Manny Ruiz, 53, has spent the last 17 years as a minor league baseball scout covering central and west Texas, logging 40,000 miles a year in his dented silver F-150, a radar gun tucked in the center console next to a stack of scouting reports and a half-eaten bag of pork rinds. His biggest flaw? He holds grudges like they’re season tickets to the World Series, a habit he picked up after his ex-wife left him 9 years prior for a small-town high school football coach who’d never even played a single inning of organized ball. He’d spent three weeks fuming over the city council’s vote to slash funding for the small coastal stadium he’d used as his home base for 12 years, and he’d avoided every local public event since, until his sister bullied him into showing up to the annual fire department chili cookoff, claiming if he holed up in his trailer any longer he’d forget how to talk to people who weren’t 17-year-old lefties with 95 mph fastballs.
The park smelled like charcoal, cumin, and cheap beer, a cover band grinding through a wobbly version of Amarillo by Morning at the far end of the field. Manny held a sweating cup of Shiner Bock in one calloused hand, the brim of his faded Astros cap pulled low enough to avoid eye contact with anyone who might bring up the stadium vote. He’d just spotted a bowl of brisket chili on the end of a folding table, the one with the handwritten sign warning it was hot enough to melt asphalt, when his hand collided with someone else’s reaching for the same bowl.
The other hand was cool, smaller than his, a tiny silver oak leaf tattoo wrapping around its wrist. He jerked his hand back like he’d touched a hot cast iron skillet, already ready to snap, and found himself staring at Lila Marquez, the 38-year-old new city council rep who’d cast the tiebreaking vote to cut the stadium funding. He’d yelled at her from the back of the council chamber three weeks prior, his face bright red, so mad he’d slammed his scouting notebook down hard enough to knock over a pitcher of water. She smirked, wiping a smudge of chili powder off her cheek with the back of her other hand, and said she knew exactly who he was, that she’d been avoiding him too, because she figured he still wanted to yell at her.
He grunted, shifting his weight, the toe of his work boot scuffing the dry grass. He wanted to stay mad, wanted to tell her to go to hell, but he couldn’t stop noticing that she smelled like cedar and lime, that her worn jeans fit just right, that there was a tiny scar above her left eyebrow like she’d walked into a screen door once as a kid. She held up two small bowls of chili, raised an eyebrow, and said if he promised not to yell for 10 minutes, she’d buy him a second beer and explain the vote. He hesitated, then nodded, following her to the edge of the park, away from the crowd, where a big live oak cast deep shade over a splintered wooden bench.
They sat far enough apart that their knees didn’t touch, but close enough that he could feel the heat coming off her shoulder when she leaned in to pass him a packet of saltine crackers. She told him the county had siphoned off half the town’s public works budget earlier that year, that they’d had to choose between fixing potholes that had already totaled three cars that spring and keeping the stadium funded, that she’d hated the vote, had been working on a private funding pitch with a Houston-based minor league affiliate ever since to make up the difference. He listened, his irritation melting faster than cheese on a chili dog, surprised she’d even put that much work into something most people in city hall saw as a waste of time.
She leaned over at one point, her shoulder brushing his, and wiped a smudge of chili off his jaw with her thumb, her touch lingering a fraction of a second longer than it needed to. He held her eye contact, didn’t look away, the buzz of the beer mixing with the quiet hum of tension between them. She laughed, soft, and said she’d thought he was cute even when he was yelling at the council meeting, that she’d gone home and looked up his scouting profile that night, read all the stories about the kids he’d helped get drafted to the big leagues.
She got in the truck, rolled down the window, and waved as she pulled out of the parking lot. He stood there holding his half-empty beer, the faint taste of her cherry lip gloss still on his skin, and realized he hadn’t looked forward to a Tuesday morning in almost a decade.
