Rico Marquez, 52, a minor league baseball scout who’d logged 120,000 miles on his beat-up Ford F-150 the year prior, pushed open the screen door of Moe’s Brisket Shack just past 8 p.m. The air hit him thick with oak smoke, pickled jalapeño brine, and the faint sweet tang of peach cobbler cooling on the back counter. His boots were caked in red central Texas dirt, his lower back ached from 10 hours perched on metal bleachers watching 17-year-old pitchers hurl fastballs into the dusk, and he’d already decided he’d eat alone, drive straight to his motel off the interstate, and review scouting notes until he passed out. He hadn’t so much as flirted with a woman since his wife left him for a suburban real estate agent four years prior, and he’d convinced himself that was for the best—less mess, less chance of getting his pride bruised again.
The place was nearly empty, save for a couple of old ranchers in the back booth nursing longnecks, and a woman behind the counter wiping down the sticky Formica with a ragged dish towel. She was in her mid-40s, silver hoop earrings catching the glow of the neon Shiner Bock sign above the bar, a smudge of barbecue sauce streaked across the side of her left wrist. She smiled when he approached, rough and warm, like she smoked menthols on her break and laughed louder than most people thought was polite. He ordered a brisket plate, medium, with a side of coleslaw and a cold beer, and paid cash, figuring he’d be out in 20 minutes tops.
When she set the plate down in front of him at the counter, their fingers brushed. Her knuckles were calloused, a faint scar slicing across the top of her index finger, and he pulled his hand back like he’d been burned, stupidly flustered. He mumbled a thank you, dug into the brisket, and tried not to glance over at her every time she laughed at a joke one of the ranchers yelled across the room. She came back a few minutes later to top off his beer, leaned against the counter next to him, and asked if he was in town for the high school baseball showcase. He said he was, that he scouted for a low-A farm team out of Iowa, and she nodded, said her oldest son had played third base at the local high school before he joined the Army last year. They talked for 15 minutes straight, about curveballs and basic training and the way the Texas heat stuck to your skin in June, and the whole time a stupid, tight, excited feeling hummed in his chest, the kind he’d thought he’d killed off years ago. He kept fighting it, telling himself he was being an idiot, that she was just being nice, that he didn’t need the hassle of anything casual, let alone something more.
The ranchers left a few minutes later, and she started wiping down the tables, mentioning offhand that she was filling in for her dad, who owned the place, while he recovered from knee replacement surgery. She also said she’d been separated from her husband for six months, hadn’t told anyone in town yet, because small town gossip traveled faster than a 95-mile-an-hour fastball. That was the line that made the hum in his chest sharper, the quiet thrill of something a little taboo, a little forbidden, if anyone were to see them hanging around after closing.
Thunder rattled the tin roof right as he stood to leave, and rain started pouring so hard he could barely see his truck parked 20 feet away from the door. He patted his pockets, realized he’d left his scouting notebook under the counter, the one with all his notes on the three pitchers he’d flown down to see, and turned back to get it. She was holding it, leaning against the doorframe under the awning, rain dripping off the edge of the metal onto the concrete at her feet. “You left this,” she said, holding it out, and when he took it, their hands brushed again, this time he didn’t pull away. She nodded back at the bar, said she had a bottle of decent bourbon stashed behind the register, he could wait out the storm if he wanted.
He hesitated for half a second, half ready to make an excuse about early meetings the next day, half ready to stay forever. He stayed. They sat in the back booth, passed the bourbon bottle back and forth no glasses, and talked until the rain slowed to a drizzle. Her shoulder pressed against his when she reached for the napkin dispenser, her knee brushed his under the table, and when she laughed at his terrible joke about bad minor league bus rides, she held eye contact with him for three full beats, long enough that he knew it wasn’t just friendly. He admitted he’d closed himself off for years, that he’d thought he was too old, too set in his ways, to feel this light around someone new. She just nodded, said she knew the feeling, that she’d spent the last six months convinced she’d never want to talk to a man ever again.
When the rain stopped an hour later, he walked her to her beat-up Honda Civic parked around the back of the shack. She kissed him on the cheek first, soft, then he cupped her jaw with his calloused scout’s hand, and kissed her slow, tasting bourbon and peppermint lip balm and the faint smoky tang of the brisket she’d been cooking all day. She scribbled her number on a napkin with the shack’s logo printed on the corner, told him if he was back in town next month for the regional showcase, she’d save him the best cut of brisket, no line, no wait. He tucked the napkin into the front pocket of his scouting notebook, climbed into his truck, and pulled out onto the interstate, the windows rolled down, the warm damp air hitting his face. He turned up the George Strait song playing on the radio, and smiled, for the first time in four years, without even realizing he was doing it.
