Manny Ruiz, 52, spent 28 years as an air traffic controller out of Portland International, before a minor stroke two years after his wife’s cancer death pushed him into early retirement. His biggest flaw, per his only remaining work buddy, is that he’s scared to death of any choice that doesn’t come with a pre-written checklist. For the last 18 months, his Saturdays have followed the exact same script: wake at 6, run 3 miles, tune up a vintage Honda in his garage until 2, drink one IPA at the dive bar down the road, eat a frozen burrito for dinner, watch a 90s Mariners game, fall asleep on the couch by 9. He only agreed to the town’s annual crab feast fundraiser because his buddy showed up on his porch with a pre-paid ticket and threatened to leave a dead Dungeness on his front step if he bailed.
The air reeks of Old Bay, charcoal smoke, and brine blowing off the Oregon coast when he shows up, wearing the frayed navy work jacket he’s had since 2017, the coffee stain on the left cuff too set in to wash out. He hangs back by the beer tent, avoiding the cluster of retirees from the local golf course who love to corner him and ask what it was like to land planes in a thunderstorm. He’s halfway through his second IPA, already calculating how fast he can sneak out without anyone noticing, when she walks up.
She’s his new next door neighbor, the one who moved into the yellow cottage three months prior, who works at the tiny town library, who he’s only ever exchanged stiff nods with when they both grab their mail at 7:13 every weekday morning. She’s holding two paper plates stacked with peach pie, the crust crimped messy at the edges, and her cheeks are pink from the wind. She says she saw him hiding by the tent, knew he’d skip the dessert line to avoid small talk, because she’s watched him cross the street to avoid chatting with the mail carrier three times in the last month.
His first instinct is to make an excuse, to say he’s got a headache, to head home to his routine and his frozen burritos and his Mariners reruns, where nothing surprises him and nothing can go wrong. But she’s talking about the 1970s sci-fi paperbacks she’s been stocking at the library, the ones he used to read as a kid, and he finds himself leaning in too, asking questions, forgetting to check his watch every ten minutes like he usually does. At one point she laughs so hard at a dumb joke he makes about the worst landing he ever oversaw that she snorts, and claps a hand over her mouth, and her knee presses fully against his for ten full seconds before she shifts back, and she doesn’t look away when their eyes lock.
When the feast wraps up, the sun dipping below the ocean and painting the sky pink and orange, she dares him to walk down to the beach with her. Says the bioluminescent plankton has been blowing in all week, that every step in the water glows bright neon blue. His first response is on the tip of his tongue: I’ve got an early run tomorrow. I’m tired. Maybe another time. But he looks at her, at the freckles across her nose, at the chipped mint green nail polish on her fingers, and he says yes.
They walk down the gravel path to the shore, and when they hit the soft sand, she grabs his hand to steady herself because it’s dark, her palm fitting perfectly against his calloused one, the same calluses he’s got from working on his Hondas for decades. The water is cold when they step in, lapping at their ankles, and every time their feet shift, the water lights up around them, bright as glow sticks, like they’re walking across a sky full of fallen stars. She turns to him, her eyes dark in the moonlight but flecked with gold he’s never noticed before, and she leans in slow, so he has time to pull away if he wants. He doesn’t.
The kiss tastes like peach pie and the sour cherry seltzer she was drinking, and it’s slow, no rush, no pressure, nothing like the awkward first kisses he remembers from when he was 19. When they pull apart, she smiles, and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, and doesn’t say anything for a long time. They stand there for an hour, kicking their feet in the water to watch the light burst around them, talking about nothing and everything, not making plans, not worrying about what comes next. He doesn’t check his watch once.
When they walk back up the path to the street, she tugs his hand to stop outside her cottage, and tells him she’s making blueberry pancakes at 8 tomorrow morning, if he wants to stop by. He nods, no overthinking, no list of pros and cons running through his head, no worry that he’s messing up his routine. He kisses her again, soft, before he turns to walk the two doors down to his own house. The porch light is on, and the first thing he notices when he unlocks his front door is that the frozen burrito he planned to eat for dinner is still in the freezer, and he doesn’t care at all.
