Manny Ruiz, 52, has scouted minor league baseball for the Cleveland Guardians for 18 years. He can spot a 90 mph fastball from 300 feet away, can tell a kid’ll make the majors before he’s thrown three pitches, but he’s been hopeless at reading people since his ex-wife left him for a rec league soccer coach three years back. His biggest flaw: he holds grudges so tight they leave indentations in his palms. He’d skipped every neighborhood block party since the split, until his 7-year-old next door neighbor Lila banged on his door at 2 p.m. holding a hand-drawn sign for her lemonade stand, big blue eyes begging him to stop by. He couldn’t say no.
The sun hung low and sticky by 6 p.m., the air thick with the smell of grilled brats and citronella candles. Manny leaned against a splintered picnic table nursing a PBR, half watching a group of teens play cornhole, when he saw her trip over a neon pink bike left in the grass. He moved before he thought, catching her wrist first, then the curve of her elbow, steadying the tray of empanadas she was carrying before they went flying into the dirt. Her skin was warm under his calloused hands, a faint smudge of blue ink on her jaw, and she smelled like cinnamon and lemon Pledge, sharp and sweet.
He knew who she was, immediately. Clara, the woman who’d moved into the old Henderson house two months prior, the younger sister of the soccer coach his ex had run off with. The first thought that popped into his head was he should drop her arm, walk away, go home and rewatch the 2016 World Series like he did on nights he didn’t want to feel anything. But she laughed, a low, rough sound, and thanked him, saying she’d been meaning to introduce herself forever. She said her brother had mentioned him once, not in a bad way, said he’d heard Manny was the guy who’d scouted two of the Guardians’ current starting outfielders, that he was a legend in Ohio sports circles.
Manny’s jaw tightened. He’d spent three years hating everything tied to that coach, even the brand of Gatorade the guy posted about on Instagram. But Clara was making fun of her brother now, rolling her eyes, saying he still collected Pokemon cards and lived in their mom’s basement half the year when he wasn’t coaching 10-year-olds. She leaned in when a fire truck siren blared past the street, her shoulder pressing firm against his bicep for ten full seconds so he could hear her over the noise, and he didn’t flinch, didn’t step back. He could feel the heat of her through his faded Guardians t-shirt.
She handed him an empanada a minute later, their fingers brushing when he took it, and the jolt ran all the way up his arm to the base of his skull. It was beef, spiced just right, and he told her it was better than any he’d had at the taco trucks down by the minor league stadium in Akron. She grinned, and he noticed she had a tiny gap between her two front teeth, that her nails were chipped from prying old book spines apart—she told him she restored rare books for a living, traveled all over the country buying beat-up first editions and fixing them up for private collectors.
They talked for 40 minutes, standing right there by the picnic table, as the sun dipped lower and the string lights strung between the oak trees flickered on. He told her about scouting trips to small towns in Iowa, about the kid he’d seen last week who threw 92 mph left-handed and had a curveball that made batters trip over their own feet. She told him about a 1920 first edition of *The Old Man and the Sea* she’d picked up at an estate sale last month, that she was halfway through restoring the leather cover, that it had a handwritten note from Ernest Hemingway scrawled in the front flyleaf to a fisherman he’d met in Key West.
Manny knew he should leave. Knew if anyone saw them talking, word would get back to his ex, that she’d throw a fit, that his friends would tease him for falling for the coach’s sister. But when she tilted her head, eyes glinting in the string light, and asked if he wanted to come see the book, that it was just down the street at her house, he didn’t hesitate. He thought about the grudge he’d carried for three years, heavy as a catcher’s mitt in his chest, and for the first time it felt light enough to set down.
He tossed his empty beer can in the trash by the table, and followed her down the sidewalk, the distant sound of the block party’s playlist fading behind them. Her hand brushed his once when they stepped off the curb to avoid a pothole, and he didn’t pull away.
