Javi Ruiz is 53, a minor league baseball scout who’s logged 120,000 miles on his 2018 F-150 in the last three years, crisscrossing the Southeast to evaluate 19-year-old kids with 95-mile-per-hour fastballs and terrible impulse control. His biggest flaw is he’s spent the 8 years since his wife left him avoiding any connection that doesn’t involve a stat sheet, convinced every casual conversation will eventually lead to someone packing a suitcase while he’s on the road. He’s got a scar across his left eyebrow from a foul ball he didn’t duck fast enough last spring, and he still keeps a crumpled photo of his 16-year-old daughter’s first travel ball game taped to his dashboard, even though she’s in college now and barely texts him back.
The sun’s dipping below the oak trees outside the Augusta low-A stadium when he leans against a splintered fence post at the annual end-of-season fish fry, sweating through the armpits of his faded Braves flannel, a lukewarm Pabst in one hand. The air smells like fried catfish, hushpuppies doused in honey butter, and charcoal smoke, and a ragtag bluegrass band off to the side is plucking through a slow version of “Folsom Prison Blues” so out of tune he almost laughs out loud. He’s got a stack of scouting reports in his backpack waiting to be filed that night, and he’s 10 seconds from grabbing a to-go container of fried green tomatoes and bailing back to his motel when he turns to grab another beer from the cooler and slams right into someone.
Half his beer sloshes onto the linen button-down the woman in front of him is wearing, pale yellow, dotted with tiny sunflowers. He sputters an apology, reaching for the stack of napkins she drops when they collide, and his knuckles brush the soft curve of her hip when he leans down. He freezes for half a second, yanks his hand back like he touched a hot stove, and shoves the napkins at her, already bracing for her to snap at him. Instead, she laughs, a low, warm sound that cuts over the band’s off-key fiddling, and swipes at the beer stain on her shirt like it’s no big deal. She’s got a smudge of barbecue sauce on the edge of her jaw, hazel eyes flecked with gold, and a silver hoop earring in her left ear that catches the last of the sunset. She tells him she’s Lila, the new GM’s older sister, in town helping run the food pop-ups for the weekend, and he tells her his name, what he does, before he can stop himself.
He’s already kicking himself internally, already making a mental list of excuses to leave, when she nods at the tattered scout notebook sticking out of his back pocket and teases him that she bets half the pages are filled with notes on the best diner pie within 10 miles of each stadium, not just batting averages. He snorts, admits she’s right, says he’s got a whole section dedicated to peach pie stops between Augusta and Savannah. They lean against the fence together, and when a group of kids sprint past them holding melting cherry snow cones, she steps closer to avoid getting hit, her shoulder pressing firm against his bicep for a full 10 seconds. He can feel the warmth of her through his flannel, can smell her perfume, jasmine and cut grass, not the heavy, cloying stuff the 20-something servers at the stadium bar wear.
He tells her about the time he drove 6 hours through a thunderstorm to see a left-handed pitcher in rural Alabama, only to find the kid had blown out his elbow playing rec league softball the night before. She tells him about her pop-up, the one she’s been running out of a converted school bus for the last two years, and how she’s planning to move it to Charleston next spring. When she hands him a paper container of pimento cheese she made herself, their fingers brush, and neither of them pulls away for a beat, long enough that he can feel the callus on the side of her index finger from chopping vegetables all day.
She asks him if he wants to walk down to the small pond behind the stadium, watch the fireflies come out, and he almost says no. Almost tells her he’s got scouting reports to file, a 6 a.m. drive to Jacksonville the next day, that he doesn’t do casual walks with women he just met. But the bluegrass band switches to a faster song, the light is soft and golden, and she’s grinning at him like she already knows he’s going to say yes, so he does.
The gravel crunches under their work boots as they walk, and the hum of crickets gets louder the farther they get from the fish fry. When they reach the edge of the pond, fireflies are already blinking on and off over the water, tiny gold dots dancing above the cattails. She stops, turns to him, and says she hasn’t talked to someone all week who didn’t treat her like the GM’s annoying tagalong sister, who just talked to her like a regular person. He leans in before he can overthink it, kisses her soft, slow, and she tastes like sweet tea and mint gum. She kisses him back, her hand coming up to rest on the side of his neck, her thumb brushing the scar on his eyebrow light as a feather.
They sit on a fallen oak log at the edge of the water for an hour, talking about his daughter, her 10-year-old golden retriever that hates water, the worst road trip meals they’ve ever had. When she checks her phone and says she has to head back to her Airbnb, he scribbles his cell number on the back of a scouting report for a 19-year-old shortstop with a bad attitude and a great swing, and hands it to her. She tucks it into the pocket of her jeans, kisses his cheek, and tells him she’ll text him the next time her pop-up is near whatever stadium he’s at.
He stands there for a minute after she walks away, watching her taillights fade down the dirt road leading out of the stadium parking lot. The leftover container of pimento cheese is still warm in his hand, and the bluegrass band is still playing off in the distance. He tucks the container under his arm, turns toward his truck, and for the first time in 8 years, he’s not in a hurry to get to the next town.
