Manny Ruiz, 53, minor league baseball scout for the Ohio Red Wings, has spent the last eight years prioritizing one thing above all else: not rocking the boat. He drives the same dented 2014 Ford F-150 he bought when he moved to the state, eats the same chili dog at every home game, and refuses to so much as buy a coffee for anyone connected to the team, convinced even the smallest whiff of personal drama will tank the career he rebuilt from scratch after his wife’s sudden passing. His worst flaw, his older sister teases him every Thanksgiving, is that he’d rather die of boredom than risk a single raised eyebrow from the league office.
He’s leaning against a splintered wooden post at the county fair’s beer tent on a sticky August evening when she bumps into him, her cold lime seltzer can clinking hard enough against his IPA that a few drops slosh over the rim onto his worn work boot. He looks down, ready to brush it off, and recognizes Lila Marlow immediately, the woman everyone in the circuit still refers to as the Red Wings GM’s wife. She’s got a faded red bandana tied around her left wrist, sun freckles dusting the bridge of her nose, and a smudge of neon pink cotton candy on the corner of her mouth, and she doesn’t step back after the collision, just laughs, the sound bright enough to cut through the twang of the country cover band playing two tents over. She smells like coconut sunscreen and fried dough, and when she meets his eye, she holds the gaze a full beat longer than casual acquaintance calls for.
She mentions she’s been manning the team’s merch booth for twelve hours straight, hauling foam fingers and fitted hats for every screaming kid who dragged their parent over. He nods, makes a dumb joke about the kid who tried to trade a live goldfish he won at the ring toss for a team jersey an hour earlier, and she snorts, leaning in so her shoulder brushes his bicep when she laughs. A group of teen boys runs between them a minute later, one carrying a stack of deep fried Oreos, and she grabs his wrist to yank him out of the way, her palm warm and a little calloused from hauling cardboard boxes all day. He feels the heat of her touch crawl up his arm, and his stomach twists, half disgust at himself for even noticing, half sharp, unnameable want he hasn’t felt in close to a decade. He knows the rules. Fraternizing with the GM’s spouse is a one way ticket to being reassigned to a scout post in the middle of nowhere Alaska, if not fired outright.
He’s about to mumble an excuse about needing to get home to finish a scouting report for the league when she leans in even closer, her voice low enough only he can hear, and tells him she and her husband separated three months ago. She hasn’t announced it yet, she says, because the league is voting on the Red Wings’ expansion bid next week, and the board hates “unnecessary instability” in team leadership. No one knows but their lawyers, and now him. She nods toward the tree line at the edge of the fairgrounds, says the fireworks start in ten minutes, and the trail back there leads to a fallen log where you can watch the whole show without anyone from the team hovering, gossiping.
He hesitates for a full three seconds, running through the list of consequences: office whispers, a formal reprimand, losing the job that pulled him out of the worst grief of his life. Then he looks at her, her lower lip pulled between her teeth, waiting, and he nods. They walk the gravel path together, the noise of the fair fading behind them, crickets chirping loud in the tall grass on either side of the trail. She sits down on the sun-warmed oak log first, patting the spot next to her, and he sits, their thighs pressed tight together through the thin fabric of his jeans and her cutoff shorts. The first firework bursts overhead, painting the sky bright purple, and she leans her head on his shoulder, her hair soft against his neck. He doesn’t pull away, just slips his arm around her waist, can feel the heat of her skin through the thin cotton of her team t-shirt.
When the last firework fades to smoke, she pulls her phone out of her back pocket, shows him the email she sent the league board that morning, formal, short, announcing her separation, set to send the second the expansion bid vote is finalized. He laughs, sharp and relieved, and kisses her, tastes the cherry Sour Patch Kid she snuck from her bag earlier, sweet and a little tart on her tongue. He pulls his own phone out of his pocket, deletes the 9 PM reminder he set to finish that scouting report, and tangles his free hand in her hair as the distant sound of the fair’s closing announcements drift through the dark trees.
