Manny Rios is 62, a retired air traffic controller who moved to the tiny Colorado mountain town of Red Cliff after his wife Linda died of ovarian cancer seven years prior. His biggest flaw is he’s built a brick wall around any part of himself that might crave connection, turning down every invite to dinner, every set-up from the church ladies, every friendly overture from anyone who might see him as more than the quiet guy who fixes snowblowers for neighbors for free. He’s at the annual Red Cliff Chili Cook-off on a crisp mid-September Saturday, tapped as a judge because everyone knows he’s the only guy in town who doesn’t play favorites, even when his neighbor’s entry is loaded with so much habanero it could strip paint off a pickup.
Crushed corn chips crunch under his work boots as he shifts on the wooden picnic bench, George Strait’s *Amarillo by Morning* drifting low from a speaker mounted to the taco truck parked at the edge of the square. The air smells like cumin, smoked meat, and the sharp tang of pine coming off the mountains surrounding the town. He’s adjusting the beat-up Resistol hat he’s had since 2001, a turkey feather from a bird he shot in 2019 tucked in the band, when someone’s boot scuffs his ankle by accident.
He looks up, and it’s Clara Marlow. She’s 58, runs the town’s only used bookstore, was married to his old hunting buddy Jake until Jake dropped dead of a heart attack on an elk trip three years back. Manny has avoided her for three solid years, not out of dislike, but out of some dumb, outdated sense of loyalty—Jake was his friend, you don’t look at your friend’s widow like she’s the first cold beer on a 100-degree day, right?
She pulls up a stool next to him at the judging table, the shoulder of her faded blue flannel brushing his bicep as she sits. “Heard they roped you into this. Figured you’d be hiding up at your cabin pretending to fix that old bolt-action rifle of yours you’ve been tinkering with for two years.” Her voice is low, rough around the edges from years of smoking menthols she quit the week after Jake died, and she smells like lavender hand cream and the roasted pine nuts she sells by the register at her shop. She reaches for a stack of score sheets at the same time he does, their forearms brushing, the soft worn cotton of her shirt rubbing against the hair on his arm. He freezes for half a second, and she smirks, like she notices the way his breath catches.
They taste entry after entry, teasing each other when one makes a face at an overly salty or unseasoned pot. A 14-year-old’s entry is so spicy Manny chokes, coughing so hard his eyes water and his ears ring, and she reaches over to pat his back, her hand warm through his thin denim jacket, lingering on his shoulder long enough that he can feel the weight of it even after she pulls away. “Easy there, tough guy,” she says, passing him a cold lemonade she’d stashed under the table. “Don’t go keeling over before we get to the brisket chili I spent three hours making yesterday.”
He keeps telling himself he shouldn’t be enjoying this. That Jake would roll in his grave if he saw Manny laughing at her jokes, noticing the way the sun hits the silver streaks in her dark hair pulled back in a loose braid, the callus on her index finger from turning thousands of book pages over the last 20 years, the way she leans in a little closer when he tells a story about a near-miss he had on the job at El Paso International back in ‘98, when a rookie pilot almost landed on a runway with a private jet still taxiing. He fights the pull, tells himself it’s wrong, that he’s betraying Linda, betraying Jake, that he’s too old for this silly giddy feeling like he’s 16 again asking a girl to prom.
By the time the winners are announced—Clara’s brisket chili takes second, to the 12-year-old who loaded his with dark chocolate and ghost pepper, much to her exaggerated chagrin—it’s starting to drizzle, the air sharp with the smell of wet pine and cooling charcoal. They’re stacking up the empty paper plates and crumpled score sheets, and she pauses, wiping rain off her cheek with the back of her hand, a stray strand of hair sticking to her forehead. “I found something at the shop last week you might like. Vintage 1987 air traffic control training manual, had a bunch of old snarky notes in the margins from some guy who worked in Denver. Figured you’d get a kick out of it. Wanna come back to my place for coffee? I made apple pie yesterday, still got half left, the kind with the crumb topping you like.”
Manny hesitates for three full seconds, every old rule he’s carried for years screaming in his head, every voice telling him he should stay alone, that he doesn’t get to have nice things after Linda died, after Jake died. Then he nods.
Her house is two blocks from the town square, warm inside, smells like cinnamon and old paper and the vanilla candle she has burning on the kitchen counter. They sit on her back porch under a canvas awning, drinking coffee that’s just strong enough, eating pie that’s sweet but not too sweet, watching the rain run down the pine trees in her yard. She tells him about how Jake used to complain that Manny was the only guy who could outdrink him on hunting trips, how she always thought Manny was too quiet, but nice, way nicer than Jake ever gave him credit for. She leans into his side a little, her shoulder pressing against his, and he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pull away, doesn’t make some dumb excuse to leave.
He doesn’t overthink it. Doesn’t make a big speech about loyalty or guilt or how long it’s been since he let anyone sit this close. He just wraps his arm around her shoulders, and for the first time in seven years, he doesn’t feel the need to apologize for wanting to stay.
