Rafe Marquez, 52, minor league scout for the Reds High-A affiliate, leaned against the splintered wooden pole of the county fair beer tent, warm draft lager sweating through the thin plastic cup in his left hand. The back of his neck was pink with sunburn from six hours hunched behind home plate, watching a 19-year-old lefty from the local high school hit 94 on the radar gun three pitches in a row. His right hand hovered over the tattered spiral notebook he’d carried since he got the scouting job, smudged pencil notes filling every page to the margins, when he knocked elbows with someone reaching for a stack of napkins on the folding table beside him.
“Sorry about that,” a woman’s voice said, warm and laced with laughter. He looked up. She had freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose, sun-bleached blonde braid slung over one shoulder, denim shorts cut off at the thigh, a faded Ohio State gardening club t-shirt stretched over her shoulders. She held a deep-fried Oreo in one hand, crumbs dusting her knuckles, and a matching plastic beer cup in the other. She sat down on the empty folding chair next to him, close enough that her bare calf brushed the edge of his khaki work pants when she shifted to cross her legs, and the sweet, coconutty scent of her sunscreen wrapped around him, cutting through the smell of fried dough and stale beer hanging in the humid August air.
He nodded, went back to scribbling notes about the lefty’s pickoff move, but he could feel her eyes on the notebook. “You still use pen and paper for that?” she asked, leaning in so her shoulder pressed against his bicep when she tilted her head to read the page. Rafe tensed. He’d had this exact argument a dozen times with his boss, with other scouts, with his kid sister who kept trying to buy him a subscription to some $15 a month scouting app. He was just about to snap out a retort when she said, “I get it. My husband keeps trying to get me to log all my extension agent reports on some fancy cloud system, but I still keep a notebook in my truck. Never crashes when the cell service cuts out out in the farm towns.” Rafe’s jaw tightened. Her husband was Jake Hale, the head of the county rec league, the same guy who’d blocked him from using the high school field for a prospect showcase last month, claiming the fields were reserved for local tee-ball leagues even though Rafe had filed the request three months prior. He’d hated Jake for two years running, had even avoided the fair entirely last year just to not run into him. He shifted to move, to grab his notebook and find another spot on the other side of the tent, but she reached out and rested her hand on his forearm, her thumb brushing the thin, pale scar he’d gotten from a line drive back when he was a minor league catcher himself. “Relax,” she said, her voice low enough that only he could hear it over the roar of the fair rides and the cornhole players yelling a few feet away. “We separated three months ago. Haven’t told anyone yet, not while he’s running for re-election to the rec board. He’s still a prick, I know. I lived with him for four years, I’ve got the receipts.”
Rafe froze. He’d spent the last decade intentionally keeping anyone even remotely tied to his work, or to small town drama, at arm’s length. He’d gone home alone every night, ate frozen dinners, watched old baseball games, told himself he didn’t need the hassle of dating, of arguments, of someone leaving again. But she was still touching his arm, her palm warm through the thin cotton of his t-shirt, her eyes locked on his, no hint of awkwardness, no polite smile to soften the invitation in her gaze. The fair noise faded to a hum in the background. He could taste the salt on his own lips, could feel the heat radiating off her skin, could see the tiny flecks of green in her brown eyes when the sun hit them just right. She tilted her head toward the far end of the fairgrounds, where the old horse barns sat empty, far from the crowds of local families and rec league volunteers who all knew both of them, all knew Jake. “Wanna walk?” she asked, slipping her hand into his, her fingers calloused from pulling weeds and planting test plots, rough in a way that felt real, not polished. He didn’t pull away. He folded his notebook shut, slipped it into the back pocket of his pants, stood up, and followed her.
They walked slow, staying along the tree line where no one was likely to glance their way, until they reached the shadow of the farthest horse barn, the air thick with the smell of hay and cut grass. She turned to face him, reached up to brush a strand of hair that had fallen out of his cap off his forehead, and kissed him, slow at first, then deeper, tasting like powdered sugar and cheap lager and the mint gum she’d been chewing. He cupped the back of her neck, his thumb brushing the edge of her braid, and for the first time in 10 years, he didn’t think about the risks, didn’t think about Jake, didn’t think about how stupid it might be to get involved with someone tied to the mess of local small town politics. When they pulled back, she grinned, swiping a crumb of fried Oreo off the corner of his mouth with her thumb. “I can get you that field access, by the way,” she said. He laughed, a rough, rusty sound he hadn’t heard come out of his own mouth in months. They stood there for another minute, shoulder to shoulder, watching the Ferris wheel spin at the other end of the fairgrounds, the colored lights flickering on as the sun dipped below the treeline. He laced his fingers through hers, and didn’t let go when a group of teenaged baseball players he recognized from the afternoon’s game walked past, yelling and carrying cotton candy.
