Manny Ruiz, 51, has scouted minor league baseball talent for the Cincinnati Reds farm system for 22 years, and he’s got two non-negotiable rules: never drink beer within three hours of a game, and never fraternize with a player’s family. The second rule was hard won, after a 2017 incident where he grabbed dinner with a shortstop’s aunt, rumors spread he was taking bribes, and the kid got dropped from the draft list entirely. He’s stubborn to a fault, carries the guilt of that mistake like a stone in his jacket pocket, and hasn’t let anyone outside his scouting cohort get within arm’s length of his personal life since his wife left him eight years prior, fed up with him being on the road 300 days a year.
He’s perched at a scuffed linoleum bar in a hole-in-the-wall outside Chillicothe, Ohio, at 8 PM on a humid Tuesday, scribbling notes on a crumpled scouting sheet for Javi Morales, the 17-year-old left-handed pitcher he’d watched strike out 11 batters that afternoon. The beer is lukewarm, the jukebox spits out 90s George Strait deep cuts, and the air smells like fried peanuts and old cigarette smoke. He’s just crossed out “needs to work on pickoff move” for the third time when someone slides into the stool two spots down from him.
He glances over first, eyes flicking to the faded rec league softball jersey stretched over her shoulders, the high ponytail streaked with sun-bleached brown, the chipped pale blue nail polish on her hand as she flags the bartender. She orders bourbon on the rocks, no extra ice, and when she turns to him, she smirks, like she already knows who he is. “You’re the scout that yelled so loud about Javi’s curveball the umpire threatened to toss you, right?” she says, nodding at his scouting sheet peeking out from under his beer coaster.
Manny’s first instinct is to shut down. He slaps the sheet closed, tugs the brim of his faded Reds cap lower over his sunburnt forehead, and nods tight. He’s about to make an excuse to leave, pay his tab and drive back to the crummy motel he’s booked for the night, when the guy between them gets up to head to the bathroom, and she shifts one stool closer. Their knees brush through the rough denim of their jeans when she turns to face him, and he feels a jolt up his spine he hasn’t felt in years.
“I’m Lila,” she says, holding out a hand. Her palm is calloused, rough from years of hauling softball equipment and fixing fence posts on the small farm she runs outside town, she tells him, when he asks. “Javi’s my oldest. I’m not here to lobby, for the record. I just saw you scribbling notes for three innings straight, figured you might want a free drink that’s not that sad warm beer.”
He hesitates, then shakes her hand. Her skin is warm, smells like coconut sunscreen and mint gum, and she doesn’t let go for half a beat longer than necessary. When the bartender sets her bourbon down, she slides it across the bar to him first, and their arms brush when he reaches for it, the bare skin of her forearm soft against his sunburnt one. He doesn’t pull away.
They talk for an hour, first about the game, then about nothing to do with baseball at all. She teases him about the hole in the elbow of his flannel shirt, he teases her about the fact that she’s still wearing cleats, caked in mud from her 12-year-old daughter’s softball practice she’d coached right after Javi’s game. She leans in when he talks about scouting, eyes steady, no wandering, no trying to steer the conversation back to Javi’s draft prospects, and every time she laughs, a loud, throaty sound that cuts over the jukebox, his chest feels lighter than it has in years.
The conflict nags at him the whole time, though, a quiet voice in the back of his head reminding him of the 2017 incident, of his rule, of the fact that if anyone finds out he’s even sitting this close to Javi’s mom, the kid could lose his shot at the league entirely. He’s torn between the urge to lean in, to brush the stray strand of hair off her face, and the urge to run, to stick to the safe, lonely routine he’s built for himself.
When the bar closes at 11, she walks out with him, the night air cool against their overheated skin. They stop by the side of her beat-up pickup truck parked at the edge of the lot, and she turns to face him, so close he can smell the bourbon on her breath, feel the heat coming off her body. “I know your rules,” she says, soft, like she’s reading his mind. “I know you’re leaving tomorrow. No strings. No one has to know. I haven’t talked to someone who doesn’t ask me about Javi’s stats first in three years.”
He doesn’t hesitate this time. He leans in, kisses her slow, his hand coming to rest on her waist, the fabric of her jersey soft under his fingers. She tangles her hand in the hair at the back of his neck, knocking his cap askew, and he tastes bourbon and mint, feels the rough edge of her ponytail against his wrist. When they pull back, she’s smiling, and she slips a folded slip of paper into the pocket of his flannel shirt.
“Javi’s got a fall league game here October 12,” she says, opening the driver’s side door of her truck. “I make chili that’ll make you forget all about that sad ballpark concession slop you live on.”
He drives back to his motel, the slip of paper burning a hole in his pocket, and when he gets to his room, he doesn’t pull up the list of random, no-strings hookups he keeps saved in his phone for nights on the road. He sits on the balcony, drinking the last of the warm beer he brought with him, and pulls the slip of paper out, running his thumb over the smudged phone number written in blue ink. For the first time in eight years, he’s not dreading the next trip back to the same small town.
