Manny Ruiz, 53, has spent most of his adult life living out of a duffel bag, driving rusted pickup trucks between small town high school baseball fields, scouting left-handed pitchers with 90 mph fastballs and the sense to not throw a curveball on a 3-0 count. He’s got a scar across his left eyebrow from a JUCO line drive, a habit of chewing peppermint gum so hard his jaw aches by 7 PM, and a 12-year grudge against his ex-wife so thick he’d turned down the annual Maple Street block party eight years running, no exceptions. That changed in mid-July, when his 72-year-old neighbor left a foil-wrapped stack of smoked ribs on his porch, scrawled “Lena made ‘em. Stop being an ass” on a sticky note taped to the top.
He knew who Lena was. His ex-wife’s younger cousin, the kid who used to crash their Super Bowl parties to steal chicken wings, who rolled her eyes every time he and his ex bickered about toothpaste caps. He’d avoided her intentionally post-divorce, assumed she’d picked her cousin’s side, wrote off everyone related to his ex as off-limits, full stop. But the ribs smelled like hickory and brown sugar, and he’d eaten nothing but gas station burritos for three days straight driving back from a western Pennsylvania scouting trip, so he laced up his work boots, grabbed a six pack of Yuengling, and trundled down the block.
The party was exactly what he’d expected: cornhole boards propped on the curb, kids screaming as they chased a golden retriever with a popsicle stuck to its paw, classic rock blaring from a beat-up Bluetooth speaker on the picnic table. Lena was manning the grill, wearing cutoff denim shorts and a faded 1997 Cleveland Indians t-shirt, a smudge of charcoal across her left cheek, flipping ribs with metal tongs so worn the handle was wrapped in electrical tape. She stepped back to avoid hot grease splatter, and her back hit his chest before he could say hello. The scent of peach lip gloss and burnt wood hit him first, then the rough fabric of her shorts brushing his bare calf where his jeans had ridden down.
She spun around, and he tensed for a snarky comment about him finally leaving his cave, but she grinned instead, a dimple popping in her right cheek he’d never noticed before. “Told Martha the ribs would get you out here,” she said, nodding at the cooler at her feet. She reached down to grab him a soda, and her hand brushed his when he leaned down to set his six pack down. Her skin was warm, calloused at the knuckles from the woodworking shop she ran out of her garage, he realized, and he had to shake off the stupid jolt that ran up his arm. He’d spent 12 years convincing himself anyone tied to his ex was the enemy, and here he was, staring at freckles spread across her nose like flicked cinnamon, feeling like a 16 year old asking a cheerleader to prom.
He told himself he should leave after the first rib. The sauce was better than any he’d ever had, spiked with bourbon he recognized as the same brand he stashed under his kitchen sink, and when he teased her about stealing his ex’s recipe and upgrading it, she snort-laughed, leaning in so close her shoulder pressed against his, her breath warm against his ear as she told him she’d created the recipe in the first place, and that his ex had been cheating on him for six months before he found out, a secret no one had told him for 12 years. He felt hot all over, half anger at wasted years of grudges, half something soft he hadn’t felt since his 30s, the flutter in his chest he thought died when he signed divorce papers. Their knees kept bumping under the picnic table, and every time she looked up at him from under her lashes, he forgot what he was going to say next.
By 9 PM, the kids were gone, most neighbors had stumbled home with leftover potato salad, and the sun dipped below the oak trees, painting the sky pink and orange. She wiped her hands on her shorts, tilted her head, and asked if he still had the stack of 1980s baseball cards he used to keep locked under his bed, the ones he’d ranted about his ex almost throwing out during a move. He nodded, throat too tight to speak, and they walked two houses down to his place in silence, crickets chirping loud between them. He fumbled with his keys for ten seconds before getting the door open, she stepped inside, glancing at his framed scouting photos, the stack of scouting reports on his coffee table. She reached up to brush the scar on his eyebrow, and he didn’t flinch, didn’t step back, didn’t make a joke to deflect attention.
They spent the next three hours spread out on his living room floor, going through the card box, stealing sips of the bourbon he pulled from under the sink, laughing at his terrible JUCO team photo haircut tucked in the back of the box. When a 1997 World Series rerun came on his old CRT TV, she leaned her head on his shoulder, and he rested his arm around her waist, no awkwardness, no overthinking, no lingering guilt about the grudge he’d carried for 12 years. When she teased him about crying when the Indians lost that series, he didn’t deny it. He reached for the remote to turn up the volume, his hand brushed hers, and for the first time in 12 years, he didn’t open his calendar app to check when his next scouting trip was supposed to start.
