Arlo Mendez, 62, spent 31 years as an O’Hare air traffic controller, a job that drilled one rule into his skull above all others: never cut a corner, never bend a boundary, never make a choice that puts someone else in the crossfire. He’s carried that over into retirement, too—shows up 10 minutes early to every volunteer shift at the municipal aviation museum, never takes extra ketchup packets from the diner down the street, hasn’t so much as flirted with a woman since his wife, Lena, passed from ovarian cancer three years prior. His only real indulgence is the weekly Tuesday trivia night at Mulligan’s, the dive bar three blocks from his ranch, where he sits in the back booth, drinks bourbon neat, and usually wins the $50 bar tab gift card without breaking a sweat.
He’s halfway through his first pour, staring down a question about 1970s NASA mission call signs, when someone slides into the booth across from him, close enough that their knee brushes his under the Formica table. It’s Clara Hale, 38, the museum’s event coordinator, the one married to Mark, the museum director who hired Arlo for the volunteer gig. She’s wearing a faded Fleetwood Mac hoodie, her dark hair pulled half up, and she holds up a half-empty cherry seltzer can like a peace offering. “Mark bailed on me last minute to go to a last-minute conference in Denver,” she says, leaning in so he can hear her over the jukebox blaring Tom Petty. “The intern table is already 10 deep and they keep asking me about wedding photos. Can I crash your team?”
Arlo nods, even though the rule-abiding part of his brain is screaming that this is a bad idea. Everyone at Mulligan’s knows who Mark is. Everyone knows Clara’s his wife, 24 years younger than Arlo, fresh off their six-month anniversary. If anyone sees them huddled in the booth together, it’ll be museum gossip for months. But she smells like jasmine shampoo and the peppermint lip balm she keeps in her hoodie pocket, and when she shifts forward to grab the trivia answer sheet off his side of the table, her forearm brushes his, warm and soft through his flannel shirt, and he can’t make himself tell her to leave.
They work well together. She nails all the 2000s pop culture questions he can’t answer, he aces the aviation and 70s rock categories that stump her. Every time they reach for the same pencil, their fingers brush, and she doesn’t pull away, just grins, her dark eyes holding his for half a beat longer than necessary. By the final round, their knees are pressed together under the table, not by accident, and Arlo can feel the heat of her leg through his jeans, a sharp, bright thrill he hasn’t felt in years. He’s equal parts horrified and giddy—horrified that he’s even entertaining the thought of wanting anything from her, giddy that for the first time since Lena died, someone is looking at him like he’s more than just the quiet guy who restores old cockpit instruments in the museum back room.
They win, by four points. Clara whoops, clapping her hands, and when she leans across the table to high-five him, her hair falls in her face, and Arlo has to physically stop himself from reaching out to tuck it behind her ear. The host drops the $50 gift card on the table, and by then it’s pouring rain outside, the kind of mid-October downpour that soaks through your coat in 10 seconds flat. “My car’s parked over by the library,” Clara says, wincing as she looks out the fogged window. “I didn’t bring an umbrella.”
Arlo grabs the battered black umbrella he keeps tucked by the booth leg, the one Lena bought him for their 25th anniversary. “I’ll walk you,” he says, before he can think better of it.
They huddle close under the umbrella, his arm slung over her shoulder to keep it tilted over her, her arm wrapped tight around his bicep to stay close. The rain hammers the umbrella fabric so loud they can barely talk, and she presses her face against his shoulder to keep the rain out of her eyes, and Arlo can feel the warmth of her cheek through his flannel, the soft press of her body against his, and for a second he forgets all the rules, forgets Mark, forgets the 24-year age gap, forgets that he swore he’d never let anyone get close again.
They reach her beat-up Honda Civic two minutes later, and she fumbles in her hoodie pocket for her keys, still pressed up against him under the umbrella. When she finds them, she pauses, looking up at him, raindrops dripping off the end of her hair onto her hoodie. “Mark’s gone all week,” she says, quiet enough that he almost doesn’t hear it over the rain. Her hand rests on his chest, right over his heart, and he can feel her fingers through his shirt, warm and steady.
Arlo freezes. For half a second, he thinks about leaning in, about kissing her, about going back to her empty house with her, about throwing every rule he’s ever lived by out the window. But then he thinks of Mark, who gave him the volunteer gig when he was so lost after Lena died he could barely get out of bed, thinks of Lena, who always told him he was the most honorable man she’d ever met, and he gently wraps his hand around hers, pulling it off his chest.
“I can’t,” he says, quiet. He doesn’t apologize, because he doesn’t want her to think he’s not flattered, doesn’t want her to think she didn’t make him feel alive for the first time in years.
Clara nods, a small, sad smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “I knew you’d say that,” she says. “I haven’t felt seen in months. Mark’s always working, always traveling. You’re the only person at the museum who asks me how I am, not just how the next gala planning is going. I just… wanted to say thank you.” She leans up, presses a quick, soft kiss to his cheek, tastes like cherry seltzer and peppermint when her lips brush his skin.
She pulls open the car door, slides inside, rolls down the window to wave at him as she pulls out of the parking spot. Arlo stands there in the rain for a minute, the umbrella tilted so half his shoulder is soaked through, the gift card crumpled in his other hand. He doesn’t feel guilty. He doesn’t feel regretful. He just feels light, like a weight he didn’t know he was carrying just lifted off his chest. He turns, umbrella held over his head, and starts walking back to his own truck, the rain tapping soft against the fabric above him.
