Manny Ruiz is 61, a minor league baseball scout who’s spent the last 16 years driving 30,000 miles a year through small Midwestern towns, sleeping in motels with sticky carpet and neon vacancy signs, and evaluating 17-year-old kids who throw 95 mph but can’t hit a curveball to save their life. His biggest flaw? He’s avoided every local community event within 20 miles of his northern Ohio rental house since his wife left him for a luxury real estate agent 8 years prior, convinced they’re all just excuses for neighbors to gossip and ask too many nosy questions about why he’s still alone. He only showed up to the annual fire department rib cookoff because his boss ordered him to schmooze the father of a left-handed pitcher from the local high school, a guy who’d been stalling on letting his kid sign with the farm team for three weeks straight.
He’s ready to snap before he looks down. It’s Lila, his ex-wife’s younger cousin, the one he only saw a handful of times at family cookouts back when he was married, the one who always sat in the corner and laughed at his terrible baseball jokes even when no one else did. She’s 48 now, her dark hair streaked with a little silver at the temples, wearing cutoff denim shorts and a faded fire department volunteer tee, her cheeks pink from the 85-degree July heat. She holds up a crumpled paper napkin, apologizing so fast the words tumble out of her mouth, and when she reaches up to dab at the tea stain on his shirt her knuckles brush the scar on his collarbone from a broken minor league bat 20 years prior, warm and soft, and he freezes.
His first instinct is to step back. Talking to his ex’s cousin is the exact kind of small town drama he’s spent almost a decade running from, the kind of thing that would have his ex blowing up his phone before the end of the night, screaming about him crossing lines and ruining family gatherings. But Lila doesn’t pull away, doesn’t act awkward, just grins and wipes the smudge of rib sauce off the side of his thumb with the edge of the napkin, her fingers lingering a beat longer than they need to. She says she moved back to town six months prior, opened a little sourdough bakery on Main Street, left her alcoholic ex-husband in Indianapolis and hasn’t looked back. She even teases him about the cookies she brought him back when he was recovering from that broken bat injury, says he still owes her a thank you for sneaking them to him when his ex had him on a strict no-sugar diet.
The crowd presses in around them as a group of drunk firemen carry a heaping tray of prize ribs past, so they have to stand closer, their shoulders pressing together so he can feel the heat of her skin through the thin fabric of her tee, the scent of vanilla lip balm and lavender laundry detergent mixing with the hickory smoke in the air. She teases him about still wearing that beat up navy cap with the team logo on the front, says she remembered he wore it to his wedding because his ex threw a fit about it halfway through the reception, threatened to throw it in the lake. He laughs, a real laugh, the kind he hasn’t let out in months, and when she leans in to yell over the band’s blaring cover of *Brown Eyed Girl* her breath fans across the side of his neck, and he feels his chest tighten so much he can barely breathe for a second.
He knows he shouldn’t. He knows every person in this park who knows his ex is staring, whispering, that if he does this he’ll never hear the end of it at the next grocery store run or gas station stop. But when she asks him if he’s got any plans after he tracks down the pitcher’s dad, he doesn’t lie. He says he was gonna go home, crack a cold craft beer he’d been saving, watch the replay of the Reds game he recorded that afternoon. She tilts her head, grinning, the corner of her mouth tugging up the same way it used to when she’d tease him at those old cookouts, and asks if he’s got an extra beer. He nods before he even thinks about it, and when they start walking toward the edge of the park their hands brush twice, first her knuckles against his, then his palm against the back of her hand, calloused from kneading bread every morning, and he laces their fingers together. She doesn’t pull away.
The street outside the park is quiet, the sound of the band fading behind them as they walk to his beat up Ford F-150 parked under a sprawling oak tree, fireflies just starting to blink in the dimming dusk light. He opens the passenger door for her, and before she climbs in she leans in, presses a soft, warm kiss to the corner of his mouth, her lip gloss sticking a little to the gray stubble on his jaw. He reaches up, cups the side of her face, his thumb brushing the silver streak in her hair, and feels the heavy weight he’s carried in his chest for 8 years loosen just a little.