Rudy Galvan, 52, had only shown up to the central Texas Fourth of July barbecue because the local youth league director begged him to hand out the 12U all-star MVP trophy. He’d tried every excuse: a scouting run, truck repairs, a stack of game tapes to sort through. None stuck. So he slouched against a splintered pine picnic table, lukewarm Lonestar in one hand, baseball cap pulled low over his sunburnt forehead, avoiding eye contact with every neighbor who waved him over to their grill. The air smelled like mesquite smoke and burnt hot dogs, firecrackers popped in the distant pasture, and grass under his work boots was still damp from the afternoon thunderstorm.
He was halfway through plotting his escape when a shadow fell over his beer. He looked up, and immediately recognized Lila Mendez, 48, who ran the Main Street pie shop, widow of Javi Mendez, the shortstop Rudy scouted out of a tiny south San Antonio high school back in 2001. Javi played three years in the minors before a torn ACL ended his career, settled here, died in a motorcycle crash three years prior. Rudy sent a sympathy card. He never stopped by the pie shop, too guilty for how Javi’s career fizzled, for the stupid, unnameable spark he felt every time he saw Lila at the grocery store.
She set a paper plate down in front of him, thick peach pie oozing syrup over the edges, vanilla ice cream melting into the crust. Her forearm brushed his as she leaned in, and he caught a whiff of jasmine lotion and roasted peach, warm and sweet, nothing like the gas station coffee and old leather he usually smelled. She sat next to him, close enough her knee brushed his denim thigh, and he tensed, half ready to mumble an excuse and leave. She smiled, crinkles at her eye corners, and said Javi talked about him every time they ran into a scout at high school games, how Rudy was the only one who didn’t laugh when Javi said he wanted to play in the majors.
He didn’t know what to say at first, fighting a war in his head: half of him was disgusted, convinced he was disrespecting Javi’s memory for noticing how her sun-streaked brown hair fell over her shoulder when she laughed, how her fingers were calloused from years of kneading pie crust. The other half buzzed, like he was 17 again in the stands at his first college game, heart thudding. She pointed at a kid chasing a golden retriever across the outfield, grabbing his wrist to tug his line of sight right, her palm warm against his skin, the first non-handshake touch he’d had in longer than he could remember.
They talked for an hour, the crowd thinning as the sun dipped low over oak trees, painting the sky pink and tangerine. Fireflies blinked in the long grass at the field edge, and she shifted closer, their shoulders pressed together, heat from her cotton sundress seeping through his thin team shirt. She mentioned she planned to drive to the hill country peach orchards for four days next week, stock up for a new spiced pie recipe, her sister running the shop while she was gone. He said he had a scouting trip out that way the next morning, planned to camp in his truck bed between games.
She paused, picking at her empty plate edge, and asked if she could tag along. Guilt nicked him for half a second, loud enough he almost said no, until she brushed a pie crumb off his chin, her thumb grazing his lower lip for a split second, and the noise in his head went quiet. He said yes before he could overthink it.
By the time the first fireworks went off, they walked across the parking lot to his beat-up 1998 F-150, Lila carrying the leftover half pie in one hand, the other brushing his every few steps before she laced their fingers together, calloused palm against his calloused palm, dotted with old scars from catching line drives and fixing his truck engine. He didn’t pull away.
