Manny Ruiz is 53, a minor league scout for the Cincinnati Reds organization, and he’s spent the last seven years of his life treating romantic connections like a bad slider: avoid at all costs, no exceptions. His wife left him for a regional sales manager for a farm equipment brand, and since then he’s lived out of a beat-up 2018 Ford F-150, subsisting on gas station burritos, cheap bourbon, and the quiet thrill of finding a kid no one else has noticed. The flaw he won’t admit to? He’d rather be lonely than be the subject of small-town gossip, the kind that follows a divorced guy hanging around high school baseball fields for a living. He’d been debating quitting for three months, sick of the endless drives, the snotty college coaches who thought they knew more about talent than he did, the quiet nights alone in motel rooms that all looked the same.
He’s in west central Ohio on a rainy Tuesday in late May, just finished watching a 17-year-old lefty throw 92 mph with a curveball that drops off a table, and he stops at a dive bar off Route 33 to dry out before the two-hour drive back to his temporary motel. The bar smells like fried pickles and worn wood, jukebox spitting old Merle Haggard, neon “OPEN” sign flickering so fast it makes his eyes hurt if he stares too long. He takes a stool at the far end, orders bourbon neat, pulls his scouting notebook out of his jacket pocket, and is halfway through scribbling notes about the lefty’s pickoff move when the door slams open.
She’s soaked to the bone, dark curly hair stuck to her neck, flannel shirt damp at the cuffs and hem, work boots squelching when she walks across the linoleum to the stool two down from him. She orders the same bourbon he’s drinking, no ice, and when she turns to glance at him, he’s caught off guard by the flecks of gold in her warm brown eyes, the faint smudge of dirt on her left cheek that looks like it came from planting flowers. He learns ten minutes later she owns the little flower shop on Main Street, she’s the lefty pitcher’s mom, widowed five years back when her husband died in a farming accident.
He doesn’t tell her he’s the scout there to evaluate her son. He knows the rules: no fraternizing with player family, no exceptions, could cost him his job if anyone finds out. But when she shifts on her stool to get a better look at the baseball game playing on the beat-up TV above the bar, her knee brushes his under the counter, warm even through the thick denim of both their jeans, and he doesn’t move away. She laughs at his joke about the time a minor league bus broke down outside of Muncie and the team had to sleep in a cornfield for three hours, and when she leans in to make sure he hears her over the rain lashing the siding, her shoulder presses to his, and he can smell lavender shampoo mixed with rain and the faint sweet scent of peonies on her clothes.
When she reaches past him to grab the napkin dispenser, her hand brushes his where it’s resting on the bar, and he feels a jolt go up his arm that he hasn’t felt since he was 19 and sneaking his high school girlfriend into the bleachers after games. He’s torn, half of him disgusted that he’s even considering crossing this line, that he’s risking his entire career for a pretty woman with a dirt smudge on her cheek and a sharp sense of humor, the other half hungry for the kind of easy conversation he hasn’t had in years, the kind that doesn’t revolve around pitch counts or contract terms.
The bartender locks up an hour later, and she admits she walked to the bar, didn’t think the rain would get this bad. He offers her a ride before he can think better of it. She pauses, stares at him for a long beat, and nods. They run through the rain to his truck, their shoulders bumping, and when he turns the heat on, it blows old fast food smell and warm air into the cab, fogging up the windows a little. He pulls up to her small white cottage at the edge of town, and she doesn’t reach for the door handle right away.
“I know who you are,” she says, soft, and he freezes, his throat going dry, already mentally drafting the apology email to his boss. “Saw your scout ID hanging out of your jacket pocket when you sat down. My kid’s good enough to earn that spot on his own, by the way. No favors needed.”
He blinks, and before he can say anything, she leans across the center console, and kisses him soft on the cheek, her hand resting light on his forearm, warm through the fabric of his flannel. He doesn’t overthink it, just turns his head, kisses her back on the mouth, slow, the faint taste of bourbon and peppermint on her lips, and when she pulls away she’s grinning, same kind of sharp, teasing grin he’s been staring at all night. They make plans to meet for breakfast at the diner down the street the next morning, after he meets with her son and his coach. She gets out of the truck, waves, and he watches her walk up the porch steps before he pulls away.
He turns the radio up, Merle Haggard still playing, and grins so wide his cheeks hurt, the rain tapping softer on the windshield now, the scouting notebook tucked safely in the glove compartment.
