Manny Ruiz, 52, retired Border Patrol K9 handler turned mobile service dog trainer, had only agreed to come to the county animal shelter’s summer beer garden fundraiser to bid on a custom heavy-duty dog crate he’d had his eye on for months. He’d hidden in the back corner for an hour, cold IPA sweating through the paper napkin wrapped around its can in his hand, retired K9 Ace splayed at his boots on the patchy Bermuda grass, avoiding eye contact with every familiar face that drifted past. He hated small talk, hated the pitying looks people still gave him eight years after his wife left him for a Scottsdale real estate agent, hated that everyone in this half-rural corner of southern Arizona still saw him as the guy who got left.
He was halfway through debating bailing early when he spotted Lila. She was behind the homemade tamale booth, wiping sweat off her brow with the back of her forearm, faded Guns N’ Roses tee riding up a little to show a sliver of sun-darkened skin above the waist of her frayed cutoff jeans, silver nose ring glinting in the late afternoon sun. He hadn’t seen her in six years, not since the day his divorce was finalized, when she’d slipped him a pack of his favorite peppermint gum outside the courthouse and told him his ex was an idiot before she’d driven off on her dirt bike. She was his ex’s cousin, for Christ’s sake. He’d spent ten years of his marriage actively avoiding her, per his ex’s constant demands that Lila was “too wild” and “bad news.”
He was still staring when she looked up, caught his eye, and waved so hard her whole arm moved. He had no choice but to walk over.
The air around the booth smelled like slow-roasted pork, red chile, and the coconut sunscreen she was wearing, mixing with the bitter hop scent of his beer in a way that made his chest feel tight. She leaned over the edge of the folding table to hug him, her bare arm brushing the scar on his left cheek he’d gotten when a suspect tackled him and Ace back in 2020, and he could feel the heat of her skin through the thin cotton of his work shirt. She held eye contact for a beat too long when she pulled back, grinning, and teased him for still wearing the same scuffed-up work boots he’d had at their wedding in 2012.
He fumbled for a response, suddenly flustered, and Ace nudged his hand with his cold wet nose like he was telling him to get it together. She leaned down to scratch Ace behind the ears, her calloused fingers (from her day job as a mobile welder, he remembered, she built custom ranch gates and livestock feeders all over the county) brushing his knuckles when she reached out to let Ace lick her palm. The jolt that ran up his arm was so sharp he almost dropped his beer. He knew this was a bad idea. Knew if anyone saw them talking for longer than thirty seconds, word would get back to his ex by the end of the weekend. Knew he had no business feeling the kind of warm, thrumming curiosity he was feeling right now, not about the one person his ex had explicitly forbidden him from being alone with.
She handed him a free pork tamale wrapped in corn husk, their fingers brushing again when he took it, and told him she was closing up the booth in twenty minutes. “You wanna drive out to the old overlook off Sonoita Highway after?” she asked, nodding at Ace, who’d laid his head on her boot. “I got a cooler of pale ale in my truck, enough tamales to feed a small army, and the sunset’s supposed to be insane tonight.”
He hesitated for three full seconds, thinking about the gossip, about the rule he’d made for himself after the divorce to never get tangled up in anything that could cause drama, about how he’d gone almost three years without so much as a first date. Then he looked at her, at the way she was biting the corner of her mouth like she knew he was gonna say no, at Ace who was wagging his tail like he already knew the answer, and said yes.
They drove out in her beat-up 2004 Ford F-150, Ace curled up in the back seat with his head out the window, the wind whipping through the cab carrying the smell of creosote and wild sage. They sat on the tailgate when they got to the overlook, passing tamales back and forth, watching the sky bleed pink and tangerine and deep purple over the sea of saguaros stretching out below them. She told him she’d always thought he was too good for his ex, that he deserved someone who didn’t make him apologize for working late, for bringing Ace home covered in mud, for liking terrible 90s rock music too loud. She leaned her shoulder against his, warm and solid, and he didn’t pull away.
The sun dipped all the way below the horizon, the first pinpricks of starlight popping up in the darkening sky, and he laced his fingers through hers.
