Elias Voss, 52, makes his living rebuilding vintage typewriters out of a converted garage workshop behind his bungalow in West Asheville, and for the last seven years, he’s bailed on every social commitment that carried even a whiff of potential conflict. It’s the flaw he’s never bothered to fix, leftover from eight years of marriage to a woman who picked every fight for both of them, who left after he refused to confront her family when they disowned her for quitting her corporate job to paint murals. He only leaves the shop two nights a week: once for the weekly grocery run, once for the vintage barware swap at The Rusty Tap, the dive bar three blocks from his house, where no one asks about his marriage or why he only takes cash for repairs.
The third week of October, the bar smells like fried pickles and burnt pretzel salt, peanut shells crunching under his scuffed work boots as he nurses his second IPA, turning a dented 1972 Pabst Blue Ribbon stein over in his hands. He’s planning to trade it for a set of 1950s Hamm’s coasters he spotted on the table by the door, until the front bell jingles and he looks up, and his throat goes tight.
He’d know those hazel, slanted eyes anywhere. They belong to Lila, his ex-wife’s niece, the last time he saw her she was 16, slouched on his couch in a My Chemical Romance hoodie, begging him to teach her how to fix her mom’s old Royal typewriter for a school project. Now she’s 28, broad-shouldered, work boots caked in pine sap, flannel tied around her waist over a faded band tee, holding a chipped 1960s Schlitz stein in one hand. She spots him immediately, grinning, and weaves through the crowd to the empty bar stool next to him, so close her elbow brushes his when she sets her stein down.
He tenses, waiting for the lecture, the you left my aunt alone rant he’s been expecting from half her family for years, but she just leans in, voice raised over the Johnny Cash track blaring from the jukebox, and says she always thought he got a raw deal. “Aunt Marnie was the one who refused to go to therapy, not you,” she says, and he can smell pine and vanilla shampoo on her, can feel the heat of her knee brushing his under the bar, no space between the worn denim of their jeans.
His first instinct is to make an excuse, to say he has a last-minute repair due at 8 a.m. and needs to head home early, to run from the tight, warm pull low in his gut that he hasn’t felt in years. He doesn’t. He tells her about the 1920s Underwood he’s rebuilding for a local poet, about the tiny, rusted key he spent three hours filing down that afternoon, and she leans in closer, like every word he says is the most interesting thing she’s heard all week, her hand resting on the bar six inches from his, her thumb brushing the back of his knuckle when she laughs at his joke about the client who wanted him to paint the typewriter neon pink.
She’s in town for three days, she says, working a temporary forestry survey job mapping old growth poplar stands outside the city, and she found the bar swap on a local Facebook group, collects vintage steins to use as planters for the succulents she keeps in her van. When the bar closes at 1 a.m., the bartender flipping the lights on to signal last call, she nods at the door and asks if she can see his workshop. “I still have that Royal you fixed for me,” she says, and her voice drops, low and warm, no trace of the awkward teen he remembered.
The walk to his house is quiet, crickets chirping in the oak trees lining the street, the air crisp enough that he can see his breath. The workshop is strung with fairy lights, smells like lemon oil and typewriter ink, shelves lined with half-rebuilt machines and tins of replacement keys. He turns to grab the Underwood to show her, and she’s right behind him, her chest brushing his back, her breath warm against the side of his neck when she points at a tiny brass key sitting on his workbench. She reaches around him to pick it up, her hand brushing his, and when he turns to face her, their faces are three inches apart, and she kisses him first, soft at first, then harder, her hands fisted in the front of his worn flannel shirt.
He doesn’t overthink it, doesn’t spiral about how wrong it is, how her family would lose their minds if they found out. For the first time in years, he doesn’t run. He wraps his arms around her waist, pulls her closer, and the tiny brass key falls off the workbench, clattering softly against the concrete floor.
