Manny Ruiz, 52, has spent 18 years as a minor league scout for the Cincinnati Reds, logging 40,000 miles a year in a beat-up Ford F-150 with a cracked windshield and a cooler permanently strapped to the passenger seat. His only consistent flaw, by his own admission, is that he holds grudges against himself longer than he holds onto even his most prized scouting notes. Ten years prior, his college roommate and best friend Jake had been pinned under a collapsed worksite beam, and Manny had promised him he’d look out for Jake’s little sister Lila, no strings attached, no lines crossed. He’d stuck to that promise rigidly, even skipping Jake’s annual memorial cookout three years running when he’d heard Lila would be there, fresh off a divorce from a guy Manny had always thought was too soft to keep up with her.
He’s slouched in a sticky vinyl tiki bar stool off Route 41 in Fort Myers when she walks in, salt crusted on the cuffs of her linen sundress, a canvas tote bulging with seashells slung over one shoulder. The bar smells like fried conch fritters and coconut sunscreen, Tom Petty’s *Free Fallin’* warbling low from the jukebox in the corner. Manny’s got a half-drunk Corona in front of him, his scouting notebook splayed open to pages of scribbled notes about a 19-year-old lefty with a 94 mph fastball and a terrible habit of biting his nails when he’s on the mound. He freezes when he sees her, his fingers tightening around the beer bottle so hard his knuckles go white, the faint scar across his left knuckle from a college brawl over a bad call catching the bar’s neon pink light.
Lila spots him almost immediately, her step faltering for half a second before she smiles, slow and warm, and heads his way. She takes the stool two down from him first, then shifts closer when the bartender yanks the middle one out to restock a tray of lime wedges under the bar. “You still wear that ratty 2012 World Series hoodie when it’s 80 degrees out?” she says, nodding at the faded fabric pulled tight across his shoulders. Her voice is still that same throaty, low pitch he remembers from Jake’s lake house parties back when she was 19, still too young for him to even look at twice.
He huffs a laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “Circulation’s garbage now. Blame all the late nights sitting in cold bleachers.” He’s hyper-aware of the six inches between their thighs under the bar, of the way her knee brushes his when she shifts to rest her elbow on the counter. When she reaches across him to grab a napkin dispenser, her forearm brushes his, the smooth cool silver of her charm bracelet sending a jolt up his arm that has him flinching like he’s been burned. He feels a sharp twist of guilt in his gut, angry at himself for even noticing how the sun has bleached streaks of honey into her dark hair, how the top button of her dress is undone, showing a thin silver chain around her neck with Jake’s old high school baseball number on it.
They talk for 45 minutes, her drinking a margarita rimmed with chili salt, him nursing a second beer. She tells him she’s a guidance counselor at the local high school, that the lefty he’s scouting is one of her students, that his grandma just got diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer, and the kid has been hiding it so he wouldn’t blow his shot at a contract. “He’ll turn down the first offer you guys send,” she says, leaning in so close he can smell the tequila and lime on her breath, the faint coconut of her shampoo. “He needs a week off first to be with her. No exceptions.”
Manny nods, scribbling the note in the margin of his notebook, his hand shaking a little when her knee presses firm against his under the bar, no accidental brush this time. “I’ll call the front office first thing tomorrow,” he says. He’s fought the pull toward her for 25 years, fought the guilt of wanting someone he promised his best friend he’d never touch, convinced himself wanting her would make him a bad person, a disloyal friend. But then she rests her hand on top of his where it’s curled around his pen, her fingers warm and calloused at the tips from digging for shells, and the guilt melts away faster than the ice in her margarita. He realizes Jake never made him promise not to care for her, just never to hurt her, and he’s been hurting both of them for a decade by staying away.
He asks her if she wants to walk the beach out behind the bar while the sun sets, and she nods, slipping her tote over her shoulder. He leaves a $20 on the bar to cover their drinks, tucking his notebook into the pocket of his jeans. They walk down the wooden boardwalk to the sand, the sound of the waves crashing loud enough to drown out the bar’s music. His hand brushes hers twice, slow and tentative, before he laces their fingers together, no hesitation, no guilt, just the warm press of her skin against his as they walk toward the pink and orange glow of the setting sun.
