They laugh so hard Rafe snorts beer out his nose, and she hands him a crumpled napkin, her thumb brushing his wrist when he takes it. The sun dips below the tree line, the air cools, and a fine drizzle starts to fall, spotting the picnic table, beading on the shoulder of his shirt.
The band wraps up their last set, people start packing up coolers, heading for their trucks. Elara tucks a strand of wet, dark hair behind her ear, leans in so close her breath fans over his cheek. “I have a 1981 Centipede cabinet in my basement. Glitches out every time you get past level 7. I’ve been trying to fix it for six months. If you come take a look at it tonight, I’ll make you carnitas tacos. I noticed you order them from the taco truck every beer garden. Extra cilantro, extra lime, no onions.”
Rafe almost says no. It’s his default, the wall he’s built so high he forgets it’s there sometimes. But then she tilts her head, grins, and he can see the flecks of gold in her brown eyes, the rain dripping off the end of her nose, and he nods before he can talk himself out of it. He types his number into her phone when she holds it out, his fingers still a little shaky from the beer, from the way she’s leaning into his space like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
They walk to her beat-up blue Ford truck in the drizzle, Rafe holding the print above his head to keep it dry. He holds the passenger door open for her, and when he climbs in next to her, she hands him a faded gray hoodie from the back seat to dry off. It smells like jasmine and old paper, and he pulls it on without thinking. She turns the key, the radio cuts on to an old Fleetwood Mac track, and she pulls out of the parking lot, her hand resting on the center console six inches from his. He doesn’t move his hand away.
