Manny Rios, 52, runs a vintage motorcycle restoration shop out of a cinder block garage on the edge of St. Petersburg, Florida. He’s got a scar slashing across his right eyebrow from a 2018 crash on the Tamiami Trail, and a bad habit of bailing on social events 20 minutes after he arrives, convinced any small talk will end with someone asking about his ex-wife Lena, who left him for his old business partner eight years prior. He’d only agreed to come to the tiki bar’s annual hurricane relief luau because his only full-time employee threatened to hide all his metric socket sets if he skipped another community fundraiser.
He’s leaning against the bamboo bar, peeling the label off a cold IPA, when a bare, sun-warmed arm brushes his as the woman next to him reaches for a napkin the bartender slides across the wet, stickily lacquered surface. The scent of coconut sunscreen and dark rum hits him first, then he glances down and recognizes the thin silver scar snaking around her left wrist: Elara, Lena’s second cousin, the kid who’d showed up at his shop back in 2004 with a totaled 1980 Kawasaki KZ440 she’d crashed on the Skyway Bridge, begging him to fix it for half price because she was working her way through library school. He’d only seen her a handful of times after that, at awkward holiday dinners he’d wanted to skip, and he’d avoided her entirely after the split, convinced everyone in Lena’s family thought he was the deadbeat who’d ruined the marriage.
He freezes mid-label peel, ready to mumble a greeting and bolt for the exit, but she turns to him before he can move, grinning so wide the dimples in her cheeks show. She’s wearing a loose hibiscus print sundress, her dark hair pulled back with a frayed silk scarf, and she’s holding a piña colada so heavy with whipped cream a dollop is perched on the edge of the glass. “I’ve been dropping off old motorcycle repair manuals at your shop for three months,” she says, leaning in so he can hear her over the steel drums playing near the stage, her knee brushing his under the bar. “You always have your noise canceling headphones on, hunched over a carburetor like the world’s gonna end if you look up for ten seconds.”
Manny blinks, thrown. He’d seen the stack of manuals on his front counter every other week, had assumed a regular customer was leaving them. He opens his mouth to say something, then stops, his brain stuck between two conflicting impulses: grab his keys and drive home to his quiet house and his half-restored 1972 Honda CB750, or stay, ask her why she’s been bringing him the books, why she’s talking to him like he didn’t marry her cousin and blow up that entire side of the family 8 years prior. He can feel the heat from her knee through the thin fabric of his work shorts, can see the flecks of gold in her dark eyes when she holds his gaze, no judgment, no awkwardness, just that same easy grin she’d had when she showed up at his shop covered in road rash 19 years prior.
The crowd surges suddenly when the fire dancer takes the stage, a group of drunk snowbirds shoving past to get a better view, and Elara stumbles back, her back pressing fully against Manny’s chest for half a second before she catches herself. He can feel the curve of her shoulders through the thin linen of her dress, the warmth of her skin seeping through the fabric, and when she turns her head to laugh at the tourists knocking over a tray of mai tais, her cheek brushes his jaw. “I never bought Lena’s side of what happened, by the way,” she says, quiet enough only he can hear, the steel drums fading to a low hum in the background. “I always thought she was an idiot for leaving the guy who’d stay up 36 hours straight fixing a broke kid’s motorcycle for half price.”
The tight knot of tension he’s carried in his shoulders for 8 years loosens all at once. He doesn’t care that half the people at the luau know Lena, don’t care that someone might run their mouth about him talking to her cousin, don’t care that he’d planned to be home by 9 to sand the CB750’s gas tank. He grabs his jacket off the back of the bar stool, nods toward the door. “Wanna see the CB750 I’m restoring? I just got the original factory decals in last week. You’ll like ’em, they’ve got that retro 70s neon orange stripe you used to rave about.”
She slips her hand into his, calloused from reshelving library books, when they walk out into the humid Florida night. The sidewalk is still warm from the day’s sun, the sound of the ocean crashing two blocks away mixing with the distant steel drums from the bar. He carries her sandals when she complains the gravel in the parking lot of his shop is digging into her feet, holds the door open for her, flicks on the overhead lights so she can see the CB750 propped up on the lift. She runs her palm across the polished, freshly painted gas tank, slow, like she’s touching something precious, then looks up at him, her gaze drifting from his scarred eyebrow to his mouth. He leans in, the scent of coconut sunscreen still clinging to her hair, and kisses her, the rough edge of the workbench pressing into his lower back.
