Page 66 of Totally Fanatic

DUCKIE: Who invited the gentleman into this chat?

I shake my head and laugh because really, there is nothing else to do at their ridiculousness, then type my reply.

TIM: I stayed at Lion’s place, if that is what you are asking. No one was tied to anything.

DUCKIE: No fun.

***

It took about a week for the media to drop the stalking story, which is pretty quick considering they are usually like a dog with a bone. I guess once they knew the league was behind us, it really lost its buzz.

The public is another story altogether. I guess you would say the fan response is mixed. A fair chunk of the fans don’t give a shit about any of it and only comment on my trick plays, my batting game or my performance, but then there are the ones that do care. Unfortunately, like with most things, the negative voices seem to scream the loudest online.

It’s even worse that in most cases Lion cops the brunt of it, and it’s crushing seeing hurtful things posted about him on my page. I almost replied to an asshole’s comment yesterday, but I knew that would only spur them on. I blocked the guy who posted it instead. But having to go through and read all these things to look for the hurtful shit to delete it has taken me back to a dark place I left behind so many months ago. Or I thought I had. Lion might not have done the right thing creating allthose profiles, but it saturated my feed with positive messages, and at a time when I was totally obsessed with people liking me, thinking I was good enough to be on this team, in this tour, I really needed that. Now, it’s worse than that because the guy who just wanted me to feel amazing is copping hateful messages of his own.

I read through the comments on the article Ian wrote about the whole thing. He ran it by me first, which was nice, he didn’t have to, but he said he wanted to be sure he didn’t get anything wrong.

“Who wouldn’t want a love like this?“ one user writes. They get it. They see how amazing it is to have someone in your corner, someone cheering for you. That’s what everyone needs in a partner. I scroll to the next one.

“Who cares how they met, they are my new favorite sports couple.”That’s cute. I’ll have to show that one to Ryan and Alan. I laugh to myself, then stop when I see the next message.

“Tim is the one who needs help if he thinks this is what love really looks like,”someone has written and then below it, “Lion, ha, more like leech. He’s just trying to get his fifteen minutes of fame. Bet he’ll come out with a protein powder or health supplement next.”

Fucking jerks. I close the app and message Lion.

TIM: Hey, I’m really sorry about all the online stuff. It’s totally cool if you want to skip this week’s games and just stay in Savannah.

My phone rings and on the screen is the picture I took of Lion and his cats playing on the floor of his apartment.

“Are you okay?” he asks the moment I answer, and just hearing his voice takes away a little of the darkness reading the messages online enveloped me in.

“I’m so sorry people are being such dicks online,” I say, and he laughs.

“Whose dick is online?”

“No, that people are being dicks. Jerks. Assholes. I was just going through some of the comments and… well, I’m just really sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. I haven’t been looking at the comments. Enzo told me not to.”

“Enzo told you? When did he tell you that?”

“This morning at the gym.”

“You went to the gym with Enzo?”

“Enzo came to the gym with me, Levi and Beau. It was great having a fourth in the session. Oh, I can go back to the cafe next week, too. I saw a photo of Mary Beth’s cake display on her socials the other day, she really needs me back. That girl can’t arrange a display to save her life. She does make the best coffee, though.”

“You’re able to go on social media and you just ignore the comments?”

“I don’t click into them. Can you see them without clicking? Is that a setting people can switch on and off?”

“No, I click them.”

“You know that you don’t have to, right?”

“I know, but I want to read the good ones. Some people are so sweet. This one person said we are their new favorite sports couple.”

“Aww, that is cute, but I don’t play sports.”

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