Manny Ruiz is 53, makes his living restoring vintage travel trailers out of a cinder block garage outside New Braunfels, Texas. He’s avoided any kind of casual date since his divorce 8 years prior, convinced anyone who showed interest in him was either after a free camper repair or looking for a stand-in dad for their messy kids, and he’d done his time on both counts. He drives out to the monthly Hill Country swap meet every third Saturday, spends four hours haggling over rusted taillight assemblies and original dinette cushions, then treats himself to two brisket tacos from the same food truck parked by the entrance before he heads home.
He’s wiping grease off his calloused fingers on the leg of his worn Carhartt overalls when he hears a voice over his shoulder, teasing him for still ordering extra habanero sauce like he’s trying to burn his taste buds off for good. He turns, and it takes him three full seconds to place her: Lila Marquez, 32, the girl his oldest son dated for two years straight back in high school, the one who used to bake pineapple empanadas for their family dinners and help him sand down camper frames when she was bored. She’s leaning against the food truck’s metal side, one boot propped on the lower railing, holding a frozen margarita in a plastic cup, and she’s close enough he can smell coconut shampoo and the sharp, bright scent of lime on her wrist when she lifts her drink to take a sip.
His first instinct is to step back, to mumble a polite greeting and leave. It feels wrong, looking at her like this, noticing the laugh lines around her eyes and the little silver nose ring he’d never seen before, remembering her as a 17 year old kid borrowing his son’s hoodies and leaving glitter all over their couch. The internal twist of disgust at his own wandering eyes sits sharp in his chest for half a second, before she’s reaching across the space between them to wipe a smudge of taco sauce off his chin, her fingers brushing the stubble on his jaw light as a feather.
She tells him she’s a travel nurse now, just got a 6 month contract at a hospital in Austin, drove out to the swap meet looking for a small vintage camper to rent instead of wasting money on a soulless extended stay hotel. The pieces click before he can even think to hold his tongue, and he tells her he just finished restoring a 1968 Scotty Sportsman that’s been sitting on his lot waiting for a renter, fully furnished, hooked up to water and electric if she wants to come take a look at it right then. She grins, nods, and falls into step beside him as he walks toward the edge of the lot where his truck and the camper are parked, their shoulders brushing every few steps when they step around groups of people hauling furniture and coolers.
The camper’s only 13 feet long, so when they both step inside, they’re almost pressed together, the faint scent of the new cedar paneling he installed mixing with the coconut from her hair. She runs a hand along the edge of the dinette, says it’s perfect, exactly what she was looking for, and when she turns to face him their faces are only six inches apart. He can hear the distant mariachi band playing on the swap meet stage, the low hum of generators, the quiet catch in her breath when she says she used to have the biggest crush on him back when she was dating his son, that all her friends used to gush about the quiet, gruff hot dad who worked on campers in his garage.
He tenses up, tells her that’s ridiculous, she was a kid back then, his son would lose his mind if he ever heard her say that. She laughs, soft, and says her and his son broke up 14 years ago, they still text every couple weeks, he’s got two little girls and a house in Dallas, he’d tease both of them for being weird more than he’d be mad. She lifts her hand again, brushes a strand of graying hair off his forehead, and he doesn’t pull away.
They hash out the rental terms right there in the tiny camper, he tells her he’ll knock 20% off the monthly rate if she brings him a batch of those pineapple empanadas she used to bake when she comes by his shop the next day to fill out the paperwork. She agrees, grinning so wide her dimples show, and leans in to press a soft, quick kiss to his cheek before she steps back out into the sun. He leans against the camper door frame watching her walk back to her beat up Subaru, the late afternoon light catching the gold streaks in her dark hair, and his phone buzzes in his pocket a minute later, a text from his son asking if he’s seen Lila yet, she told him she was gonna hit him up about renting a camper. He snorts, types back a one word reply saying yeah, and shoves his phone back in his pocket, already mentally clearing off the extra workbench in his shop so she has somewhere to sit when she comes over the next morning.
