Rudy Galvez, 62, spent 30 years as a forest fire spotter for the Michigan DNR, and the habit of hanging back to observe instead of diving into crowds never left him. He’d been dragged to the annual Elk Rapids fall chili cookoff by his next-door neighbor, who swore his smoked venison recipe could beat the three-year reigning champion, a retired elementary school teacher who loaded her chili with enough habanero to clear a bear out of a pine stand. He’d dropped off his entry an hour prior, and was now leaning against the side of the local craft brewery’s beer truck, boots planted in a bed of crumpled maple leaves, half-listening to a pair of old fishing buddies argue about walleye limits, when he felt a presence at his elbow.
He looked down. Maren Hale, 47, the woman who’d coached his daughter Lila’s high school soccer team for four years, was holding a paper chili bowl crusted with red sauce, grinning like she’d just found a $20 bill in a winter coat pocket. She was wearing a faded Michigan State hoodie, jeans cuffed over scuffed work boots, her dark hair pulled back in a messy braid streaked with a single silver strand that caught the sun. He’d known her for 22 years, had spoken to her dozens of times on the soccer field sidelines, had brought her Gatorade when the team had made it to the state finals senior year, and had always, always written off any flicker of attraction as wildly inappropriate. She’d been 25 back then, fresh out of college, and he’d still been married, still thought his life was set in stone the way the pines were rooted in the sand dunes up the coast.
“Your entry, right?” She nodded at the paper ticket sticking out of his flannel shirt pocket, the same one they’d given him when he’d dropped off his chili pot. “Tasted it three bites in, knew nobody else around here smokes venison over applewood the way you do. Lila used to bring your jerky to practice, remember? I’d beg her for a piece every time.”
Her shoulder brushed his when a group of teens carrying cotton candy stumbled past, and she didn’t step back. He could smell jasmine perfume mixed with the cinnamon she’d sprinkled on top of her chili, could hear the faint rasp in her laugh from years of yelling across soccer fields. He fought the urge to tuck the stray piece of hair that had fallen in her face behind her ear, told himself it was too weird, that everyone in town knew them as “Lila’s dad” and “Lila’s old coach”, that it would be messy, that he was too old for this kind of nonsense anyway. The last time he’d even thought about kissing someone was 12 years prior, two days before his wife had packed her bags and moved to Traverse City with a guy who ran a kombucha taproom. He’d written off romance entirely, convinced he was too set in his ways, too quiet, too prone to spending three days up in the woods alone cutting firewood for his side business to be worth anyone’s effort.
She asked him how Lila was doing out in Portland, asked him if he was still cutting firewood for half the town, asked him if he’d finally replaced the rusted-out tailgate on his 1998 F-150. He answered without overthinking for the first time all afternoon, found himself laughing when she told him she’d quit coaching last year to open a small dog grooming business, had gotten attacked by a poodle with a fear of nail clippers two weeks prior, still had a faint scar on her wrist to prove it. When she said she’d been craving his venison jerky for years, he offered to run to his truck to grab the bag he’d stashed under the seat, and she fell into step next to him, their arms brushing every few steps as they walked across the grassy park, the cold October wind nipping at their cheeks.
She slipped on a patch of hidden ice under a pile of leaves halfway to the parking lot, and his reflexes, honed from 30 years of scrambling up fire towers when the wind shifted, kicked in before he could think. He grabbed her waist to steady her, pulling her close to keep her from hitting the ground, and suddenly their faces were inches apart, her breath fogging in the cold air between them. She didn’t pull away. She tilted her chin up slightly, her dark eyes fixed on his mouth, and he forgot every stupid reason he’d come up with over the last 20 minutes for why this was a bad idea. He kissed her slow, the edge of her cold nose brushing his cheek, and she tasted like apple cider and chili spice, her hand coming up to rest on the back of his neck, her fingers tangling in the gray hair at his nape.
They pulled apart when a golden retriever bounded past, both breathless, both grinning like teens who’d snuck a kiss behind the gym. He grabbed the jerky and a jar of peach hot sauce from his truck, and they sat in the heated cab for 20 minutes, sharing leftover chili, no awkward silences hanging between them.
When she said she had to pick up her rescue greyhound from the sitter, she scribbled her number on a napkin and tucked it into his flannel breast pocket, her palm pressing to his chest for a beat longer than necessary. “Call me before the first snow,” she said, opening the truck door. “I want that pumpkin chili you mentioned, and don’t wait three weeks to work up the nerve. I know you’re an overthinker.”
He watched her wave as she climbed into her Subaru, and pulled the napkin out of his pocket, running his thumb over the smudged purple ink. His palm still tingled where it had rested on her waist, and for the first time in 12 years, he didn’t spiral into a list of reasons to avoid something good. He typed her number into his phone and sent a text that read “Pumpkin chili’s on me this weekend. Extra jerky included.” before he could talk himself out of it.
