Elias Voss, 52, had spent 19 years as a Texas League minor league scout, his workdays measured in cracked leather seats, sun-bleached scout notebooks, and the sharp crack of wood on aluminum that cut through humid small-town stadium air. His biggest flaw, as his older sister never tired of reminding him, was that he’d frozen out any possibility of softness after his ex-wife left him for a pharmaceutical rep eight years prior, writing off every woman his age as either high-maintenance or already tied up in drama he didn’t have the bandwidth for. He’d driven 90 miles south of Austin that day to check out a 21-year-old shortstop with a 95 mph throw and a tendency to swing at every high fastball, and the torrential spring rain that hit as he left the stadium had forced him off the highway and into the first lit bar he spotted, a cinder block dive with a neon Lone Star sign flickering above the door.
The bar was nearly empty, save for a bartender wiping down glasses and a woman in a worn black leather jacket sitting two stools away from the only open seat. Elias slid onto the stool, ordered a neat bourbon, and pulled his damp flannel sleeves up to his elbows, water dripping off the brim of his worn Astros cap onto the bartop. When the woman shifted to rest her boot on the footrest, the toe of her scuffed cowboy boot brushed his ankle, soft and accidental, and she looked over, holding eye contact for three full beats longer than polite before she smirked and nodded at the scout notebook peeking out of his jacket pocket. “You here for the game earlier?” she asked, her voice low, a faint Texan drawl wrapping around the words. He nodded, and she slid the bowl of salted peanuts between them, her fingers brushing his for half a second when she pushed it across the wood, the contact sending a sharp, warm jolt up his forearm that he hadn’t felt in years.
He recognized her ten minutes later, when the bartender called her Mara and said her husband, the Missions’ general manager, had called twice looking for her. The knot in his stomach tightened instantly—he’d had a contract with the Missions for six years, crossing the GM was career suicide, and Mara was 12 years deep into a marriage everyone in the league thought was rock solid. He should have finished his drink, grabbed his keys, and risked the flooded highway right then, but the rain was coming down harder, fat drops hammering the roof so loud he could barely hear the jukebox playing old Willie Nelson deep cuts, and she was leaning in now, close enough that he could smell lavender perfume mixed with rain on her wet hair, close enough that he could see the faint gold flecks in her green eyes. “He was kissing the new 22-year-old marketing intern in the stadium parking lot before first pitch,” she said, no inflection in her voice, like she was talking about a bad call at second base. “I’ve had a suitcase packed in my car for three months. Just couldn’t work up the nerve to leave.”
Elias hesitated, his thumb rubbing the chipped edge of his bourbon glass, and admitted he’d noticed her at games for months, always sitting alone in the first base box seat, reading a paperback between innings, never laughing at her husband’s loud, sleazy jokes with the other league executives. She laughed, a soft, warm sound, and shifted so their shoulders were almost touching, the heat of her arm seeping through his damp flannel. “I noticed you too,” she said, her fingers brushing his wrist lightly, intentionally this time. “You never talk to anyone. You just watch the game. Like it’s the only thing that matters.” For the first time in eight years, he didn’t feel the urge to run, didn’t feel the familiar cold pull of cynicism telling him this would end badly, that he was better off alone. He could hear the rain slowing outside, the hammering drops softening to a fine drizzle, and when she asked if he wanted to drive her to the Airbnb she’d rented a few blocks away, he nodded before he could overthink it.
They walked out to his beat-up F-150, the parking lot slick with puddles that glowed pink under the neon bar sign, and she laced her fingers through his when they crossed the asphalt, her palm warm even through the wet leather of her glove. He opened the passenger door for her, and she paused before she climbed in, tilting her chin up to kiss him slow, the taste of tequila and mint on her lips, rain dripping off the ends of her hair onto his cheek. He reached up to tuck a strand of wet hair behind her ear, his calloused thumb brushing the soft curve of her jaw.
