Moe Sorrentino, 57, retired minor league equipment manager for the Toledo Mud Hens, sat slouched in his usual vinyl booth at the VFW Friday fish fry, a half-empty draft sweating on the table next to a half-eaten cod sandwich oozing tartar sauce onto wax paper. He’d spent 28 years hauling gear bags, patching split catcher’s mitts, and prying sunflower seed shells out of dugout drains, and his default expression was a permanent half-scowl that warded off most small talk, a flaw he’d leaned into hard since his ex-wife Carol left him for a suburban realtor 12 years prior. He’d stopped showing up to family functions not long after, convinced every side-eyed glance was a judgment on his failed marriage, and had spent the year since his retirement mostly alone, restoring vintage ball gloves in his cottage workshop and only venturing out for these weekly fish fries, where no one bothered him unless they wanted to argue about 1990s minor league rosters.
The post had started letting civilian guests in three weeks prior to boost lagging membership, a change Moe had complained about every visit since, but he hadn’t expected to see Lena Carter step through the door, rain beading on the shoulder of her navy scrub top, a stray curl falling across her forehead. She was Carol’s younger cousin by 9 years, the one who’d snuck him extra slices of peach pie at family cookouts and laughed at his terrible dugout jokes when everyone else rolled their eyes, and he hadn’t spoken to her since three months before the divorce, when he’d run into her at the grocery store and mumbled a quick hello before ducking down an aisle to avoid small talk about Carol.
She spotted him immediately, hesitated for half a second, then walked over and slid into the booth across from him, her knee brushing his under the table when she shifted to tug her wet scrub sleeve up her forearm. The contact sent a jolt up his spine he tried to ignore. “Knew I’d find you here,” she said, holding his gaze steady, no trace of awkwardness in her tone, and he noticed the crinkles at the corners of her hazel eyes were deeper than he remembered, the same as when she’d laughed so hard at his story about a relief pitcher who’d tried to bring a pet ferret into the dugout that she’d snort-laughed beer out her nose. He could smell lavender hand soap and the faint, familiar tang of dog shampoo on her, a weirdly soft contrast to the fried grease and beer smell hanging in the post air.
He tensed first, jaw tightening, ready to tell her he didn’t want to hear any updates from Carol, didn’t want to pass along any messages, didn’t want anything to do with that side of the family anymore. She held up a hand before he could speak, grinning. “Relax. I haven’t spoken to Carol in three years. She took my dad’s side in the inheritance fight over my grandma’s farm, said I was overreacting for wanting to keep it out of a developer’s hands. I’m not here for her.”
That knocked the scowl right off his face. He leaned back in the booth, sipped his beer, and found himself talking before he could overthink it. They traded stories first: her about moving back to town to take care of her mom who’d had a stroke, working as a vet tech at the small animal clinic on the west side, him about the glove restoration side gig he’d started, the 1972 Johnny Bench mitt he’d just finished re-lacing for a collector in Cleveland. When she reached across the table to grab a fry off his plate, her forearm brushed his, and he didn’t flinch. He told her about the time Carol had thrown out his entire collection of game-used baseballs because she thought they were cluttering the garage, and she rolled her eyes so hard he thought she might strain something. “I always told her she was an idiot for not seeing how good she had it,” she said, quiet enough that only he could hear, and the air between them shifted, thick enough that he could almost feel it on his skin.
The conflict warred in his chest the whole time: part of him was disgusted with himself for even entertaining the idea of this, for being attracted to his ex-wife’s cousin, for thinking it wouldn’t blow up into some stupid family drama he’d spent 12 years avoiding. The other part of him hadn’t felt this seen, this light, since before the divorce, hadn’t had anyone lean in close when he talked like what he said mattered, hadn’t had anyone’s knee brush his under a table and make his chest feel tight in a good way. The jukebox switched to a slow Patsy Cline track, and the VFW emptied out around them, the rain tapping harder against the windows.
When she asked if he wanted to go get milkshakes at the 24-hour diner down the road, he hesitated for all of two seconds. He’d spent 12 years clinging to grudges, to rules he’d made up for himself to avoid getting hurt, and none of it had made him happy. He paid their tab, grabbed his frayed old Mud Hens windbreaker off the back of the booth, and held it over both their heads when they stepped out into the rain. She wrapped her arm around his waist to stay close, her hip pressed tight to his the whole walk to his beat-up pickup, and he didn’t even pretend he wasn’t leaning into the contact.
They slid into a booth by the window at the diner, the linoleum cold under his boots, the smell of coffee and grilled cheese wrapping around them. She ordered a chocolate milkshake, he ordered vanilla, and when their waitress set the glasses down a minute later, Lena’s hand brushed his as she reached for the maraschino cherry on top of his vanilla shake, and he laced his fingers through hers and didn’t let go.
