Manny Ruiz, 53, has scouted low-A minor league ball for the South Atlantic League for 19 years, and he’s spent the last 12 of those avoiding every local community cookout, fundraiser, and block party within a 30-mile radius. The rule was non-negotiable after his ex-wife left him for a travel nurse she’d met at the 2011 fire department rib cookoff, and he’d sworn off any event that carried even a whiff of the domestic normalcy he’d lost. The only exception he’s made all decade is this one, because his top 2024 prospect, a 19-year-old lefty pitcher from rural Georgia, is competing in the charity cornhole tournament, and Manny doesn’t miss a chance to see the kid perform under even low-stakes pressure.
The air smells like hickory smoke, vinegar-based coleslaw, and cheap citrus beer when he walks through the fire station gate, baseball cap pulled low over his salt-and-pepper curls, work boots crunching on loose gravel. He spots the kid first, messing around with his teammates by the cornhole boards, then his eyes land on the woman leaning against the cooler next to them, wearing a faded 2003 Coastal Carolina baseball cap, the same team Manny played for before his rotator cuff injury derailed his shot at the majors. He doesn’t recognize her at first, not until she turns her head, and he clocks the little mole above her left eyebrow, the same one he’d seen once, 18 years prior, at his wedding. Clara. His ex-wife’s first cousin, who’d moved to Oregon right after the ceremony and hadn’t been back to South Carolina since.
His first instinct is to turn around and leave. He’s spent years building a wall between himself and anyone connected to his ex, the kind of stubborn, stupid grudge that feels like armor, even when it’s heavy enough to make him lonely. But she’s already spotted him, grinning and waving him over, so he walks, slow as molasses, his boots sticking a little in the soft grass right by the cooler. “I thought that was you,” she says, her voice a little deeper than he remembers, warm, like the sweet tea his grandma used to brew on summer afternoons. She holds out a beer, and when he takes it, their fingers brush, the cold of the aluminum can mixing with the heat of her skin, and he doesn’t pull away fast enough, doesn’t want to.
They talk for 20 minutes first, standing so close their shoulders brush every time one of them shifts their weight. She tells him she moved back three months prior to take the county librarian job, after her husband died of a heart attack last year, that she found the old Coastal cap at a thrift store the week prior and had no idea he’d played there. He tells her about the prospect, about the time he drove 12 hours through a tornado to see a high school catcher play in a rain-soaked tournament, and she laughs so hard she snorts, leaning in to whisper a joke about the guy across the yard wearing a neon orange fanny pack and socks with sandals. He can smell coconut sunscreen on her skin, mixed with the vanilla of her lip balm, and he keeps catching her staring at the thin scar on his left forearm, the one he got sliding into second base his junior year of college. When she asks about it, she reaches out, her thumb brushing the raised edge of the scar accidentally, and the hair on the back of his neck stands up.
His partner for cornhole bails 10 minutes later, claiming he has to pick up his kid from daycare, and Clara volunteers to take his spot. They win their first two rounds easy, Manny calling out shots, Clara leaning into his side every time they sink a bag, her hand resting on his bicep for a beat longer than necessary every time they celebrate. Halfway through the final round, she trips over a stray cooler at the edge of the court, and he catches her before she hits the grass, his hand wrapped firm around her waist, her hands fisted in the front of his worn team hoodie. She looks up at him, her eyes dark, the noise of the country cover band and the kids yelling and the grill sizzling fading out for a second, and she says, “I always thought she was an idiot for leaving you. I’ve had a crush on you since the wedding, for Christ’s sake.”
He freezes for half a second, the old voice in his head screaming that this is a bad idea, that dating anyone tied to his ex is asking for heartbreak, that he’s gonna end up right back where he was 12 years ago, alone and angry and eating cold takeout on his couch. But then she bites her lower lip, nervous, and he can still smell that coconut sunscreen, feel the warmth of her through her thin flannel shirt, and he leans down, kisses her soft, slow, not caring who’s watching, not caring about the stupid grudge he’s carried for half his adult life.
They sit on the tailgate of his beat-up 2006 F150 later, eating peach cobbler out of paper bowls, the sun dipping low over the pine trees, painting the sky pink and orange. She steals a bite off his plate, and he teases her about being a cobbler thief, and she grins, wiping crumbs off her chin. She asks if he wants to come back to her place after, that she found a DVD of the 2003 Coastal Carolina national championship game at the thrift store last week, and she’s been dying to watch it with someone who actually cares. He says yes, no hesitation, no overthinking. He twists the brim of her faded baseball cap playfully, and she laughs so hard she snorts, crumbs of cobbler sticking to her lower lip.
