The July heat sticks to Rico Marquez’s skin like cheap pine tar, the hum of the Asheville summer beer festival wrapping around him so tight he’s half tempted to ditch his buddy’s beer booth and hightail it back to his cabin before the first bluegrass set even wraps. He’s 52, a minor league baseball scout who spends 10 months a year crisscrossing the Southeast in a beat-up 2016 Ford F-150, and his least favorite thing on the planet is forced small talk with strangers. He only agreed to pour pints today because his college roommate owns the brewery, and owed him a case of the limited-edition imperial stout he only brews once a year. For eight years, ever since his ex-wife left him for a comparative literature professor she met at a work conference, he’s built his life around rigid boundaries: no new friends, no casual dates, no letting anyone get close enough to notice how empty the cabin feels when he’s home between scouting trips. He’s convinced his nomadic, sunflower-seed-and-gas-station-burrito diet of a life makes him unfit for anything steady, and he’s gotten comfortable with that, or at least he tells himself he is.
He’s mid-pour of a hazy IPA when a body slams into his side, cold beer sloshing over the rim of the cup and soaking the front of his faded navy Braves tee, excess dripping down onto his scuffed work boots. He’s ready to snap, jaw already tight, when he looks down and meets the eyes of the woman who bumped him. She’s got sun streaks in her dark brown hair, a park service flannel tied around her waist, work boots caked with the red clay that stains every trail within 20 miles of town, and she’s laughing so hard her shoulders shake, no awkward stammered apology, just unbridled amusement at the mess they’ve both made. “Shit, sorry,” she says, pulling a crumpled blue bandana out of her jeans pocket and dabbing at his shirt before he can protest, her palm brushing lightly over his chest, the calluses on her fingers rough against the thin cotton. He can smell pine and peppermint lip balm on her, and for a second he forgets what he was mad about.
She’s here with a group of teen trail maintenance volunteers, she explains, yelling over the roar of the crowd, she’s the new head ranger for the Pisgah National Forest district just west of town, moved here three months ago from Colorado. She nods at his frayed Braves cap, says her dad used to take her to games at Fulton County Stadium when she was a kid, they’d sneak in homemade tamales and sit in the cheap bleachers, yelling at the umpires until their throats were raw. Rico finds himself leaning in to hear her better, his shoulder pressed to hers when a group of drunk college kids pushes past, not bothering to move away like he usually would. He tells her about the 17-year-old pitcher he scouted last month in rural Alabama, who threw a complete game no-hitter while wearing cowboy boots and a belt buckle big enough to double as a dinner plate, and she snorts so hard she snorts beer out of her nose, which makes him laugh so hard his sides hurt. He hasn’t laughed like that since before his ex-wife left. He keeps expecting himself to make an excuse to leave, to fall back on the routine he’s built of quiet nights alone, old baseball tapes and leftover chili, but he can’t bring himself to do it. Her eyes are dark and bright, crinkled at the corners when she smiles, and every time their hands brush when she grabs a sample cup from the stack next to him, he feels a jolt go up his spine that he hasn’t felt in decades.
The sun dips below the treeline as the festival wraps up, the sky turning soft pink and tangerine, the crowds thinning out until only a handful of people linger by the booths, packing up coolers and folding chairs. His buddy shoves a six-pack of the imperial stout into his arms, winks, and tells him not to be a stranger. She leans against the side of the booth, kicking a loose rock across the dirt, and asks if he wants to walk down to the creek that runs behind the fairgrounds to drink one, get away from the noise. For half a second he almost lies, says he has to get home to feed his cat, even though his cat is perfectly fine with a full bowl of food for another 12 hours, but he nods instead. They walk down the rutted dirt path to the creek, the grass wet with dew under their shoes, the sound of crickets chirping loud enough to drown out the last of the festival noise. They sit on a flat, smooth rock half submerged in the cool, gurgling water, and when he tells her about blowing out his pitching arm in college, how he thought his life was over until a scout offered him a job the next week, she leans her head on his shoulder for a beat, her hair soft against his neck, and says that sounds like the best happy accident she’s ever heard of. They pass the stout back and forth, their fingers brushing every time they hand it off, and he realizes he doesn’t feel the usual urge to run, to shut down, to protect the quiet little life he’s built for himself. He wants to let her in.
When the can is empty, he turns to her, the last of the sunlight gilding the edges of her hair, and asks if she wants to come back to his place. He’s got a copy of the 1995 World Series on DVD, he says, and a pot of chili in the fridge that’s way better than any ballpark concession stand slop. She grins, stands up, and holds out her hand to pull him to his feet, her palm warm and calloused against his. He laces his fingers through hers as they walk back up the path to the parking lot, the crickets still chirping, the six-pack of stout cold against his other side.
