Elias Voss, 67, has spent the last 11 years as an independent minor league baseball scout, after he quit the Reds farm system rather than swap his beat-up spiral notebooks and chewed 1998 Louisville Slugger branded pencil for a scouting app. He’s stubborn to a fault, hasn’t updated his cell phone since 2011, hasn’t let anyone sit close enough to share his bar stool since his wife Diane died of pancreatic cancer five years back. He tells himself he likes the quiet, the rhythm of driving 300 miles a week to high school and juco games, sleeping in cheap motels, eating gas station burritos for dinner. It’s easy, no surprises, no one to let down.
He’s perched at the scuffed linoleum bar of The Dugout, a hole-in-the-wall in southern Ohio, an hour after a fall showcase, scribbling notes about a left-handed pitcher who can hit 94 mph but throws wild when he’s rattled. The bar smells like fried pickles and stale beer, Johnny Cash’s *Folsom Prison Blues* hums low from the jukebox in the corner. He’s halfway through his second Budweiser when someone slides into the stool next to him, the cuff of their black leather jacket brushing the frayed elbow of his plaid flannel.
He glances up. She’s in tailored slacks and a crisp white button-down under the jacket, hazel eyes flecked with green, a faint smudge of blue pen on her left jaw. She orders bourbon on the rocks, nods at his notebook. “You the scout everyone was chattering about at the showcase today? The one who yelled at the umpire for calling a strike on a pitch that was a foot outside?”
Elias snorts. “That’d be me. Ump played first base for a rival high school back in ‘89, still holds a grudge I struck him out three times in the district championship.”
She laughs, a low, rough sound, like she spends most of her day yelling over rowdy teenagers. Her knee knocks his under the bar, warm through the denim of his jeans, and she doesn’t yank it away immediately. She’s Clara, 42, the local high school principal, separated from her husband who’s been working on an oil rig in North Dakota for two years, though no one in town knows it yet. She’s up for a superintendent promotion next quarter, and even a whiff of scandal would tank her shot.
They talk for an hour. She tells him about the kid who snuck a goat into the school gym last month, he tells her about the time a prospect’s mom chased him around the parking lot with a softball bat because he told her son he’d be better off playing college football than pro ball. She leans in when he talks, her elbow brushing his on the bar, holds eye contact a beat longer than polite when she laughs. When she reaches for his pencil to scribble her number on the margin of his notebook, her fingers brush his, cool from holding her frosted bourbon glass, and he feels a jolt he hasn’t felt in half a decade.
He knows the rules here. Small town, everyone knows everyone’s business. If anyone sees them talking this close, if anyone spots them leaving together, the gossip mill will run wild by sunrise. He’s already got a reputation as the gruff widower who keeps to himself; being linked to a married (as far as the town knows) principal 25 years his junior would get him side-eyed at every showcase within 100 miles. He tells himself he should say goodnight, pay his tab, drive back to his motel, eat the cold burrito he stashed in the mini fridge, watch old World Series highlights alone. The thought tastes like ash.
Clara slides off her stool, slings her jacket over her shoulder, nods at the door. “My truck’s parked behind the library. No one drives over there this time of night. You wanna walk me?”
He hesitates for three full seconds, then nods, shoving his notebook into the inner pocket of his coat. The October air is crisp, leaves crunch under their work boots as they walk the two quiet blocks, streetlights casting gold streaks over the sidewalk. When they reach her beat-up Ford F-150, she leans against the driver’s side door, pulls him close by the collar of his flannel, and kisses him slow. He can taste bourbon and spearmint gum on her lips, his hand rests on her hip, the leather of her jacket soft under his palm, no sound but the rustle of oak leaves and the distant hum of a semi on the interstate.
When she pulls back, she tucks a slip of paper with her cell number into the breast pocket of his flannel, taps the pocket twice. “Text me when you’re back next month for the playoff game. I’ll clear my schedule.”
He nods, watches her climb into the truck, reverse out of the spot, taillights fading red around the corner of the library. He stands there for a minute, the cold air nipping at his cheeks, then reaches into his pocket, pulls out his beat-up 2011 flip phone, flips it open, and starts typing her number into the contact list.
