Javi Ruiz is 57, has spent the last 22 years as a minor league scout for the Indianapolis Indians, logging 40,000 miles a year in his beat-up 2017 F-150, eating more gas station burritos than he cares to count, and avoiding any connection that requires more than a three-day lead time. His ex-wife left him for a high school football coach back in 2005, and he’d decided not long after that the hassle of dating wasn’t worth the risk of getting his chest caved in again. That flaw, his stubborn refusal to let anyone get close even for a night, had served him just fine until he pulled into the gravel parking lot of The Screwball, a dive bar outside Lima, Ohio, after a 12-hour day of watching 16-year-old pitchers blow out their elbows chasing 90 mph fastballs.
The air inside was thick with the smell of fried pickles, stale Pabst, and just enough cigarette smoke leaking in from the back porch to make his eyes water a little. The AC hummed so loud he almost didn’t hear the woman behind the bar call out to him when he slid onto the stool at the far end, his scuffed leather scout notebook thudding on the wood next to his elbow. She was maybe 54, streaks of silver in her dark red hair tied back in a bandana, a faded Cincinnati Reds tee stretched tight across her shoulders, calluses on her knuckles from wiping down glasses for 8 hours straight. She slid a draft across the bar, their knuckles brushing when he reached for it, and held eye contact a full beat longer than casual politeness required. “You’re here for the showcase, right?” she said, nodding at the embossed Indians logo on his notebook. “Half the guys who’ve come through here the last three days are carrying the same book.”
He grunted in confirmation, took a long pull of beer, already mentally mapping his route back to Indianapolis the next morning, planning to stop at the scout office to drop off his notes before heading home to his empty apartment. He didn’t do small talk with bar staff, never had, but she kept leaning across the bar to ask questions anyway, about the kids he’d watched that day, about the time he’d scouted a kid from Lima who’d made it to triple A back in 2019. Turns out that kid mowed her lawn every other week. She laughed when he told her the kid had a curveball that could make a hitter’s knees buckle, and when she leaned in, her shoulder brushed his, and he caught a whiff of lavender shampoo under the bar grease and beer smell. He tensed up, half ready to make an excuse to leave, but she didn’t push it, just went back to wiping down glasses, glancing over at him every few minutes like she knew he was fighting the urge to run.
By 11 p.m. the only other people in the bar were two old farmers playing pool in the back, arguing over whether or not corn prices were going to jump before harvest. Javi had stayed two hours longer than he planned, had bought her a shot of bourbon when she said her sister, the bar’s owner, was recovering from knee surgery and she’d driven up from Lexington to fill in for the month. He’d told her about his ex-wife, about the time he’d driven 12 hours through a blizzard to watch a kid throw one inning, about how he’d quit smoking seven years prior but still craved a cigarette after a long day of scouting. He kept accidentally brushing her hand when she passed him refills, kept catching her staring at the scar on his left forearm he’d gotten when he crashed his motorcycle back in college, and he could feel that old pull in his chest, the one he’d spent 18 years ignoring, the one that said stop overthinking this for once.
Last call hit at 1:30 a.m. The farmers left, slamming the door behind them, and she turned the lock on the front door, turned the jukebox down so low Johnny Cash’s voice was just a murmur in the background. She leaned against the bar across from him, her elbows on the wood, so close he could see the freckles across her nose, the tiny scar above her left eyebrow. “I know you’re leaving tomorrow,” she said, no hint of expectation in her voice, just a lazy smirk. “I’m not gonna ask you to stay, or give you my number, or make this something it’s not. I just haven’t had this much fun talking to someone in longer than I can remember.”
He hesitated for a full 10 seconds, his brain screaming at him to grab his notebook, pay his tab, drive to the cheap motel he’d booked a mile down the road, go back to his safe, empty life. Then he reached across the bar, wrapped his hand around hers, the calluses on his palm from gripping a steering wheel for thousands of miles catching against the calluses on hers from hauling kegs and wiping glasses. She didn’t flinch, just laced her fingers through his, and for a second the only sound was the AC humming, the crickets chirping outside the open window.
She grabbed a pack of menthols from under the bar, led him out to the back porch, where the air was still warm enough to make his shirt stick to his back, fireflies blinking over the cornfield stretching out behind the bar. They sat on the splintered old picnic table, shared a cigarette even though the first drag made him cough, and she leaned her head on his shoulder, warm and solid against him. He didn’t pull away, didn’t make up an excuse to leave, didn’t think about the drive home, or the notes he had to file, or the empty apartment waiting for him. He laced his fingers through hers, and for the first time in nearly two decades, he didn’t check his watch to see what time he had to leave in the morning.
