Manny Ruiz, 57, a minor league baseball scout who’d logged 210,000 miles on his 2019 F-150 in three years, leaned against the cinder block wall of the small-town Ohio VFW, sweating through the back of his faded Reds ballcap. The air reeked of fried cod, vinegar coleslaw, and cheap beer, Johnny Cash’s *Folsom Prison Blues* warbling low from the beat-up jukebox by the pool tables. He’d ducked in after scouting a 17-year-old left-handed pitcher who threw 93 mph fastballs and cried in the dugout when his team lost the regional playoff, and he’d planned to finish his IPA, grab an order of hushpuppies to go, and drive 90 minutes back to his empty rental by 9. That plan went out the window when he spotted Lila Marlow across the room.
He’d not seen Lila in 32 years, not since he skipped town after his best friend Jake married her the summer after their senior year. She was 56 now, a streak of silver running through the dark brown hair she’d pulled back in a loose braid, flour dust smudged on the cuff of her plaid flannel shirt, the same gap between her two front teeth she’d had when they were lab partners sophomore year. She spotted him before he could look away, grinned, and walked over, stopping so close he could smell vanilla extract and lavender hand lotion on her skin, no heavy perfume, just the same soft scent he’d remembered from when they’d passed beakers back and forth in chemistry class. “Manny Ruiz? I saw your name on the scout pass taped to the dugout rail earlier. I knew that scruffy beard looked familiar.”
He laughed, more nervous than he’d been in years, and wiped his palm on the leg of his jeans before holding it out. She took it, her hand smaller than his, calloused at the fingertips from kneading bread at the bakery she’d run for 20 years, and she held on a beat longer than polite, her thumb brushing the scar on the side of his hand he’d gotten crashing Jake’s truck senior year. The contact made his chest tight, half guilt, half something warmer he’d not felt since his ex-wife left him when he was 35, after he missed their fifth anniversary because a prospect in Alabama threw a no-hitter he couldn’t miss. He wanted to pull away, tell her it was good to see her, then hightail it to his truck, but he couldn’t make his feet move.
They talked for 45 minutes, leaning against that wall, the crowd thinning around them as families packed up their kids and headed home. She told him Jake had died two years prior from a sudden heart attack, that she’d been running the bakery alone ever since, that she came to the VFW fish fry every Friday because Jake used to drag her here when they were first married. He told her about the miles he drove, the kids he scouted, the way he slept with a radio playing minor league commentary in every hotel room because the silence felt too loud. When she laughed at the story of the 17-year-old pitcher tripping over his own cleats running to first base, she leaned in, her shoulder pressing firm against his bicep, and she didn’t move away after she stopped laughing. The contact sent a jolt up his spine, and he fought the urge to wrap his arm around her, kept telling himself it was wrong, that Jake was his best friend, that Lila was off limits, that he didn’t do this kind of thing anyway.
When he finished his second beer, she nodded toward the door. “The old lake dock we used to sneak to after football games is still there. Wanna walk? I got pecan sandies in my purse, still warm from the oven this morning.” He hesitated for three full seconds, every rule he’d made for himself over the last 22 years screaming at him to say no, to go back to his truck, to focus on the next prospect, the next road trip, the safe, empty life he’d built. But he looked at her, the way the fluorescent light caught the gold flecks in her brown eyes, the way she was twisting the silver wedding band still on her left finger, and he nodded.
The walk to the lake took 10 minutes, gravel crunching under their work boots, the sun dipping low over the cornfields, painting the sky pink and orange. When they got to the dock, they sat down side by side, their legs dangling over the edge, the cool lake breeze cutting through the humidity. She pulled the plastic bag of cookies out of her purse, passed him one, and their fingers brushed when he took it. “Jake talked about you, you know,” she said, soft, so quiet he almost missed it over the sound of crickets chirping in the reeds. “A few months before he died, he said if anything ever happened to him, you were the only guy he’d trust to not treat me like some fragile broken thing. Said you’d always been the only person besides him who got that I hate sitting still, that I don’t need anyone to take care of me.”
The knot of guilt in his chest loosened all at once, and he let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. He reached out, brushed a stray strand of hair off her face, his thumb brushing the soft skin of her cheek, and she leaned into the touch, no hesitation. He took a bite of the pecan sandie, buttery and sweet, exactly the way she used to make them for study sessions in high school, and laced his fingers through hers where they rested on the weathered wood of the dock between them.
A heron glided low over the glassy surface of the lake, its wings barely making a sound, and for the first time in 22 years, Manny didn’t reach for his phone to check his next scheduled road trip.
