Manny Ruiz, 53, is a minor league baseball scout for the Atlanta Braves’ low-A affiliate, and he hasn’t deviated from his post-game routine in 11 years: stop at the closest dive bar within 10 miles of the field, order a neat bourbon and a bacon cheeseburger with extra pickles, scribble his game notes in a water-stained leather notebook, then drive to the cheapest non-smoking motel he can find off the interstate. His worst flaw is stubbornness—he still refuses to get a smartphone for work, carries a flip phone and a paper map, hasn’t agreed to a blind date his sister set up since 2017, when the woman spent the entire dinner complaining that his truck was “too loud and too dirty.” He hasn’t kissed anyone in 7 years, 8 months, and 12 days, not that he’s counting.
It’s mid-July, central Georgia, humidity so thick it clings to the back of his neck when he walks into The Dugout, a bar with half its neon sign burnt out and a floor sticky enough to pull the sole off a work boot if you step wrong. He just finished scouting 17-year-old Javi Morales, a shortstop fast enough to beat out a bunt down the third base line but prone to choking on high curveballs, and he’s halfway through his bourbon when the metal stool next to him scrapes against the linoleum.
She sits before he can say the seat’s taken. Her bare thigh brushes his, warm through the thin denim of his work jeans, and he smells coconut sunscreen mixed with menthol and a faint, sharp whiff of gasoline, familiar as the inside of his dad’s old auto shop. She flags the bartender, holds up two fingers for a beer, and when she turns to him, her dark brown eyes hold his for three full beats, no awkward dart away, no forced polite smile. A silver hoop earring catches the pink neon glow from the broken sign above the bar, and he spots a thin, raised pale scar across her left knuckle, rough like it was glued shut instead of stitched. “You the scout that was scribbling so hard in that notebook during Javi’s game you missed the foul ball that hit the dugout cooler?” she says, grinning sharp.
Manny tenses immediately. Fraternizing with player families is a fireable offense, got a coworker of his canned two years prior when someone snapped a photo of him buying a recruit’s dad a beer. “I don’t discuss prospects with anyone outside the organization,” he says, voice gruff, turning back to his notebook, half angry at himself for even noticing how her faded Tom Petty tee rides up a little when she leans to grab the beer the bartender slides her way.
She laughs, loud and unoffended, tipping her beer back for a long sip. “Relax, I’m not here to lobby you. Javi’s already got a full ride to UGA, he’s signed his NLI, you can write whatever the hell you want about his garbage curveball. I just saw you sitting here alone, looked like you’d rather chew glass than make small talk with the drunk dads yelling about high school football at the end of the bar.” When she sets her bottle down, her calloused fingertips brush his wrist where it rests on the bar, and he jumps a little, like he got zapped by static shock.
He relaxes slow, closing his notebook. She’s right, the group of dads have been yelling about their sons’ quarterback stats for 20 minutes, and he was 30 seconds from packing up and eating his burger in his F-150. “Manny,” he says, holding out a hand. She shakes it, grip firm, no dainty half-handshake. “Lila. I run a motorcycle repair shop out of my garage. Fixed that scar on my knuckle myself with superglue when I dropped a Harley engine on it, didn’t have time for the ER—Javi had a Little League game that night.”
They talk for two hours, while the bar empties out, the bartender stacking chairs on tables and flipping the jukebox off. She tells him she raised Javi alone since he was 3, when his dad took off for Florida with a cocktail waitress he met at a biker rally. He tells her about his divorce, how his ex left him for a real estate agent who wore white tennis shoes to every dinner date, how he threw himself into work because every woman his sister set him up with either wanted a guy home by 6 every night or wanted free tickets to Braves home games. He admits he spends 40,000 miles a year on the road, sleeps in his truck half the time, keeps a stack of vintage 90s baseball cards in a lockbox under his seat.
Lila leans in closer, her shoulder pressed solidly to his, and he can feel the heat coming off her skin through the thin cotton of her tee. “You got plans tonight?” she says, voice low, like she’s sharing a secret. His stomach twists, half sharp, hungry want, half cold, tight guilt. This is a line he can’t cross, even if Javi’s already committed to college. It’s against every unwritten rule he’s lived by for his entire career.
He opens his mouth to make an excuse about an early drive tomorrow, but she grins, like she can read the panic in his face. “Calm down, I’m not asking you to move him up your draft board. I live 10 minutes away, got peach pie in the fridge that’s still warm from the oven, and Javi’s staying at his cousin’s tonight. I haven’t talked to anyone who doesn’t know how to change an oil filter or recite batting averages in three months, and you’re the first person I’ve met in a year who doesn’t treat me like I’m either a bad mom for working on bikes or a trophy to show off to their friends.”
The knot in his stomach loosens. He thinks about the crummy motel room he booked, the one he already knows smells like mildew and old cigarette smoke, the 3-hour drive to his next scouting stop that he can leave for an hour later if he wants, no one checking his schedule. He nods.
She leaves first, per their quiet agreement to avoid stares, and he waits two minutes before following her beat-up silver pickup down the dark two-lane road, humidity fogging his truck windows, Alan Jackson playing low on the radio. She pulls into a small ranch house with a two-car garage full of half-disassembled bikes, a tire swing hanging from the oak tree in the front yard. He gets out of his truck, walks up the creaky porch steps, and she meets him halfway, her hand fisting in the front of his worn Braves tee. He can taste the beer and peach lip gloss on her when she kisses him, the crickets chirping loud enough to drown out the distant hum of the interstate.
