Javi Ruiz, 52, has run his vintage motorcycle restoration shop out of a converted auto body garage in east Austin for seven years. He’s got grease permanently under the edges of his fingernails, a scar across his left forearm from a 1969 Triumph that slipped off a jack, and a rule he’s followed strictly since his 2015 divorce: no involvement with anyone who shares a bloodline with his ex-wife, Lila. He’s spent the better part of a decade avoiding family gatherings, neighborhood mixers, any event where he might run into someone who’d ask how he’s holding up, or worse, mention Lila’s new husband’s six-figure car sales bonus. He only agreed to man the vintage bike display at the city’s summer beer garden fundraiser because his oldest friend promised him a case of rare 10-year bourbon as payment, no strings attached.
She sees him a second later, freezes for half a beat, then smirks and wipes a spill of mead off the table with the hem of her white tank top before walking over. She stops just outside the three-foot personal space bubble he’s enforced for years, then steps closer when a group of drunk college kids cuts between them, her elbow brushing his bicep. He can smell clover honey and faint cedar perfume on her shirt, not the heavy rose stuff Lila used to douse herself in before work events. “Figured I’d find you here surrounded by rusted metal,” she says, tilting her head, eyes crinkling at the corners like she’s already amused by whatever he’s going to say back.
His first instinct is to deflect, to make an excuse and walk away. He’s spent years associating anyone tied to Lila with the mess of his divorce, the sting of her saying he cared more about broken bikes than he ever cared about her. But then she nods at the CB750, and asks about the custom exhaust he welded himself, and he finds himself rambling, telling her about the three months he spent tracking down original parts from a junkyard outside San Antonio, something he never does with people who don’t know a crankshaft from a clutch. She nods along, asks specific questions, mentions she spent three days repairing a hand-carved hive frame her dad made her when she was 16 last month, even though she could have bought a new one for 20 bucks. He gets it, that urge to fix the things that matter, even when it doesn’t make logical sense.
The conflict nags at him the whole time they talk, sharp and persistent. This is a bad idea. Lila would blow up the family group chat so fast it’d crash half their relatives’ phones. He’d spent so long building his little isolated life, no drama, no messy feelings, and this would blow it all to hell. But then she reaches for the bottle of cold water he’s holding to grab a sip, their fingers brushing, and he feels the calluses on her hands from lifting hive boxes, the tiny scar across her knuckle from a hive tool slip, and the resistance starts to crumble. “You know I’m Lila’s cousin, right?” she says, like she can read his mind, snorting when he flinches a little. “I haven’t spoken to her in three years, not since she called my beekeeping business a cute little hobby for bored housewives. I don’t owe her shit, and neither do you.”
A guy runs past holding a folding table over his head, yelling about flash flood warnings in the south end of the city, and they pull apart laughing, rain dripping off the edge of the awning onto the toe of his boot. She wipes a drop of rain off his forehead, says her place is 10 minutes west, on high ground, she’s got a bottle of 12-year bourbon she infused with orange blossom honey last fall, and a spare helmet if he wants to bring the CB over tomorrow to teach her the basics of riding. He doesn’t think about the list of bike repairs he had scheduled for tomorrow, or the snarky texts his sister will send if she finds out, or all the years he spent telling himself he was better off alone. He locks up the display case, slings his tool bag over his shoulder, follows her to her beat-up 2004 Tacoma, the bed stacked with empty pine hive boxes. His golden retriever Mando, who he’d left napping in the cab of his own truck, barks twice from across the parking lot like he’s giving his official approval. When she hits the gas, the rain streaks the windshield so fast all the streetlights blur into warm golden streaks, and for the first time in eight years, he doesn’t feel the urge to check his rearview mirror.
