Rafe Mendez, 52, has scouted minor league baseball prospects for the Atlanta Braves organization for 17 years, and he’s got two non-negotiable rules: never drink more than two beers at a prospect’s family event, and never so much as flirt with anyone related to a kid he’s evaluating. He picked up the second rule after a messy run-in with a shortstop’s mom back in 2018, and stuck to it rigidly even after his divorce finalized two years later, even when the lonely nights in cheap motel rooms felt like they’d eat him whole. He spends 300 days a year on the road, sends his 19-year-old college-aged daughter silly baseball trinkets every week, and has convinced himself he’s perfectly fine with the quiet, uncomplicated life he’s built.
He’s at a small-town BBQ cookoff in the north Georgia hills on a crisp October Saturday, here to track a lanky 17-year-old lefty pitcher who threw a no-hitter the week prior, and who entered his grandma’s secret rib recipe in the amateur division. The air reeks of hickory smoke and tangy vinegar sauce, the distant twang of a cover band doing a slow version of “Folsom Prison Blues” drifts over the crowd, and Rafe’s got his scouting notebook tucked in the back pocket of his worn denim jeans, a cold Pabst in one hand, scanning the picnic tables for the kid.
That’s when he turns too fast around the sauce sampling tent, and his beer sloshes over the rim, soaking the front of a woman’s forest green flannel shirt right over the chest. He sputters an apology, grabs a handful of napkins from the stack on the tent table, and reaches out to dab at the wet spot before he thinks better of it, his knuckles brushing the soft, warm skin of her collarbone where the top two buttons of her shirt are undone. She freezes for half a second, doesn’t step back, and when he yanks his hand away like he’s been burned, she smirks, her hazel eyes flecked with gold holding his gaze longer than strictly polite. “Relax,” she says, her voice low and rough, like she’s spent the last hour yelling over the band. “I’ve had worse stains. Last week my nephew slid into second base covered in mud and hugged me right after I bought a new cashmere sweater.”
Rafe blinks, connects the dots. She’s the lefty’s aunt. Lena, he remembers the kid mentioning her, the one who runs a mobile bookstore out of a converted 1990s school bus, who drives to all his games. He feels a twist of guilt low in his gut, already mentally kicking himself for breaking his own rule before he even knew who she was. He mumbles another apology, offers to buy her a new shirt, offers to buy her a beer, anything to make the awkwardness go away, to make the way his heart is beating a little faster stop. She waves him off, says a beer sounds good actually, and they stand by the tent for 20 minutes talking, her shoulder brushing his every time someone squeezes past them in the crowd, the faint smell of jasmine perfume mixing with charcoal on her skin making it hard for him to focus on what she’s saying.
He spends the next three hours avoiding her. He walks over to the rib judging tent to talk to the kid, takes notes on the kid’s arm when he helps his grandma carry a tray of ribs to their table, hangs out by the bandstand and pretends to care about the set list, but every time he looks up, he’s catching her staring at him, that little smirk on her face, and he’s equal parts annoyed and turned on, mad that he’s letting a woman he just met distract him from work, mad that he’s even thinking about breaking his rule, mad that he hasn’t felt this light, this giddy, since before his divorce.
Then the sky opens up, a hard, cold October rain pouring down without warning, sending everyone scrambling for cover under the awnings strung between the tents. Rafe ends up pressed right up against Lena, their sides flush from shoulder to hip, his arm brushing hers every time he adjusts his baseball cap to keep the rain off his face. She tilts her head up to talk to him, her breath warm against his jaw, and says, “You know, I saw you at Jase’s last three games. You think you’re real subtle with that notebook, but you’re not.”
Rafe’s face gets hot. He’s about to launch into a speech about professional boundaries, about how he can’t fraternize with family members of prospects, about how he’s not trying to be rude, when she laughs, cutting him off. “Relax, scout. Jase committed to Georgia Tech last week. He just hasn’t announced it yet. You’re off the hook.”
He stares at her for a second, the weight he didn’t even know he was carrying lifting off his chest. The rain is tapping hard on the awning over their heads, the crowd around them is yelling and laughing, someone’s passing around a bottle of bourbon, and he can feel the heat of her body through their damp shirts. “I was avoiding you,” he admits, which is the most honest thing he’s said to anyone who’s not his daughter in three years. “I didn’t want to mess up my shot at scouting him. Also, I haven’t talked to a woman who’s not a motel front desk clerk or my ex-wife for longer than five minutes in forever.”
She grins, and this time it’s not a smirk, it’s soft, genuine. “I was avoiding you too. I haven’t stopped thinking about you dabbing beer off my shirt with those calloused baseball scout hands since it happened. Figured if I stayed away, I wouldn’t make a fool of myself asking you out.”
He asks her if she wants to get out of the rain, grab a plate of the ribs Jase’s grandma made, then get coffee at the 24-hour diner down the road, the one with the neon pie sign in the window he’d passed on his way into town. She nods, slips her cold, calloused hand—calloused from hauling boxes of books, she tells him—into his, and they make a run for his beat-up F150 parked at the edge of the field, rain soaking through their shirts, laughing so hard they can barely breathe. He holds the passenger door open for her, waits until she’s settled before he climbs into the driver’s seat, turns the heater on full blast, and pulls out of the parking lot. He squeezes her hand where it’s resting on the center console, and when she laces their fingers together, he doesn’t let go.
