Manny Ruiz, 53, retired Texas League baseball scout, had spent the three years since his wife’s breast cancer death holed up in his creaky San Antonio bungalow, turning down every neighborhood invite with a gruff shake of his head. He only left the house to pick up leather conditioner for the vintage ball gloves he restored in his garage, or to drink cold Lone Star at the dive bar three blocks over, where he sat in the same back booth and ignored anyone who tried to strike up small talk. His 72-year-old next door neighbor Margot had dragged him to the fall neighborhood festival that afternoon with a threat: no more of her famous pork tamales if he skipped another community event. He’d agreed only for the oak-smoked brisket he knew the local food truck would be serving, already planning to slip out after he finished his plate.
He was leaning against a split-rail fence, wiping barbecue sauce off his wrist with a crumpled napkin, when he heard the laugh. Rough, warm, a little scratchy like the person smoked the occasional menthol, and he’d replayed it in his head a hundred times since he first heard it at a high school baseball showcase in Lubbock 11 months prior. He turned, and the woman who’d been occupying half his stray thoughts for almost a year bumped straight into his ribs, her half-full michelada sloshing over the rim of the plastic cup and onto the sleeve of his faded flannel.
Lena Marquez froze, her dark eyes locking onto his for three full beats, longer than polite, before the corner of her mouth tugged up into that same grin he’d stared at across a baseball dugout bleacher last summer. She was 48, recently divorced, her son Javi the star shortstop Manny had spent six months scouting before the Astros had offered Javi a signing bonus big enough to beat out every other team in the league. Back then, Manny was still on the RoughRiders payroll, and fraternizing with a prospect’s family was a fireable offense, so he’d kept every interaction strictly professional, even when she’d brought him a glass of sweet tea after he’d sat through three straight games in 102-degree heat. He’d felt guilty for even noticing how the sun hit the gray streaks in her dark braid, how her cowboy boots kicked up red dust when she walked, had told himself he was just tired from 12-hour days on the road.
“Sorry about that,” she said, grabbing a handful of napkins from the table next to them and dabbing at the wet spot on his sleeve. Her hand brushed his forearm through the flannel, warm and calloused from working the small cattle ranch she owned outside Lubbock, and Manny’s throat went dry. She had a smudge of chili on her left cheek, her hoodie was faded burnt orange from UT Austin, and she was holding a half-eaten churro dusted with cinnamon, the scent mixing with the coconut sunscreen she wore and drifting up to him.
He told her it was fine, that the flannel was already stained with glove conditioner anyway, and she laughed so hard she snort-laughed, clapping a hand over her mouth. They talked for 40 minutes right there by the fence, the noise of the festival’s bounce house and cover band fading into background static. She told him Javi was already settling in at the Astros’ spring training facility in Florida, that she was in town visiting her sister for a month, that she’d wondered if he still lived in San Antonio after she’d looked up his name online when she’d gotten to town. He told her he’d retired two months prior, that he’d spent most of his time since fixing up old gloves he’d collected over 28 years on the road, that he’d thought about her more times than he cared to admit after that showcase.
Part of him still felt like he was crossing a line, like it was wrong to be flirting with a kid he’d once scouted’s mom, like his old team’s HR department was going to pop out from behind the cotton candy stand and yell at him. But when she leaned in to hear him over a burst of cheers from the cornhole tournament, her shoulder pressed solidly against his, no space between them, that guilt melted into something warmer, sharper, the first spark of interest he’d felt since his wife died.
When the song ended, she didn’t step back, just looked up at him, her dimple popping when she smiled. “I don’t feel like going back to my sister’s house, it’s full of her screaming grandkids right now,” she said, her thumb brushing the back of his knuckle. “You mentioned restoring those old gloves. I’d like to see them.”
Manny nodded, his throat too tight to speak, and laced his fingers through hers again as they walked toward the street where he’d parked his beat-up 2019 Ford F150. He pulled open the passenger door for her, his hand brushing the small of her back as she stepped up into the cab.
