Rafe Mendez, 62, retired offshore oil rig safety inspector, has manned the same rickety wooden booth at the Hill Country Annual Chili Cookoff for 12 straight years. He’s got two first place plaques hanging above his workbench at home, a scar slashing across his left knuckle from a 2019 pipe burst, and a rule he’s followed religiously since his wife Ellen died eight years prior: no unnecessary conversations with women who make his chest feel tight. The rule has held so far, mostly because he spends most of his days restoring old truck engines in his garage and only leaves the house for grocery runs and monthly poker games with his old rig crew.
The air smells like hickory smoke, cumin, and cheap cotton candy the second the gates open. He’s stirring a batch of brisket burnt end chili spiked with habanero-infused Shiner Bock when she steps up to his booth, sun streaks in her auburn hair, linen button down tied at the waist, cowboy boots tooled with sunflowers peeking out from under her denim skirt. He recognizes her as Clara, the new county librarian who moved to town three months prior, the one his poker buddies kept teasing him about asking out last week. He’d told them to go to hell then. Now he can’t look away.
She leans in over the counter to smell the chili, her shoulder brushing his bicep, and he freezes mid-stir. Her skin is warm through the thin cotton of his work shirt, and he can smell coconut shampoo and jasmine perfume on her hair. “That smells incredible,” she says, her voice low and warm, like the static of an old AM country radio station he used to listen to on the rig. He mumbles a thanks, grabs a sample cup, fills it halfway, and passes it to her. Their fingers brush when she takes it, and he feels a jolt run up his arm, like he touched a live wire.
She takes a sip, hums low in her throat, and licks a drop of chili off her thumb. Rafe’s mouth goes dry. “Holy shit,” she says, grinning, “that’s the best thing I’ve tasted all day. I don’t even like spicy food that much, but this is perfect.” He snorts, leans his hip against the booth, and tells her he’s been tweaking the recipe for six years, swaps half the beef tallow for bacon grease every other batch. They talk for 10 minutes, about the cookoff, about the stray orange tabby that keeps hanging around the library entrance begging for tuna treats, about how the town’s only movie theater just started playing old John Wayne Westerns on Wednesday nights. He forgets his stupid rule entirely, until a group of teen boys runs past the booth, yelling, and slams into Clara’s back.
Rafe doesn’t pull away. He looks down at her, the sun hitting her hair just right, and for the first time in eight years, he doesn’t feel a twist of guilt in his stomach for wanting to talk to someone new. He blurts the question out before he can talk himself out of it, says he’s got a cooler of ice cold Shiner back at his place, and a peach pie his next door neighbor baked that morning, asks if she wants to come over after the cookoff wraps. He holds his breath, waiting for her to say no, waiting for her to laugh and tell him he’s too old for that kind of spontaneous nonsense.
She grins, nods so fast her hair falls in her face, and says yes, tells him she’s got a stack of old Louis L’Amour paperbacks in her car if he’s got a porch to sit on. He laughs, says his porch has two well-worn rocking chairs and a view of the sunset over the live oak trees out back, says he’ll save her the last slice of pie. She gives him a little wave, turns, and walks off to check the rest of the booths, her sunflower boots clicking against the hot asphalt.
Rafe leans back against his booth, stirs his chili, and watches her go, a small, stupid smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He reaches up, touches the spot on his cheek where her thumb brushed his skin, and can still feel the faint, warm pressure of it there.
