Royce Hargrove, 52, custom cowboy boot maker, had avoided the East Austin Fall Craft Fair for seven straight years, ever since his ex-wife left him for a craft beer rep she’d met at that exact event. His accountant, Marty, cornered him two weeks prior, said the $450 booth fee he’d forgotten to cancel was either a write-off or a loss he couldn’t absorb on his 2023 taxes, so he dragged 12 pairs of hand-tooled boots, a folding table, and a dented metal chair to the fairgrounds at 7 a.m. that Saturday, already in a foul mood, flannel sleeves rolled up to show the scar on his forearm from a rogue leather cutting knife three years prior.
The booth next to his was emblazoned with a hand-painted logo for Lola’s Fire hot sauce, and he froze when he saw the woman hauling a stack of glass jar cases out of a beat-up silver pickup. Lola Marquez was his ex-wife’s first cousin, 10 years younger than his ex, and he hadn’t seen her since the 2013 family Christmas, right before he and his ex separated. She had streaks of amber in her dark wavy hair now, a tiny silver hoop through her left nostril, her forearms dusted with freckles from months of tending to her backyard pepper patch, and she still had that same gap between her two front teeth he’d always thought was unfairly charming. She didn’t recognize him at first, until he handed her a stray jar of habanero that rolled to his feet and said his name. Her laugh was loud, unapologetic, crinkled the corners of her eyes so deep you could see the laugh lines he’d privately thought were cute back when he’d still felt guilty for noticing them.
The day unfolded slower than he expected. He sold three pairs of boots, more than he’d projected, and between customer rushes, Lola would lean against the wooden post separating their booths, sometimes close enough that her shoulder pressed light against his bicep when she teased him about still wearing the same scuffed work boots he’d had on during their 2012 Guadalupe River tubing trip. Heat crawled up his neck every time, because he’d thought that memory was only his, a stupid little leftover from a time he’d forced himself to forget. Once, a hyper 7-year-old knocked over her display of mini sample jars, and they both dove to catch them, his calloused, leather-stained palm scraping against her soft, pepper-dusted knuckles when they both grabbed for the same jar of mango habanero. He froze for half a second, and she didn’t pull away, just held eye contact a beat longer than she should have, a tiny, knowing smirk playing on her lips before she leaned back to hand the kid a free lollipop dipped in mild sauce.
Half of him spent the day warring with himself, convinced this was some sort of unforgivable line to cross, even though he’d been divorced for eight years, hadn’t spoken to his ex in six. The other half couldn’t stop noticing the way she tucked her hair behind her ear when she was explaining Scoville units to a curious customer, the way she smelled like lime and smoked paprika, the way she laughed at his terrible boot-fitting horror stories like they were the funniest thing she’d ever heard. The air between them hummed, thick with the kind of quiet, unspoken tension he’d thought he was too old to feel anymore, the kind that makes you double-check your reflection in a nearby window every time she turns away.
The sun dipped below the treeline around 6 p.m., and a sudden thunderstorm rolled in, fat cold raindrops pounding the fairgrounds so hard people yelped and scrambled to pack up their displays. Lola dropped a heavy vinyl tarp while she was trying to cover her stack of jar boxes, and he stepped over to help, both of them huddled under the small overhang of her booth awning, rain drumming so loud no one else could hear them over the noise. The fabric of her flannel was soaked through at the shoulders, and he could see the outline of her tiny pepper tattoo on her collarbone peeking out over the top of her shirt. She leaned in, close enough that he could feel her breath on his cheek, and said she’d had a crush on him since she was 19, thought he was too much of a good guy to ever leave her cousin, but when she heard they were divorced, she’d half-hoped she’d run into him eventually. She asked if he wanted to go get al pastor tacos at that 24-hour spot on 6th Street once they were done loading up, said she had a cooler of cold Modelo in her truck if he wanted one while they tied down the loads.
He said yes before she even finished the sentence. He helped her haul the last of the jar boxes into the bed of her truck, his work boots sinking an inch into the mud next to her scuffed white Converse. She pulled two cold beers out of her cooler, handed him one, their fingers brushing again when he took it, this time he didn’t flinch, didn’t look away. She popped the top on her beer, took a sip, wiped the rain off her cheek with the back of her hand, and grinned when he joked about tooling a tiny pepper into the side of a custom pair of boots for her. He leaned against the side of her truck, took a long sip of beer, and let the sound of her laugh drown out the last of his quiet, stupid worries about lines that don’t even exist anymore.
