Rafe Marquez, 57, has spent the last eight years restoring vintage sportfishing boats out of his cinder block yard on Tampa’s eastern edge, and avoiding anything that smells like his ex-wife’s side of the family. His biggest flaw? He’s convinced any romantic entanglement at his age is just an excuse for small-town gossip to ruin the quiet routine he’s built. He hasn’t been on a date since the divorce papers were signed, spends his Friday nights either sanding teak or nursing a draft beer at The Rusty Cleat, the dive bar a three-minute walk from his shop gate.
He’s leaned against the sticky Formica bar the night of the annual boat show afterparty, watching a 2019 redfish tournament recap on the grainy TV above the taps, when he feels a soft nudge to his elbow. The air smells like coconut sunscreen and brine, and when he turns, Lila Reyes is standing there, holding a vodka soda, her auburn hair pulled back in a loose braid, a half-smirk on her face like she knows exactly how uncomfortable he is right now. She’s his ex-wife’s younger cousin, 42, a marine biologist who spends half the year tagging sea turtles off the Yucatan, and he hasn’t seen her since the weekend he moved out of the house he shared with her cousin.
She leans in to talk over the jukebox blaring Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’,” her shoulder pressing firm to his bicep through his faded gray work flannel, and he can feel the heat of her skin through the thin fabric. “I heard you restored that 1972 Bertram for the guy down in Sarasota,” she says, her breath warm against his ear. “Figured I’d find you here, hiding from everyone who might ask if you’re finally gonna stop moping.”
He snorts, takes a sip of his beer, pretends he’s not hyper aware of the way her knee brushes his when she shifts her weight. She’s always been off limits, even back when he was married, even when she was 19 and showed up at his yard asking for a summer job scraping barnacles, sunburned and chewing spearmint gum so strong he could smell it across the workbench. Now, when she reaches past him to grab a handful of napkins off the bar, her breast brushes his arm, and she doesn’t apologize, just quirks an eyebrow at him like she’s daring him to say something about it.
The internal conflict hits him fast, sharp. He should say he has an early day, head back to his empty trailer behind the yard, avoid the gossip that would spread faster than red tide if anyone saw them hanging out. His ex would throw a fit, half the marine circuit would side with her, call him a creep for going after her younger cousin. But he can’t look away from the streak of silver at her temple that catches the neon Pabst Blue Ribbon sign, can’t ignore the rough callus on her index finger when she taps his wrist to point out the guy across the bar who flipped boats with his ex back in the day, laughing when he makes a crude joke about the guy’s terrible custom paint jobs.
She stays for an hour, swapping stories about turtle tagging mishaps and the time his ex tried to drive a 26-foot Boston Whaler into a dock, teasing him about the same scuffed leather work boots he wore to his wedding, and when she asks if he wants to walk down to the public dock to see the bioluminescence that’s been washing up with the high tide, he hesitates for all of three seconds before nodding.
The wooden planks of the dock creak under their boots, the air thick with the smell of mangroves and salt, distant laughter from the bar fading behind them. She stops halfway down, turns to face him, and the moonlight hits her face soft, so he can see the faint scar across her left cheekbone from a run-in with a juvenile sea turtle a few years back. “She never deserved you, you know,” she says, quiet enough that only the crickets can hear over the lap of the water against the pilings. “I told her that the day she told you she was leaving.”
He reaches out before he can think better of it, brushes a loose strand of hair off her face, his thumb brushing the edge of that scar. She doesn’t pull away, just leans into his palm, her hand coming up to rest on his wrist. They don’t kiss, not yet, there’s no rush. They sit down on the edge of the dock, their feet dangling a foot above the dark water, and she kicks her canvas sneaker off, dips her toe in. The water lights up neon blue around her ankle, tiny flecks of light swirling in her wake. He passes her his half-drunk beer, and she takes a long sip, her shoulder pressed to his again, no more space between them than there was at the bar.
