Javier Ruiz, 59, has grease permanently crusted under the edges of his fingernails, the kind that even industrial soap and a wire brush can’t fully strip away after 15 years restoring vintage Honda CB motorcycles out of a converted cinder block garage outside La Grande, Oregon. He’d spent the last 45 minutes hovering by the exit of the town’s annual summer beer and brat festival, plastic cup of lukewarm IPA sweating through the paper napkin wrapped around it, avoiding the retired elementary school teacher down the street who kept trying to corner him and set him up with her widowed sister from Pendleton. His 22-year-old niece had begged him to come, said he spent more time muttering at 1970s carburetors than actual human beings, and he’d caved because he owed her for running the shop for three weeks while he recovered from knee replacement surgery last spring.
He’d just decided to slip out unnoticed when he turned too fast around the corn dog stand, bumping into a woman carrying a cherry limeade in a souvenir mason jar, spilling half his beer down the front of her cream linen button-down. He started to apologize, fumbling for a handful of napkins from the stack on the food truck counter, and stopped short when she laughed, a low, warm sound he hadn’t heard in 8 years. It was Lila Marquez, his ex-wife’s first cousin, the woman who used to drop off homemade beef empanadas at his shop during the 18 months he worked 12-hour days to get the business off the ground, the one he’d caught himself staring at too long at family cookouts back when he was still married, the one he’d deliberately avoided every family gathering since his ex left him for a craft beer sales rep in 2015.
She swatted playfully at the beer droplets dripping off her sleeve, saying she should’ve guessed he’d be the guy to douse her the second she showed up to the festival. She was standing so close he could smell the coconut sunscreen she’d slathered on that morning, mixed with the vanilla lip balm she wore and the grilled onion and smoked sausage fumes curling off the food truck line behind her. Every time a group of drunk college kids from the local university squeezed past the narrow walkway, her shoulder pressed firm against his, warm through the thin fabric of his well-worn work shirt. He tensed at first, ready to step back, to make some excuse to leave, but she held his gaze steady, head tilted slightly, and said she’d been following his shop’s Instagram account for two years, loved the photos of the 1972 CB750 he was rebuilding for a client in Portland, never dared to comment because she thought he’d hate hearing from anyone connected to his ex.
She asked if he wanted to get out of there, go back to his shop, see the CB750 in person, said she’d always wanted to learn how to change motorcycle oil but never had anyone patient enough to teach her. He hesitated for half a second, glancing over at the group of his neighbors standing by the beer tent, definitely already staring, and then nodded, tossing his half-empty cup into the nearby trash can. The drive back to the shop was quiet, windows rolled all the way down, the smell of pine and cut hay blowing through the cab of his beat-up 2008 Ford F150. Her hand rested on the center console, six inches from his, and every time he hit a pothole on the gravel back road, their knuckles brushed, neither of them moving away.
He pulled into the shop’s gravel lot, cut the engine, and turned to look at her. She was already looking at him, a small, soft smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, the setting sun turning the strands of her dark hair amber where they fell over her shoulder. He reached across the console, laced his calloused, grease-stained fingers through hers, and squeezed, slow and gentle. The crickets had started chirping in the tall grass at the edge of the lot, and somewhere in the distance, a coyote let out a high, thin howl. He didn’t care what the gossips at the diner would say the next morning. He leaned across the cab, and kissed her.
