Page 14 of Heavy Hitter

“Yeah,” Lacey says. It sounds like she’s smiling. “I’m not really that into cars, either.”

“What are you into?” he asks, then realizes a beat too late that it sounds like... whatever it sounds like. He thinks again of her mouth, her cold hands skating over his chest and his stomach. She left a not-insignificant hickey on his collarbone, and he’s had to hide it from his team all weekend long. “Uh. When you’re not working, I mean.”

“I’m always working,” she says immediately, then seems to reconsider. “That sounds bleak.”

“Nah,” Jimmy lies. “I mean, I get it.”

“I guess I don’t actually have a lot of... like... hobbies?” she confesses, her voice quiet on the other end of the line. “I used to. I went through a knitting phase. I knit scarves for all my bus drivers on the last tour. I did sourdough during COVID. My starter was named Carole King. And I used to really like to go hear other musicians, to go to concerts and stuff.”

“Used to?” Jimmy asks.

“Well, yeah,” she says. “It can get kind of complicated, now that I’m—” She breaks off. “It can kind of be, like, thunder-stealing, you know? If I go. The attention is automatically all on me, which people are understandably not always crazy about.”

“Even if you’re low-key about it?” he asks. “Sit in the back, wear one of those glasses-and-funny-nose situations?”

“Low-key isn’t really a thing in my life,” Lacey admits. “I mean, it’s not a big deal. But after a while my fans started figuring out what shows I was most likely to be at and coming by to say hi.”

Coming by to say hi sounds like a euphemism for some real stalker-level shit if ever Jimmy has heard one, but he doesn’t say that out loud. “All your fans are in the Illuminati,” he teases instead. “They all think you’re trying to send them secret messages via the outfits you’re wearing on TikTok.”

“I mean, to be fair, I often am trying to send them secret messages via the outfits I’m wearing on TikTok.”

“Are you really?” Jimmy blinks. “Like, the... what do you call it, the numerology and shit? The hidden pictures?” Anagrams, too. He read about this, alone in bed in his hotel room the other night after the bar in New York, when he tried and failed not to careen down the Lacey Logan Internet Rabbit Hole. He thought there was no way it was a real thing, the idea that her social media feeds and album notes are all teeming with various winks and hints and puzzles, the solving of which purportedly opens the door to a deeper and more profound understanding of the life and times of one Lacey Elaine Logan: her love affairs and blood vendettas, the secretmost chambers of her heart and mind. This woman has 254 million amateur cryptologists following her on Instagram. The CIA should recruit them to break enemy code.

“Yeah,” Lacey confesses now, sounding a little sheepish. “It’s different, with my fans. It’s not—I mean, they’re special. It’s a game we’re playing together, that’s all. We have a whole little thing that we do.”

“Okay.”

“I’m serious!”

“I can tell.”

“Yeah, and you think it’s totally fucking creepy.”

Jimmy considers that for a moment, trying to come up with an answer besides Yup! I totally fuckin’ do. “I think you’re objectively the most successful person I’ve ever met,” he tells her finally, which has the benefit of being the truth in addition to being a compliment, “so whatever you’re doing is working for you, and if you’re cool with it then it’s not really my business to judge it either way.”

Lacey grumbles quietly. “Good answer,” she admits grudgingly.

“Was it?” he asks. His back still hurts, so he gets up and walks around the room for a minute, trying to stretch it without making any embarrassing grunting noises. It’s dark in here, the TV flickering on mute and the AC humming quietly. It’s been a long time since he talked to anyone on the phone like this. “I’m trying.”

“I appreciate that,” Lacey says. “Also, my friend, let’s not forget that you’re literally a professional athlete. You’re going to sit there and tell me you don’t have any weird shit you do for your career?”

“I mean, yeah, I sit in a recycling bin full of ice for half an hour every morning and average, like, two surgeries a year.”

“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” She laughs, full-throated and charming. “Tell me more about the ice.”

They stay on the line for a while longer, comparing their respective workout routines and the questionable diets they’ve attempted, the supplements and the juices and the shakes. Jimmy doesn’t mention his little March of Progress episode from this morning, how it took him the better part of an archaeological age to even stand upright. A bunch of other boring shit, he told her when she asked why he was retiring. No reason to advertise the gory details.

Finally Lacey lets out a quiet yawn—quick and ladylike, sure, but Jimmy pictures it before he can stop himself: her mouth open, the wet pink flash of her tongue. He wants to ask her if she’s in bed, if she’s lying down, how she touches herself when she’s alone in the darkness. He wants to get on a plane to Canada and finish what he started last Wednesday night. “All right, you,” he says instead, glancing at the alarm clock one more time and realizing it’s after two. “I’ve gotta go. I’ve got a game in eleven hours.”

“Try to hit a home run,” she advises.

“I will,” he promises. “If I manage it you’ll know it’s just for you, how about.”

“Mm-hmm,” Lacey agrees before yawning one more time, the sound of it like a secret thing between them. “I’ll know.”

***

HE HITS ONE, ACTUALLY.

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