Rafe Mendoza is 51, makes his living restoring vintage travel trailers out of a cinder block barn on the edge of Flagstaff, Arizona, and he’s spent the last three months dodging the county clerk like she’s a process server with a paternity suit. His biggest personality flaw, as his only full-time employee likes to tease him, is that he’d rather pay a $400 late fee than have a 10 minute awkward conversation with a stranger, especially one who sent him three increasingly sharp emails about his expired business license. He’s been flying solo since his wife split for a kayak instructor in Costa Rica eight years prior, has his routine down pat: work 10 hour days, drink a single Modelo at the dive bar three blocks from the barn, go home to his empty trailer and fall asleep to old Westerns. No surprises, no mess, no one asking him to adjust his schedule for anything.
He’s leaned against a smoked brisket truck at the town’s Fourth of July street fair when he spots her, halfway across the crowd, and his first instinct is to duck behind a stack of Route 66 souvenir koozies. Elara Voss, 48, the county clerk who moved to town six months ago after ditching a corporate lawyer husband in Phoenix, is holding a crumpled paper plate with a fried Oreo on it, wearing cutoff denim that shows a faint scar curling around her left calf, a smudge of cherry pie filling glistening on the line of her jaw. She sees him before he can hide, grins, and cuts through the crowd like she’s got a direct line to where he’s standing, boots kicking up dust from the packed dirt street.
He tenses up, already reaching for his wallet to hand over the late fee, but she waves off his apology before he can get it out. “Off the clock,” she says, nodding at the half-empty mason jar of bourbon-spiked lemonade in his hand. “I won’t bust your balls if you buy me a beer. The lines at the drink tent are insane.” He blinks, agrees before he can overthink it, and when they both reach for the same cold IPA in the cooler at the foot of the brisket truck, their elbows brush, the callus on her wrist catching on the frayed edge of his work shirt. He feels a jolt go up his spine, the kind he hasn’t felt since he was 19 and snuck into a bar with a fake ID. They stand close enough that he can smell coconut sunscreen and the faint sweet tang of cherry pie on her breath, the noise of the fair fading to a low hum around them as they talk. She tells him she stopped by his shop twice to drop off the license notices, lingered for 10 minutes each time looking at the 1962 Airstream he’s restoring for a retired couple from Chicago, loves the custom cedar paneling he’s installing in the bedroom nook. He’s shocked anyone besides him has noticed that detail, let alone a woman who he thought only cared about paperwork and late fees.
He’s fighting it the whole time, that low pull in his gut, because he’s convinced this is a trap, that she’ll ask him to file the paperwork first thing tomorrow, that letting her get close will mess up the perfectly ordered, quiet life he’s spent eight years building. He’s half a second from making an excuse to leave when the first firework goes off, red and gold bursting overhead, and the crowd surges forward, Elara stumbling into his chest. He catches her by the waist, his calloused hands splayed across the small of her back, and her hand lands flat on his chest, right over the scar he got from a falling trailer frame two years prior. They hold eye contact for what feels like forever, the boom of the fireworks vibrating through both of their bones, the light painting pink and blue across her cheeks. She doesn’t pull away, doesn’t act flustered, just smirks a little, and tells him she never sent the third license notice. Held it back, she says, because she wanted to talk to him in person instead of sending a fine in the mail. He admits he’s been avoiding her not just because of the license, but because he saw her at the grocery store last month carrying a 12 pack of the same cheap IPA he drinks and couldn’t stop thinking about her for three days straight.
They stay pressed together through the rest of the fireworks show, her shoulder snug against his, her hand drifting down to rest light on his bicep, the calluses on her fingers brushing the tattoo of a 1958 Airstream he has on his forearm. When the last silver firework fades against the dark sky, the crowd cheering around them, she tugs on his wrist, nods toward the dirt parking lot at the edge of the fair. “I wanna see that Airstream tonight,” she says, her voice low enough that only he can hear it. He nods, doesn’t say anything, just swipes his thumb across her jaw to wipe off the remaining cherry pie filling, then licks it off his thumb before he laces his fingers through hers and leads her toward his beat-up pickup truck.
