Manny Ruiz, 53, has been a minor league baseball scout for 22 years, and he’s got two non-negotiable rules: never hold a grudge for less than a decade, and never date anyone connected to someone who wronged him. He’s lived alone in his Birmingham bungalow since his wife left for a pharmaceutical sales rep in 2015, spends 180 days a year on the road in his dented 2007 F-150, scouting JUCO pitchers who can hit 94 on the gun and don’t throw up in the dugout after a bad inning. He only showed up to the youth rec league barbeque to drop a $500 check and bolt before his sister could corner him about the third grade teacher she’d been hyping up for three months.
He’s leaned up against the dented Igloo cooler, popping the tab on a Shiner Bock, when she reaches past him for a black cherry seltzer. Her knuckles brush his, warm and calloused at the edges, and he catches a whiff of coconut sunscreen and cut grass, the same scent that’s drifted through his open front window at 6 a.m. when she walks her golden retriever past his house. He’s only ever waved at her from his porch, never learned her name, until she smirks and holds his gaze two beats longer than polite, the sun gilding the edges of her dark chestnut hair pulled back in a messy braid. “You’re Manny, right? The guy who told my ex-husband Javy Lopez would blow out his UCL before he threw 30 innings in single A.”
Manny freezes. He recognizes the name now: Lena, the woman who moved into the house two doors down three months prior, ex-wife of Jake Carter, the scout he’d gotten in a screaming match with at a 2018 showcase over that exact prospect. Manny was right, of course—Lopez needed Tommy John surgery 12 starts into his first season, and Jake never spoke to him again. He’s spent five years talking shit about Jake to anyone who will listen, and suddenly he’s standing face to face with the man’s ex-wife, half of him screaming to make an excuse and leave, the other half hyper-aware of how close she’s standing, the thin scar on her left thigh from a horse riding accident he’d heard about through the neighborhood grapevine, the sound of her laugh when he huffs a surprised “Guilty.”
She sits down next to him on the splintered pine picnic bench, her thigh pressed warm to his through their jeans, and doesn’t move away when he shifts to reach for a napkin. The air smells like smoked brisket and hickory, kids are screaming on the adjacent baseball field chasing a stray dog, and Lena asks him about the left-handed pitcher he scouted the prior week out of Tuscaloosa, says she used to catch for her little brother when they were kids and still knows what a slider grip looks like. Manny doesn’t realize he’s been talking for 45 minutes until his beer is warm and his sister walks past, waggling her eyebrows so aggressively he thinks she might pull a muscle.
He fights the urge to overthink it. He’s spent seven years closing himself off, turning down every set up, holding every grudge like it’s a trophy he earned, and for the first time in longer than he can remember, he doesn’t feel like he’s performing for someone who doesn’t get the rhythm of his life. She doesn’t nag him about being on the road too much, doesn’t make fun of his beat up notebook full of scrawled notes about pitcher mechanics, doesn’t roll her eyes when he complains about Appalachian League umpires who don’t know a strike zone from a pizza box. When her shoulder bumps his while she laughs at a story about a 19 year old pitcher who brought his pet chicken to a showcase, he doesn’t flinch.
When the sun dips below the oak trees and fireflies start blinking in the grass at their feet, Lena stands, brushing crumbs off her cutoff shorts, and asks if he wants to walk back to the neighborhood with her—her golden retriever, Gus, is at her cousin’s house three blocks over, and she doesn’t want to walk alone in the dark. Manny hesitates for half a second, the voice in his head screaming that Jake would lose his mind if he knew they were talking, that he’s breaking both his own stupid rules, then he nods, tosses his empty beer can in the nearby trash can, and follows her.
They walk slow, the air thick and warm with summer humidity, crickets chirping loud enough to drown out the distant barbeque noise. Her hand brushes his twice, light at first, then she laces her fingers through his, her palm calloused from working on her vintage motorcycle in her driveway on weekends, and he doesn’t pull away. They stop at her porch, the porch light casting a soft yellow glow over her face, and she leans in, kissing him slow, tasting like cherry seltzer and mint gum. He kisses her back, no overthinking, no worrying about old grudges or stupid rules, no worrying that he hasn’t kissed anyone in seven years.
They make plans to drive to Montgomery next Saturday for the double A Braves affiliate game, she says she’ll bring the salted peanuts and cold seltzers, he says he’ll bring his old scouting notebook full of snarky comments about Jake’s terrible signings. He walks back to his house, streetlights flickering overhead, Gus barking loud through Lena’s screen door as he passes. He unlocks his front door, heads straight for the locked oak chest in his living room where he keeps his vintage baseball card collection, digs through it until he finds the 1998 Chipper Jones rookie card he’s had since he was 18, mint condition, the one he’d always planned to sell for extra cash if he ever needed it. He tucks the card into the pocket of his worn scout’s work shirt, already counting down the three days until Saturday.
