Manny Ruiz, 53, has spent the last 18 years as a minor league baseball scout, logging 40,000 miles a year in his dented silver Ford F-150, eating gas station burritos for lunch, and avoiding anything that smells like long-term commitment. It’s a flaw he’s well aware of, drilled into him after his wife left him 12 years prior for a man who sold custom luxury RVs, bragged he could take her anywhere in the lower 48 without ever sleeping in a motel bed. Manny’s never held it against her, really. He’d already retreated into work by then, spending more time on high school baseball fields than at their kitchen table.
He’s parked on a wooden picnic bench at the local beer garden outside Lima, Ohio, on a sticky July evening, half-watching a raucous cornhole tournament, sipping a cold Pabst, when he catches a flash of faded scarlet out of the corner of his eye. It’s Claire Hale, ex-wife of his old college roommate Greg, the woman he’s quietly carried a torch for since he was 26, when he stood up in their wedding and spent the entire reception pretending he didn’t want to dance with her instead of his date. He’d heard she moved back to town last month, her youngest kid off to college in Michigan, her divorce from Greg finalized two years prior. His first instinct is to duck his head, pretend he doesn’t see her. Old loyalties die hard.
She spots him anyway, grinning, weaving through the crowd of sunburnt locals. She’s wearing a beat-up 1996 Ohio State baseball tee, frayed cutoff jeans, white sneakers caked with garden dirt, sun streaks running through her chestnut hair, fine crinkles fanning out from the corners of her hazel eyes when she smiles. “Manny Ruiz. I’d know that beat-up truck with the Cleveland Guardians sticker on the back anywhere,” she says, sliding onto the bench next to him. Her bare calf brushes his, denim rough against his sun-warmed skin, and he flinches like he’s been burned.
The air smells like fried cheese curds and cut grass, the live country band in the corner cranking out a twangy cover of “Amarillo by Morning” so loud the wooden table vibrates under his elbows. She leans in to hear him when he asks how she’s been, her shoulder pressed firm to his, coconut sunscreen and the sharp tang of lime from her hard seltzer wrapping around him. He finds himself telling her stories he doesn’t usually share: the 19-year-old shortstop he’s been scouting for three months who tried to sneak a pet ferret into a road game, the time he got stranded in a blizzard in Iowa for 18 hours with nothing but a bag of beef jerky and a Willie Nelson CD. She laughs so hard at the ferret story she snorts, swatting his bicep, her palm lingering on the muscle for three full seconds before she pulls away.
He’s torn, the whole time, half of him screaming that this is a line he shouldn’t cross, that Greg was his best friend for 10 years, that he doesn’t do complicated, the other half hyper-aware of every small touch, every time her eyes dart down to his mouth before she looks away, every time she leans in so close he can count the faint freckles across her nose. He’s halfway to making an excuse to leave, to drive back to his motel alone, when she leans in even closer, their faces six inches apart, the noise of the beer garden fading to a hum around them.
“I saw you looking at me, back when I was married,” she says, quiet enough only he can hear. “You always looked away before I could say anything. Greg always said you were the most stubborn son of a bitch he ever met, that you never go after what you actually want.”
The comment stings, sharp enough to cut through his hesitation. He doesn’t overthink it, just lifts a hand, brushes a stray strand of hair off her forehead, his thumb grazing the soft skin of her cheekbone. She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pull away, just tilts her chin up a little, her eyes darkening. “I looked,” he says. “I just didn’t think I was allowed to.”
“You were always allowed,” she says, smiling, and then she leans in, kisses him slow right there at the picnic table. Some guys at the next table holler and cheer, clap their beer cans together, and neither of them pays them any mind.
They stay for another hour, splitting a basket of cheese curds, teasing each other about old college drama, their knees pressed together the whole time, no more space between them. When they leave, he drives her to her small rental house on the edge of town, walks her up the creaky wooden porch steps. She turns to him when they reach the door, her hand resting on the doorknob, and asks if he wants to come in. He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t make a joke about early mornings or scouting trips, just nods.
The screen door creaks shut behind them, and the porch light flickers off a few seconds later, leaving only the faint glow of fireflies dancing over the front yard.
