Manny Ruiz, 53, has spent the last 18 years as a minor league baseball scout, logging 40,000 miles a year in his beat-up 2017 Silverado, crisscrossing the South to spot left-handed pitchers with 95-mile fastballs and infielders who can turn a double play without breaking a sweat. His biggest flaw? He’s spent his whole adult life terrified of stepping out of line, of being the guy people whisper about over church potlucks or raw bar happy hours. It’s why he stayed in his loveless marriage for 14 years, why he’s turned down every date a friend has tried to set him up on since his divorce seven years prior, why he’s spent the last three months avoiding Lila Marlow every time he drops off cases of uneaten protein bars and Gatorade at the community garden she runs.
He knows exactly why he’s avoiding her. She’s 38, sharp as a tack, climbs rock walls on weekends, and has been flirting with him so openly even the kid who bags his groceries at Publix commented on it last month. She’s also his ex-wife’s second cousin’s daughter, the same girl he used to slip $5 bills to for lemonade at family cookouts when she was 12. The idea of being attracted to her makes his skin crawl with shame half the time; the other half he can’t stop thinking about the way her sundress rode up her calves when she knelt to pull weeds a few weeks back, the way she laughed when he tripped over a tomato cage.
He’s halfway through a dozen oysters and a cold draft at his usual Friday night spot, a cramped raw bar off Gandy Boulevard, when the stool next to him scrapes against the linoleum and she drops into it, so close her bare upper arm brushes the flannel of his rolled-up sleeve. She smells like coconut sunscreen and silver tequila, the kind he keeps stashed under his sink for rare visitors. He freezes mid-shuck, oyster knife hovering an inch above the shell.
“Your friend bailed on you?” he asks, nodding at the empty spot on her other side. He already knows the answer; he saw her text exchange with her roommate complaining about it on the garden’s Facebook group that morning.
She grins, leans her elbow on the sticky bar top, her shoulder pressing a little firmer into his. “How’d you guess? You stalking my Facebook now, Ruiz?” Her eyes are dark, crinkled at the corners, and she holds his gaze long enough that his neck feels hot. He looks away first, wipes brine off his wrist with a napkin.
“Just got back from a scouting trip in Birmingham,” he says, changing the subject, tapping the beat-up scouting notebook on the bar next to his beer. “Found a 19-year-old shortstop who can throw out a runner at second from the warning track, but cries every time his mom calls him. Probably won’t make it past A ball.”
She snorts, reaches across him for the bottle of hot sauce on his other side, her chest brushing his arm when she leans over. He can feel the warmth of her through his shirt, his breath catches for half a second before he can stop it. “Poor kid. You’re too hard on them, you know that? You always have been.”
He opens his mouth to argue, then stops. He’s not used to people knowing that about him, not people outside his old coaching staff. She’s right, though. He is too hard on the kids, pushes them too hard because he never got the shot he thought he deserved back when he was a minor league catcher himself, blew out his knee at 26 and never got called up.
He doesn’t realize he’s been quiet for 30 seconds until she touches his forearm, her palm warm, calloused a little at the fingertips from years of gripping climbing holds. “Hey, I didn’t mean to hit a nerve. I think it’s sweet, how much you care about them.” Her hand stays on his arm longer than it needs to, her thumb brushing the pale scar he got from a home plate collision when he was 24.
The shame bubbles up again, fast. He should pull away. He should make an excuse, pay his tab, leave. People they know come to this bar all the time. His ex-sister-in-law waits tables here on Saturday nights, for Christ’s sake. But he doesn’t pull away. He looks down at her hand on his arm, then back up at her face, and she’s not smiling anymore, her expression soft, open.
“I know you think it’s weird,” she says, quiet enough no one else at the bar can hear, leaning in so her hair brushes his jaw. “I know you’re scared people will talk. I don’t care. Half the people in this town are miserable in their marriages and just mad someone else is having fun. You’re the only guy around here who doesn’t treat me like I’m either a dumb kid or something to leer at when I’m working in the garden.”
He sits there for a long second, the sound of Tom Petty playing low on the jukebox, the clink of beer bottles, the briny, salty smell of oysters hanging in the air. He’s spent his whole life doing what everyone else expects him to do, never taking a risk, never doing something just because it feels good. He reaches up, brushes a stray strand of wavy brown hair off her face, his knuckle brushing her cheek. She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pull away, just holds his gaze.
“I’m free Sunday,” he says, before he can talk himself out of it. “If you still wanna show me how to not fall off the climbing wall.”
She lights up, grins so wide her dimples show, and takes her hand off his arm only to grab his hand, lacing her fingers through his. Her hand is smaller than his, warm, and he doesn’t even think about pulling away, doesn’t care if the bartender sees, doesn’t care if anyone they know walks in right now.
They finish their beers, split the last three oysters, and he pays the tab, his hand still in hers when they walk out the door into the thick, humid Tampa night, the streetlights glowing gold, the distant sound of boats idling on the bay carrying over the traffic. She stops on the sidewalk, turns to him, nods at the taco truck two blocks down, the one that serves al pastor with pineapple that he’s been eating at for 10 years.
“Wanna get tacos first?” she asks, squeezing his hand. “Before we figure out the rest of it.”
He nods, grinning, the tight knot of anxiety he’s carried in his chest for as long as he can remember loosening, just a little. He tucks his scouting notebook under his other arm and follows her toward the taco truck, the sound of her laughter drowning out the distant roar of traffic on Dale Mabry Highway.
