Milo Rourke, 53, makes his living stripping rotted paneling out of vintage campers and swapping rusted water lines for copper, and he’d rather spend 12 hours on his back under a 1971 Airstream than make small talk with anyone in the small mountain town he’s called home for 11 years. His only flaw, if you ask his only friend Jake, is that he’s built a wall so high around his life he can barely see over it, leftover from when his wife packed a duffel and left for a yoga retreat in Costa Rica and never came back, seven years prior. Jake had dragged him to the annual fall chili cook-off that afternoon, saying he’d turn into a hermit who talked only to his socket set if he didn’t get out once a quarter, and Milo had caved mostly to avoid listening to Jake nag him for the next month. The air smelled like cumin and hickory smoke, the bluegrass band off by the picnic tables was plowing through a rough cover of Folsom Prison Blues, and his paper bowl of three-alarm chili was so hot it was seeping through the bottom onto his work boots, still caked with sawdust from the Boler he’d picked up at an estate sale the week before.
He was reaching for a napkin off the stack on the folding table when her elbow knocked his. She was wearing a faded cream lambswool sweater, dark jeans scuffed at the knee, and silver hoop earrings that caught the low October sun, and when she laughed, the sound was warm enough to cut through the chill nipping at his knuckles. “Sorry about that,” she said, and didn’t pull her arm away immediately, the soft fabric of her sleeve brushing the rough canvas of his Carhartt jacket for three full beats before she leaned back to grab a cornbread muffin. He caught the faint scent of jasmine shampoo and cedar when she moved, and he had to stop himself from leaning in to get a better whiff, like a kid sniffing a pie cooling on a windowsill. He noticed the small silver cross on a thin chain around her neck, and his first instinct was to shut down, to mumble a no problem and walk away. He hadn’t set foot in a church since his mom’s funeral 12 years prior, and every pastor he’d ever met had the kind of judgmental side-eye that made him feel like he was 16 again, getting chewed out for skipping Sunday school to go dirt biking.
But then she nodded at the sawdust stuck in the curls at the top of his head, and smirked. “Let me guess. Contractor? Cabinet maker? Or do you just roll around in a wood pile for fun on the weekends?” He found himself snorting, a sound he rarely made around anyone but Jake. “Vintage camper restorer. I’m in the old feed barn off Route 19.” Her eyes lit up, hazel with flecks of gold so bright you could see them even in the shade, and she leaned in so close he could feel her breath on his cheek when she talked. “No way. I’ve been scouring Facebook Marketplace for a 1968 Boler for six months. I want to fix it up and drive out to the desert for my sabbatical next year. All the mechanics I’ve talked to say I’m wasting my money, that old campers are nothing but a money pit.” He found himself defending the Boler before he could think, listing off the ways you could patch the fiberglass, how the compact frame fits in any camp spot, how the whole thing weighs less than a thousand pounds so you can tow it with a mid-sized SUV. He talked for 10 minutes straight, and when he stopped, he realized he’d leaned in too, their shoulders pressed together tight enough that he could feel the heat of her body through his jacket.
He found out her name was Lena, she was 48, the new pastor at the tiny Methodist church downtown, she’d left a career as a corporate divorce lawyer in Charlotte three years prior because she got sick of watching people tear each other apart for money, she rode a 2008 Harley Sportster to service on Sundays, and she made the worst mac and cheese in the entire state of North Carolina, per her congregation’s annual potluck reviews. She teased him about the chili grease smudge on his chin, and when he went to wipe it off, she shook her head, reached up, and brushed it away with the pad of her thumb. Her skin was soft, a little cold from the air, and when her finger brushed the corner of his mouth, he felt a jolt go straight down his spine, the kind of spark he hadn’t felt since the first time he’d kissed his ex-wife, back when they were 22 and living in a trailer park outside of Boise. His first instinct was to pull away, to tell her he wasn’t the kind of guy a pastor should be seen talking to, that the whole town would be gossiping about them by the next morning, that he didn’t do dates or relationships or anything that required letting someone inside his barn, let alone his life.
But then she smiled, and said, “I know what you’re thinking. You think I’m gonna invite you to church, or lecture you about sin, or tell my congregation all about the grumpy camper guy who hates small talk. I don’t do that. Half the people in my congregation already think I’m a heathen because I listen to Motown during service and swear when I burn toast. I don’t care what they say about who I spend my time with.” The resistance he’d been carrying around for seven years, the wall he’d built brick by brick after his ex left, crumbled so fast he almost laughed out loud. He didn’t care about the gossip, didn’t care that she was a pastor, didn’t care that he’d sworn he’d never let anyone get close enough to hurt him again. He asked her if she wanted to get coffee at the diner on Main Street the next morning, and if she wanted, he could take her out to his shop after, show her the Boler he was working on, give her tips for what to look for when she bought her own.
She said yes, typed her number into his beat up old flip phone, and when she turned to leave, she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, her lips warm against his cold skin. He stood there holding his half-eaten bowl of chili long after she’d ridden off on her Harley, the rumble of her engine fading into the trees, and the spot where her lips had touched stayed warm all the way back to his barn.