Rusty Marquez, 53, minor league baseball scout, leaned against the dented side of his 2018 Ford F-150, twisting the tab off a Shiner Bock and scanning the crowd at the West Texas annual chili cookoff. He’d driven six hours from a scouting trip in Lubbock only to run into his ex-wife ten minutes after arriving, her quiet “you doing okay, Rust?” thick with the unspoken pity he’d spent 12 years avoiding since their split. He was half a second from cranking the truck and bailing entirely when a voice cut through the hum of mariachi music and kids’ laughter.
“Rusty? I thought that was your beat up Astros cap. You still wear that thing?”
He turned, and for a second he didn’t recognize her, until he spotted the tiny gap between her two front teeth, the same one she’d had when she was 12 and he’d taught her to throw a curveball in Javi’s backyard. Lila. Javi’s daughter. His best friend had died of a heart attack three years prior, and the last time he’d seen her was at the funeral, her face puffy with tears, wearing an oversized hoodie that swallowed her frame. Now she was in a cropped linen button-down, high waisted jeans, work boots caked in chili dust, a strand of auburn-streaked dark hair falling in her eyes as she stepped closer to hug him. Her hip brushed his when she pulled away, the scent of roasted garlic and citrus clinging to her shirt, and she held eye contact a beat longer than strictly polite, grinning when he fumbled for a response.
She dragged him over to her competition booth before he could make an excuse, chattering about the farm-to-table restaurant she ran in Austin, how she’d spent three months testing this chili recipe, adding a hint of Dutch cocoa and smoked ancho to cut the heat. When she handed him a thin paper sample cup, the warmth seeping through the cardboard to his palm, their fingers brushed, her thumb grazing the thick, jagged scar on his left forearm from the 2001 line drive that ended his A ball shortstop career. He took a sip, the smoky ancho hitting first, then a subtle sweetness from the cocoa, a slow building chipotle burn that settled warm in his chest. She paused, running her thumb over the scar lightly, and asked for the story again, even though he knew Javi had told her a dozen times growing up. He told it anyway, making a joke about the pitcher who’d thrown it now selling used cars in Odessa, and she laughed so hard she snort-laughed, leaning into his side as she giggled.
He tensed at first, hyper aware of the old neighbors glancing their way, of the unspoken rule that Javi’s daughter was off limits, that a 53 year old scout who spent 10 months a year on the road had no business even looking at a 38 year old chef with her whole life ahead of her. The quiet disgust at his own unplanned desire warred with the warm buzz in his chest, the way no one had asked him about his work with that much genuine interest in years, not even the college coaches he collaborated with on a weekly basis. She didn’t push when he stepped back a little, just handed him a second cup of chili, nodded at the dirt path leading down to the town lake. “You wanna skip the awards? I don’t care if I win. We can go skip stones like we used to when I was a kid.”
He hesitated, glancing back at the crowd, at his ex-wife who was now watching them, an amused little smile on her face. Then Lila tugged his wrist lightly, her palm warm against his skin, and he said yes.
The path was lined with mesquite trees, the air cooler now that the sun was dipping low, painting the sky pink and tangerine. There was no one else at the lake, the water still except for the ripples from a jumping bass, crickets chirping in the brush. She sat on a fallen oak log, patting the spot next to her, and when he sat, their knees pressed together, the rough denim of her jeans rubbing against his work pants.
“I’ve had a crush on you since my high school graduation,” she said, so casual he almost thought he misheard her. “You gave me that signed Nolan Ryan ball. I keep it on my desk at the restaurant. Javi used to tease me about it, said I had terrible taste in old men.”
He froze, every excuse he had lined up – I’m too old, you’re Javi’s kid, people will talk – dying in his throat. He looked at her, the way the sunset hit her cheeks, the gap between her teeth when she smiled, and he couldn’t remember why he’d ever thought any of those excuses mattered. She leaned in, slow, like she was giving him time to pull away, and when she kissed him, she tasted like cherry hard candy and Shiner, her hand resting on the scar on his forearm again. He kissed her back, his hand coming to rest on the small of her back, no hesitation left.
They stayed there for an hour, trading stories, kissing every so often, watching fireflies blink to life over the water. When they walked back up to the cookoff, he didn’t move his hand from her back, didn’t look away when the old neighbors glanced their way. His ex-wife lifted her beer in a quiet toast from across the field, and he nodded back, grinning. Lila squeezed his hand, said she had a cooler of hazy IPA back at her rental cabin, the Astros night game was on at 9, asked if he wanted to come over. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t think about the six hour drive he had to make the next day, didn’t think about the gossip that would spread through town by morning. He just squeezed her hand back, said yeah, that sounds perfect.
