Manny Rios, 62, retired rare book restorer, sat on his usual cracked vinyl bar stool at The Rusty Spur, swirling the last half inch of Shiner Bock in his bottle. He’d learned to fix books at 16, after a flash flood damaged his mom’s entire collection of westerns on their cattle ranch outside Del Rio, and turned that skill into a 30 year career at UT Austin’s special collections library before retiring two years prior. He’d held the same stool every Wednesday trivia night for eight years, ever since he’d stopped bringing his late wife Elaina to these nights after her chemo made her too tired to leave the couch. His biggest flaw, the one his sister nagged him about every Thanksgiving, was that he’d built a wall around his life so thick even the local Girl Scouts selling cookies outside the grocery store didn’t bother stopping him anymore. He’d convinced himself any attention from anyone was either pity for Elaina’s death, or interest in the small collection of first edition westerns he kept locked in a climate-controlled closet in his bungalow outside San Antonio.
The bar was more crowded than usual tonight, the local high school football team fresh off a playoff win spilling out of the back booth, yelling over Waylon Jennings crackling from the jukebox. The air smelled like fried pickles and smoked almonds, the neon Coors sign above the bar casting a faint pink glow over the scuffed wooden counter. He was twisting the cap off his second beer when someone stumbled into his elbow, soft denim and warm skin pressing through the thin flannel of his shirt.
He looked up, ready to brush off the apology before it even left their mouth, and froze. It was the woman who’d moved into the blue bungalow three doors down three weeks prior, the one he’d seen chasing a golden retriever down the street last Saturday, laughing so hard she could barely run. She was 58, he’d heard the neighbor lady mention, ran a mobile dog grooming business out of a converted white van with hand-painted paw prints on the side. There was a smudge of bright blue dye on her left jaw, probably from the tie-dyed dog bandanas he’d seen her hanging on her clothesline two days before. She smelled like lavender and vanilla-scented dog shampoo, not cloying, just warm, like laundry fresh out of the dryer.
“Sorry about that,” she said, leaning against the bar two stools over, one boot propped on the footrest. Her hazel eyes caught the neon light, flecked with gold around the pupils, and she held his gaze for three beats longer than casual politeness called for. “Some linebacker-sized kid decided he needed to get to the bathroom faster than everyone else.”
Manny nodded, his throat suddenly dry. He’d spent the last three weeks actively avoiding her, crossing the street when he saw her out walking her terrier, pretending he didn’t hear her wave when he pulled into his driveway. Elaina’s best friend Margaret had pulled him aside at the grocery store last week, warning him against getting mixed up with “new neighborhood folk,” saying it would ruin the quiet routine he’d spent 12 years building after Elaina died. He’d told her she was overreacting, but he’d taken the warning to heart, even going so far as to skip his usual morning walk to the convenience store for coffee for two days straight when he saw her van parked out front.
She ordered a margarita on the rocks, salt around the rim, and when she leaned across the bar to grab it from the bartender, her shoulder brushed his again, intentional this time. “You’re the book guy, right?” she said, nodding at the leather-bound copy of *The Virginian* he’d tucked under his arm, the one he’d been restoring for a client before he left the house. “Saw you carrying a stack of Louis L’Amour last week. My dad had that exact same collection, kept it on the shelf above his recliner my whole childhood.”
Manny’s chest tightened. Half of him wanted to make an excuse, grab his book, and leave before he did something stupid like talk to her for longer than 10 seconds. The other half, the part he’d buried under 12 years of routine and guilt, was thrumming, the faint pressure of her shoulder against his still buzzing under his skin. He’d forgotten what it felt like to have someone look at him like that, like he was interesting, not just the quiet widower who fixed old books.
“I restore them,” he said, surprising himself. “Used to do it for UT, now I take small jobs on the side for extra cash.”
Her face lit up, and she shifted her stool a foot closer, the metal legs scraping against the linoleum. “You’re kidding. I’ve got my dad’s old first edition of *Hondo* that my golden retriever chewed half the corner off last month. I’ve been asking around for someone who can fix it without ruining the binding.” She tapped the back of his hand with her index finger, her nail chipped with peach polish, calloused from handling dog brushes every day, and a jolt ran up his arm, the same kind he’d felt when he was 19, sneaking Elaina into the back of his beat-up pickup after a drive-in movie. “I’ll trade you. I’ll groom your beagle for free for six months—saw him through your fence last week, he’s got that long, matted fur around his paws that’s a pain to cut—if you fix the book.”
Manny stared at her for a second, the sound of the football team yelling in the background fading out. He thought of Margaret’s warning, of the quiet routine he’d built, of the photo of Elaina he kept on his nightstand. He thought of how lonely he’d been lately, how even Max seemed bored with the same two walks a day and the same frozen dinners every night. He thought of the way her eyes crinkled when she smiled, the warm smell of her shampoo, the soft press of her jeans against his elbow.
“Deal,” he said, and he didn’t even feel guilty about it.
She grinned, grabbed a napkin from the dispenser next to the ketchup bottle, and scribbled her phone number on it in bright pink pen, folding it twice before pressing it into his palm, her fingers lingering for two full seconds. “Text me tomorrow, yeah? I’ll bring the book over, and you can meet Max first, make sure I’m not gonna traumatize him with the nail clippers.”
Manny nodded, tucking the napkin into the pocket of his flannel shirt, right next to the lucky pen he’d used to mark book spines for 30 years. He watched her walk back to a table of her friends, turning once to wave at him over her shoulder, the blue dye still bright on her jaw. He picked up his beer, took a long sip, and smiled, for the first time on a Wednesday night in 12 years. The trivia host called the first question, and he didn’t even care that he’d missed the announcement.
