Manny Ruiz, 51, has spent 22 years as a minor league baseball scout, logging 30,000 miles a year across Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas in a dented 2018 F150 with an Astros decal peeling off the back window. A rotator cuff injury killed his own shot at the majors senior year of college, and he’s clung to rigid, self-imposed rules ever since his wife left him for a suburban real estate agent 8 years prior: no dating anyone in the towns where he scouts, no mixing personal and professional business, no letting anyone get close enough to leave a mark on the quiet, predictable life he’s built for himself. He’s at the small-town east Texas fire department cookoff on a sweltering October afternoon only to scope Javi Morales, a 17-year-old lefty with a 94 mph fastball he’s been tracking for three months, not to socialize.
Sweat beads under the brim of his faded 2005 World Series cap as he leans against a fence post, picking at a paper plate of smoked brisket, the air thick with the smell of hickory smoke, charcoal, and sweet tea. The sound of a George Strait deep cut blares over crackling loudspeakers, kids scream as they chase each other through the gravel parking lot, and Javi’s over by the beer tent hauling ice coolers, his lanky frame moving easy, no sign of the shoulder soreness he’d complained about two weeks prior. Then Manny catches another scent, warm and spiced: ripe peaches, cinnamon, melted butter, drifting from the booth ten feet to his left.
He ambles over before he thinks better of it, and the woman behind the folding table looks up from wiping flour off her denim cutoff sleeve, silver hoop earrings glinting in the sun. She’s got a tiny, pale scar slashing across her left cheekbone, leftover from a 10-year-old bike crash she’ll tell him about later, and her eyes are the color of burnt honey. “Cobbler’s still warm,” she says, nodding at the stack of styrofoam cups on the table, her voice rough around the edges from too many years of singing too loud in dive bar karaoke booths. Her name is Lila, she’ll tell him, she’s Javi’s aunt, moved back to town six months prior after her ex-husband moved to Florida with his 26-year-old secretary.
He hands her a five dollar bill, and when she passes him the cup of cobbler, their fingers brush for half a second. The jolt runs up his arm so fast he almost drops the spoon, and he notices she pauses for a beat too long before pulling her hand back, a tiny smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. He leans against the edge of the table while he eats, the sweet, sticky peach juice dripping down his wrist, and they trade off reciting Astros starting lineups from the 90s, her leaning in a little closer every time he laughs, the shoulder of her denim shirt brushing his bicep whenever someone jostles the table from behind. He’s torn, sharp and hot, half disgusted at himself for even entertaining the thought of breaking his own rules, half thrumming with a giddy, nervous energy he hasn’t felt since he was 22, sitting in the Astrodome watching Nolan Ryan throw his seventh no-hitter. This is the worst possible time, the worst possible person, he tells himself. Javi’s a top prospect, if anyone sees him flirting with the kid’s aunt, they’ll scream favoritism, he’ll ruin his reputation, he’ll get his heart broken again like he did 8 years ago.
Javi ambles over right then, wiping sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand, and calls Lila “Aunt Lila” before nodding at Manny, saying he recognized him from the game he’d pitched last week. Manny’s chest seizes up for half a second, sure he’s blown the whole scouting trip and whatever this thing with Lila is before it even starts, but Lila just winks at him over Javi’s shoulder, says “Don’t worry, this one’s got tunnel vision for that curveball of his, he won’t tell a soul you were here for anything other than cobbler.” A group of eight year olds chasing a runaway beach ball slams into Manny’s side right then, and he stumbles, reaching out to steady himself on her arm, his palm resting flat on her sun-warmed, freckled bicep for three full seconds. She doesn’t pull away, just holds his gaze, the corner of her mouth tugging up again, and he feels every stupid rule he’s clung to for 8 years melt like butter on hot cobbler.
He asks her if she wants to get a beer after the cookoff wraps up, and she says yes, tells him to meet her by the big live oak at the edge of the park when he’s done talking to Javi. He spends 10 minutes chatting with Javi, confirming what he already knew: the kid’s shoulder is fine, he’s got a 3.8 GPA, he’s not planning on signing with the SEC school that’s been blowing up his phone, he wants to go pro straight out of high school. When he’s done, he tucks his scouting notebook into the back pocket of his jeans, looks over at the oak tree. Lila’s leaning against the trunk, holding two cold Shiner Bocks, the sun setting pink and tangerine behind her, turning the ends of her brown hair gold. He adjusts the brim of his cap, grinning, and starts walking toward her.
