Leo Marquez, 53, minor league baseball scout for an Alabama Double-A affiliate, had occupied the same scratched oak bar stool at Mac’s Tin Top every Tuesday through Saturday for six years running. He kept his scouting notebook tucked tight to his chest when strangers sat nearby, gave one-word answers to small talk, and always left before last call to avoid messy, unplanned conversations. His ex-wife had called him stubborn to a fault, and she’d been right; after she left him for a real estate agent with a boat and a gated neighborhood house, he’d shut out every attempt at casual connection, convinced letting someone in wasn’t worth the inevitable letdown.
The thick August air stuck to his sunburned forearms when he dragged his stool out that night, the hem of his faded Biloxi Shuckers hat crumpled in his back pocket from sitting on it through nine innings of a Gulf Coast League game. He ordered his usual draft, pulled his notebook out to scribble notes on a 19-year-old shortstop with a 95 mph throw and a habit of swinging at every low curveball, and didn’t look up when someone pulled the adjacent stool out, metal legs scraping loud over linoleum.
He tensed immediately. No one sat next to him at Mac’s. Regulars knew better. He shifted his notebook closer, ready to fire off a snarky line about the seat being saved, when the cold edge of an iced tea glass brushed his forearm. He flinched, the sunburn stinging, and looked up.
She wore a faded Florida State softball hoodie, cutoff jean shorts, scuffed white sneakers caked with red clay from the high school fields down the road. A thin scar sliced through the left side of her jaw, the kind you get from a fast line drive to the face, and she grinned like she knew she’d broken an unwritten rule. “Sorry,” she said, nodding at his arm. “Reached for a napkin and missed. You’d think 15 years of coaching softball would give me better aim.”
Leo blinked. He’d planned to tell her to move. He had the line ready. Instead, he grunted, shook his head, and shifted his arm a little closer to hers, not farther away. “No harm. Just got burned sitting in the bleachers all day. Skin’s as thin as tissue paper these days.”
She laughed, a low, raspy sound that cut through the jukebox’s old Tom Petty and the clatter of fried pickle plates coming out of the kitchen. She leaned in a little to hear him over the crowd, her knee brushing his under the bar, and neither moved. She told him she was the new county high school athletic director, moved down from Tallahassee three weeks prior, came to Mac’s because the closer bar was full of parents yelling about last week’s football jamboree loss. He told her about the shortstop, about 12-hour monthly drives to scout small-town Gulf Coast games, about how 22 years in the job still left him giddy when he found a kid with that unteachable hunger to play.
She didn’t check her phone once while he talked. She leaned in further when he told a story about a kid who’d hit a walk-off home run last month and ran straight to the dugout to give the game ball to his chemo patient little sister. Her hand rested on the bar two inches from his, the neon sign above painting her fingernails soft pink, and Leo found himself leaning in too, his snarky edge melting away without him noticing. He hadn’t talked this much to anyone who wasn’t a coach or player in years.
When he mentioned he was driving up to Dothan the next morning to scout a double header, she perked up. “My nephew’s playing left field in that game,” she said, tapping her glass against the bar. “I was gonna drive up alone, make a day of it. Hate that stretch of I-10 alone, all those pecan stand billboards get creepy after a while.” She paused, eye contact steady, no flirtatious games, no pressure. “You got room for a passenger?”
Leo froze. He hadn’t let anyone ride in his truck on a scouting trip since his ex left. He had a routine, he liked his routine, he didn’t want to mess it up. But he looked at her, at the scar on her jaw, the clay smudge on her shorts, the way she waited like she’d be fine if he said no, and the resistance he’d carried for 8 years felt lighter, like it was slipping off his shoulders.
“Yeah,” he said, before he could overthink it. He tore a sheet from his notebook, scribbled his cell number, slid it across the bar. “Meet me at the exit 10 gas station at 7 am. I bring extra black coffee, but there’s creamer in the cooler if you want it. Don’t be late. First game starts at 9, I don’t miss warmups.”
She laughed, tucked the paper into her hoodie pocket, and finished her tea. She squeezed his forearm lightly, fingers warm against his sunburned skin, before sliding off the stool. “See you at 7, scout. Don’t leave without me.”
He watched her walk out, the door bell jingling behind her, and stared at the faint pink nail polish smudge she’d left on his arm for a full minute. He flipped open his notebook, crossed out the note he’d written about leaving early to avoid small talk the next morning, took a slow sip of his beer, and for the first time in years, he didn’t make a mental note to rush out of the bar before anyone could strike up a conversation with him the next night.
