Manny Ruiz, 53, has spent most of the last decade living out of his beat-up 2017 Ford F-150, crisscrossing Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky as a minor league baseball scout. His biggest flaw? He’s dug his heels in so hard against any kind of romantic connection since his wife left him for a regional soda sales rep 8 years prior, he’ll lie to his own brother to skip family cookouts just to avoid being set up with anyone. He’s got calluses on his dominant hand from holding a radar gun for 6 hours a day, a permanent crease between his brows from squinting at pitcher mechanics through sun glare, and a habit of tucking sunflower seed shells into the pockets of his flannel shirts when he can’t find a trash can.
He’d ducked into The Copper Tap on the Saturday of the town’s annual fall chili cookoff only because the brisket taco truck parked out front posted a special on smoked brisket with pickled red onions, his go-to cheat meal when he’s off the road. The bar was half crowded, most of the regulars camped out at picnic tables on the back patio sampling chili entries, so he grabbed the stool at the far end of the bar, ordered a hazy IPA, and flipped open his scout notebook to jot notes on a 19-year-old lefty he’d watched throw 94 mph with a curveball that dropped like a cinder block the day before.
He was halfway through scribbling a note about the kid’s wonky follow-through when someone sat two stools down to his left. He glanced up, and his pen froze mid-sentence. It was Lila Marquez, his ex-wife’s younger cousin. He hadn’t seen her since the divorce papers were signed, when she’d pulled him aside at the courthouse and mumbled that she thought her cousin was making a stupid mistake, before vanishing to Portland for 7 years.
She was softer around the edges now, her dark chestnut hair streaked with a single strand of silver above her left ear, wearing a faded Ohio State hoodie and high-waisted jeans that showed off the tattoo of a sunflower on her ankle. She ordered a cranberry seltzer, then glanced over, did a double take, and grinned. She slid one stool closer, then another, until her knee was brushing the outside of his worn denim jeans when she shifted to face him.
He tensed up at first, his brain screaming that this was a terrible idea, that small town gossip travels faster than a fastball down the middle, that his ex would raise hell so loud he’d hear it all the way in Kentucky during his next scouting trip. But then she leaned in to ask him how the baseball gig was going, and her shoulder pressed against his bicep, and he smelled vanilla lotion mixed with the cinnamon and cumin wafting from the chili samples the bartender was passing around, and the tension in his shoulders melted a little.
He told her about the 17-year-old kid who’d showed up to a tryout a month prior hungover on Mike’s Hard Lemonade, who’d still thrown three perfect strikeouts before throwing up in the dugout trash can, and she laughed so hard she snort-laughed, her hand landing on his forearm to steady herself. The contact sent a jolt up his arm, warm and unexpected, and he didn’t move away. When they both reached for their drinks at the same time a few minutes later, their hands brushed, and she held the contact for three full beats, her fingers soft against his calloused ones, before she pulled back to take a sip of her seltzer.
She asked him if he had plans that weekend, and he shook his head, said he was gonna crash at his empty house, watch old World Series reruns and eat frozen pizza. She told him she was house-sitting for her older sister up at the lake cabin, the one with the big porch and the wood stove that used to be the site of his ex’s family Christmas parties every year. She ran a single finger lightly down his forearm, slow enough that he could feel the pressure through his flannel sleeve, and said she’d always thought he was too good for her cousin, anyway, that he deserved someone who actually cared about his stupid baseball notes and his habit of leaving sunflower seed shells everywhere.
He hesitated for 10 long seconds, weighing the risk of the gossip, the stupid unspoken rule that you don’t mess with your ex’s family, the way he’d spent 8 years convincing himself he was better off alone. Then he closed his scout notebook, tucked it into the pocket of his jacket, and told her he’d drive.
They left the bar together, him holding the heavy wooden door open for her, the crisp October air stinging his cheeks as they stepped outside. She brushed her hand against his lower back when she walked past him to his truck, and he didn’t even feel the cold. He tossed the overnight bag he always kept packed in the backseat for last-minute scouting trips into the passenger footwell next to her, turned the key in the ignition, and pulled out of the parking lot, heading north toward the lake. The radio flipped to a 90s country song he used to listen to on road trips back when he was first married, and she sang along off-key, her feet propped up on the dashboard, and he reached over to turn the volume up a little louder.
