Page 25 of The Art of Catching Feelings

He was going to regret this, he just knew it, but he couldn’t stop himself.

C: By the way, let me know if you ever wanted to come out to a game. I could get you two tickets so you could bring a friend or your significant other or whoever.

The minute it was sent, he groaned. He had absolutely zero game. If Randy were here, he would’ve coached him in a much slicker way to get at that information. Once, they’d been at a local bar during last season’s All-Star break, and Randy had asked a woman if he could follow her, because his mother had always told him to follow his dreams. Chris had thought for sure he’d get his ass kicked with such an obvious pickup line, but then Randy turned on that charming smile. He and the woman had ended up dating for a few months after that.

It was several minutes before her response came in, during which time Chris imagined every single scenario. Shedidhave a boyfriend and was trying to think of how to break it to him, she had a boyfriend and they were snuggling together right then and there, planning when they might want to take him up on the ticket offer, she had a girlfriend instead of a boyfriend, she didn’t have either but was still incredibly weirded out by the obvious fish for information, and on and on.

But then when the new text finally popped up, it was maddeningly short on detail.

D: Thanks, I appreciate it.

Was it possible he’d actually beentooslick, where she didn’t know what he was really asking? He wasn’t going to repeat himself. That would be too sad.

D: No boyfriend tho

He bit his lip to stop the smile from spreading across his face before realizing that no one was watching him. He could smile as wide as he wanted.

TEN

Daphne stared at the glowing screen of her phone. She’d already been in bed when he’d texted her, but since sleep regularly eluded her for hours after she lay down, she hadn’t seen the harm in texting a little.

It had started out innocently enough, talking about music. She’d enjoyed listening to the song he’d sent her, and sharing a song with him. There’d been that brief moment, when they’d been talking about dancing, and she’d tried to turn it into something else. But he hadn’t responded right away, and she’d felt silly…what was she trying to do,sextwith him?

Then he’d made that comment about bringing her boyfriend to a game, and she’d started spinning out. Was that a sign that he was interested in her that way? Or maybe it was a sign that he wasn’t…that he assumed she’d already have someone and wasn’t bothered at all by that idea.

On top of that, she felt a weird guilt not explaining about the divorce, like she was withholding information when she said she was single. Kim had coached her through this already when they’d been signing her up on dating apps. It was nobody’s business what was in her past, Kim had said, and she could choose to share that information whenever she felt comfortable and not asecond before. And yet Daphne couldn’t shake the feeling almost like she was doing something wrong, even though she wasn’t with Justin anymore, hadn’t been for a while, and knew she never would be again. That feeling went away eventually…right?

She was already lying to Chris about so much, she had a weird need to be brutally transparent about at leastonemajor thing in her life. Maybe it would cool any interest he might feel toward her, but maybe that was a good thing. Maybe she didn’t want him to be interested.

Actually, I’m divorced.

Oh, who was she kidding. She wanted him to be interested.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she muttered, pulling the covers over her head as if to trap herself in some kind of protective fort. Only her phone was in there, too, so really the call was still going to come from inside the house on this one.

C: Oh.

C: Sorry, I don’t quite know what to say. My first instinct was to say, “Cool,” but something tells me that’s not it?

She huffed a laugh that fogged her phone screen in her little covers fort.

D: That’s not bad, actually. A lot of people respond that they’re sorry to hear it, which is nice, but awkward when you want to be like, “Don’t be! I’m not!”

She hoped that wasn’t too negative. She tried really hard not to shit-talk Justin openly…except to Kim, of course, who’d had a front-row seat to Daphne’s feelings. She believed that Justin might makesomeonea decent husband one day. It just hadn’t been her.

D: What about you?

C: I’ve never been married.

She rolled her eyes. That kind of information she would’ve expected his Wikipedia to cover. Whether he was currently dating anyone, on the other hand…

C: And no girlfriend right now.

Daphne felt something behind her rib cage lift, before dropping down into her stomach again. It was irresponsible to be talking to him at all, much less like this.

Shewantedto keep talking to him. She wished she could go back in time, handle everything differently from that very first message. Maybe if she’d come clean right away…but then maybe he wouldn’t be talking to her at all.

The best thing she could do now would be to either confess, or to break this off before it became something. Already it was starting to feel likesomething.

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