Roman Voss, 59, has spent 32 years as a minor league baseball scout for the Appalachian League, and he’s got the creaky knees, sun-weathered baseball cap, and notebook crammed full of scrawled stats and player contact info to prove it. His biggest flaw, if you ask his older sister, is that he’s stubborn to a fault—he’s eaten the same order of bourbon neat and extra crispy fried pickles at the same dive bar off I-40 outside Knoxville every March for 12 years, ever since his wife left him for a real estate agent with a nicer truck and a habit of remembering anniversaries. He’d sworn off anything resembling casual intimacy after that, convinced any woman his age was just looking for someone to fix their leaky faucet and fund their winter cruises, so he stuck to his rigid routine, kept conversations with strangers short, and never sat anywhere that didn’t have his back to the wall.
The March rain had turned the parking lot to mud when he pushed through the bar’s screen door, boots squelching on the linoleum, the smell of fried batter and cheap bourbon wrapping around him like a familiar blanket. The jukebox was spitting out Merle Haggard, same as always, but the bartender who usually greeted him by name was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a woman with silver streaks in her dark hair, wearing a faded UT Vols hoodie and jeans with a hole in the knee, wandered over to his booth, wiping her hands on a threadbare dish towel.
She leaned down to hear him over the music, her forearm brushing the edge of his shoulder when she reached to swipe a stray fry crumb off the table edge. He caught a whiff of lavender hand soap and faint cigarette smoke, not the cloying heavy perfume he’d hated on his ex, just something soft and real. He grunted his usual order, already reaching for his notebook to flip through stats and signal he didn’t feel like chatting, but she paused, nodding at the scuffed leather cover with the league logo embossed on the front. “My little brother played shortstop in high school,” she said, pulling the other side of the booth out and sitting down before he could protest. “Almost got signed by a scout out of Kingsport right before he tore his ACL senior year. Still mopes about it.”
Roman tensed, his first instinct to tell her he was busy, to wave her off, but she didn’t push for more information first, just sat there picking at a loose thread on her hoodie, waiting for him to respond. He found himself telling her about the 19-year-old second baseman he’d just watched play a doubleheader down in Johnson City, kid who could turn a double play faster than anyone he’d seen in 10 years, but had a habit of blowing off practice to hang out with his girlfriend. She laughed, a low rough sound that fit the bar’s vibe, and told him her brother used to do the exact same thing.
He didn’t notice the time passing until a group of drunk college kids stumbled out the front door, slamming it hard enough that a gust of rain-soaked wind blew in, making her shiver. He reached across the table without thinking, grabbing the old wool scout jacket he’d draped over the booth back and holding it out to her. Their fingers brushed when she took it, calloused from wiping down glasses and stacking chairs, and he didn’t yank his hand away like he’d expected to. She slid into the jacket, which was too big for her, the sleeves pooling over her wrists, and leaned forward a little, her knee brushing his under the table. She held his eye contact for three full beats, longer than was polite, longer than he’d let anyone hold it in years, and he felt that same buzz in his chest he got when he knew he’d found a can’t-miss prospect, that quiet thrill of knowing something most other people didn’t.
He stayed until closing, helping her stack chairs on top of the tables and carry a box of empty beer bottles out back to the dumpster, no awkward small talk, just the quiet sound of their boots on the wet asphalt and the distant hoot of an owl in the trees lining the highway. When they walked back to the parking lot, the rain had stopped, a faint pink and orange rainbow stretching over the rolling hills of the Smoky Mountains in the distance. She pulled the jacket off and held it out to him, but before he could grab it, she fisted the collar and tugged him closer, kissing him slow, like she had all the time in the world, like she wasn’t worried he’d pull away. She tasted like peach schnapps and spearmint gum, her hand warm where it rested on the side of his neck, and he wrapped his arm around her waist without overthinking it, no voice in his head reminding him he didn’t do this, no anxiety about messing up his routine.
When she pulled back, she was grinning, wiping a smudge of bourbon off her lip with her thumb. “I’m in town for another three weeks helping my uncle out after his knee surgery,” she said, nodding at the bar. “You coming back through on your next run?” He didn’t even hesitate, didn’t think about the schedule he’d mapped out three weeks prior, the games he was supposed to catch in Asheville next weekend. “I can be here Friday at 7,” he said. She laughed, patting his chest lightly before stepping back, heading for the side door to the bar. “Bring that scout notebook,” she called over her shoulder. “I wanna hear all the stories about the kids who almost made it.” He got in his truck, turned the key, and Merle Haggard blared from the speakers as he pulled out of the parking lot, the rainbow still visible in his rearview mirror.
