Rafe Marquez, 57, has restored 117 vintage wooden runabouts out of his converted Tampa Bay dock shed in the 12 years since his wife packed her bags and left for a realtor in Sarasota. His knuckles are permanently crisscrossed with fiberglass scratches, he listens to nothing but 90s heartland rock while he works, and he’s avoided every mandatory city community event until this month, when the waterfront market coordinator threatened to pull his vendor license if he skipped again. He’s still fuming from the city council meeting three days prior, where the new parks and rec head pushed through a no-launch zone that cuts his test run access by 70%, so when that same woman drags a folding table and stacked boxes of hand-painted birdhouses into the booth space right next to his, he glares into his dented black thermos and pretends she doesn’t exist.
He doesn’t look up when she asks to borrow an extra mallet to hammer her booth stakes into the weathered boardwalk. He doesn’t acknowledge her when she comments on the stack of hand-forged brass boat cleats he’s laid out for sale, polished to a soft gold glow. It’s not until a hyper 7-year-old in a neon life jacket barrels between their booths, knocking half the cleat stack onto the damp wood, that they interact. They both drop to their knees at the same time, and when their hands brush reaching for the heaviest cleat, he yanks his back like he’s been burned. He glances up, first at the scar slashing across her left knuckle, then at her face: dark hair pulled back in a messy braid, flecks of blue paint on her cheekbone, no fancy office perfume, just the sharp, warm smell of cedar and coconut shampoo.
“Sorry about the ordinance,” she says, wiping a smudge of dirt off the cleat before handing it to him. “City council made me push it through after a dozen kayakers complained about wake near the swimming area. I’m already drafting a carve-out for small commercial boat testers. You’re Rafe, right? I’ve seen your work on the 1957 Chris-Craft down at the marina. Gorgeous.”
He blinks, caught off guard. He’d assumed she was another pencil-pushing bureaucrat who couldn’t tell a boat cleat from a curtain rod. He mumbles a thanks, and before he knows it, they’re bantering. She teases him about the faded “I <3 Old Boats” sticker peeling off the side of his thermos. He teases her about the fact half her birdhouses have tiny pirate hats painted on the roofs, silly little eye patches and all. The wind picks up off the bay mid-afternoon, carrying the salt tang of the water and the smell of fried grouper from the food truck two rows over, and her knit scarf blows straight into his face. He catches it before it can knock over a row of her birdhouses, and when he hands it back, her thumb lingers on the soft, scarred skin of his wrist for two full beats before she pulls away.
He spends the rest of the market half-ignoring customers so he can listen to her talk about growing up in the Florida panhandle, building treehouses with her older brother, moving to Tampa three months prior after her last job fell through. He hasn’t talked to anyone this long, about anything that isn’t boat parts, in years, and it makes his chest feel tight, like he’s forgotten how to breathe easy around another person. He’s halfway through telling her about the 1962 Century Coronado he’s currently restoring, the one with the original mahogany hull, when the sky opens up without warning, cold rain pouring down so hard it drowns out the market speakers.
They both scramble to tuck their merchandise under the booth awning, shoulders pressed tight together as they work, the heat of her arm seeping through the thin flannel of his work shirt. By the time they’re done, the rest of the vendors have packed up and bailed, the boardwalk nearly empty except for the lone taco truck still open under the pavilion at the end of the dock.
“I’m starving,” she says, laughing, wiping a drop of rain off her eyelash. “Wanna split an order of chips and get tacos? My treat, as an apology for the ordinance. For now, anyway.”
He hesitates for half a second, his first instinct to say no, to drive straight home to his hound dog and the frozen pepperoni pizza he has waiting in the freezer, to go back to the quiet, predictable routine he’s built for himself that doesn’t involve anyone else. But then he looks at her, grinning, rain dripping off the end of her braid, and he nods.