Javier Mendez, 52, has restored 73 vintage motorcycles out of his cinder block Austin garage in the 8 years since his wife’s sudden heart attack. He’d skipped every neighborhood block party in that stretch, convinced small talk and potluck casseroles were a waste of time he could spend sanding a 1970s Honda tank or tuning a Sportster engine, until his 19-year-old niece showed up on his porch that Saturday afternoon, threatened to hide all his socket sets if he didn’t come out for at least an hour. He showed up in grease-stained work boots, frayed denim, and a faded Willie Nelson flannel rolled to his elbows, the pale scar from a 2021 Harley exhaust burn snaking up his left forearm, and planted himself by the taco truck, cold Modelo in hand, avoiding eye contact with everyone who passed.
He’d only looked away from the grill cook flipping al pastor to grab a stack of napkins when his forearm bumped bare, warm skin. He jumped back, ready to apologize, and found himself staring down at a woman with sun-streaked auburn hair tied back in a silk scarf, wearing a linen sundress the color of dried sage, the faint scent of cedar and wild honey rolling off her when she laughed. She was Elara, the new next door neighbor who’d moved into the blue bungalow two months prior, the one who’d left a jar of homemade wild blackberry jam on his porch a week earlier, the one he’d avoided waving at every time he pulled his truck into the driveway, too caught up in his own self-imposed isolation to be polite. She said she’d been meaning to ask him if the rumble coming from his garage every Saturday morning was a 1972 Ironhead, that her dad had owned the exact same model when she was a kid, and she’d missed the sound.
A group of kids chasing a golden retriever sprinted past, and she stepped closer to him to avoid being bowled over, her bare knee brushing the side of his jeans for half a second. He tensed, his brain short-circuiting between the familiar, sharp pull of desire he hadn’t felt in almost a decade and the heavy, twisting guilt that told him he had no right to feel that way, that even looking at another woman was a betrayal of the 14 years he’d had with his wife. He didn’t step away, though. He watched as she leaned over the taco truck counter to grab two extra lime wedges, her shoulder brushing his chest when she turned back, her fingers brushing his when she pressed one of the wedges into his palm. She held eye contact the whole time, no awkward glancing away, no nervous fidgeting, like she knew exactly how loud the voice in his head was yelling at him to leave.
She took it without hesitation. They danced slow right there by the taco truck, no one paying them any mind, her free hand resting light on his shoulder, his on the soft curve of her waist, the heat of her skin seeping through the thin linen of her dress. When she rested her head against his chest for a beat, he tensed for half a second, then relaxed, the guilt that had been sitting heavy in his chest for 8 years melting just enough that he could breathe again, no sharp edge of betrayal, no voice yelling that he didn’t deserve this, just the sound of the song, the smell of cedar and honey and al pastor smoke, the soft weight of her hand in his.
When the song ended, they pulled back, and she smiled, the corner of her mouth crooking up a little, and said she had a bottle of oak-aged reposado tequila sitting on her kitchen counter, and if he didn’t have anywhere to be, he could come over, tell her all about the Ironhead. He nodded before he could overthink it, left his half-finished Modelo on the folding table next to the napkin stack, and walked next to her down the block, their knuckles brushing every three or four steps, the sound of the band fading behind them, the cool October air carrying the faint smell of mesquite from the grill at the end of the street. He reaches out and laces his fingers through hers when they turn up her front walk.