Page 67 of The Art of Catching Feelings

“I forgot to pack my pajamas,” she said. “And so I grabbed the first thing I could find to use as a nightshirt while I was at the airport. You have to promise you won’t laugh. Or get a big head about it.”

“Why would I get a big head?” he asked. “You work for the team. You’re allowed to wear the merch. Some might say you’re encouraged to wear it.”

She turned around, and he had to swallow at the way the hem of the T-shirt hit her at the thighs, her shapely legs bare beneath it. When she lifted her arms up to scoop her hair over one shoulder, he saw the briefest flash of her black panties. He was so distracted by that image that it took a second for him to register what she was trying to show him—his number 15 on the back of theT-shirt in screen-printed numbers, his name across her shoulder blades.

He really shouldn’t feel a possessive surge at seeing her wearing his T-shirt. Butfuckif he didn’t like it. Suddenly he found he was having all sorts of fantasies about just how much he liked it.

“Surprised you didn’t get Caminero,” he said when she turned back around. “We sell a lot more shirts with his name on it than mine.”

“I know,” she said. “I had to really dig through the racks for this one.”

She was grinning at him, and he supposed maybe he should care about this reminder of his place in the organization, especially given his current contract negotiations where he was hoping to stay. But it wasn’t anything new to him. And he found that he liked the idea that she didn’t just pick up thefirstthing—that she’d gone through the piles of shirts until she’d found the one with his name on it.

“Come here,” he said, not even waiting for her to fully climb in the bed before he grasped her around the waist and brought her onto his lap. He pressed a quick kiss to her temple before he started laughing, leaning his head against hers.

“You promised you wouldn’t laugh,” she said.

“TheRed Soxare in town,” he said. “Christ. Took me a minute, but that one’s killing me.”

TWENTY-NINE

They ended up watching an episode ofSeinfeldand the latter half of a movie where the whole premise was apparently that the two actors were the victim of some magic that switched their bodies, which was an extremely confusing scenario to come in the middle of. Chris had taken his shirt off at some point, and Daphne kept thinking about getting up to put some leggings on, but then she felt warm enough from snuggling up against his hard chest, his arm around her and resting on her bare thigh.

The credits to the movie were rolling, and she was in that blurry, half-awake state where she felt like everything was a little underwater. She thought she might’ve fallen asleep during the last ten minutes of the movie, which was fine—it wasn’t like she’d been able to follow it anyway. So her reaction time wasn’t superfast when Chris suddenly asked, “Earlier you saidafter my, and then you never finished. After your divorce?”

Her heart was hammering in her chest. “My divorce?”

“That’s what it sounded like you were about to say,” he said. “Or something else?”

She supposed it couldn’t hurt to reveal that one detail about herself. Lots of people got divorced, after all. It didn’t have toconnect her back to Duckie. “Yeah,” she said. “I was just saying I tried to find better ways to take care of myself. After my divorce.”

He was quiet for a minute, and she wished she could read his mind, know if he was even thinking of Duckie at all in that moment. “Why didn’t you want me to know about that? I don’t care if you’ve been married before.”

“I know.” Daphne pushed herself off him, scooting back against the pillows. “Or, I mean, Ishouldknow. But it still feels like an awkward thing to bring up. Sometimes it makes me feel like…” She caught his gaze, his eyes sympathetic but also very, very serious. She swallowed the wordfailure. “It’s just awkward to bring up.”

“Do you still have feelings for him? Your ex?”

His voice was matter-of-fact when he asked the question. For all she knew, he didn’t care about her answer either way. But then he rubbed his hands along his thighs, almost like his palms were sweaty, and she thought maybe he did care. At least a little.

“No,” she said.

He nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. She should really leave well enough alone, because nothing good would come of bringing it up, running the risk of him connecting the dots, but suddenly it was bursting in her chest and she had to get it out. “What about you?” she asked. “Your someone else?”

Chris shook his head, giving her a smile that she thought was almost sad. “I told you, it wasn’t really anything. Just someone I was talking to for a little bit.”

Daphne hated that it hurt to hear him say that. She should be happy. The last thing she wanted was to know he was thinking about another woman while he was with her. But whenshewas also that other woman…she couldn’t help it. It hurt to hear their relationship dismissed that way.

“I think maybe people come into your life at different times, for different reasons,” Chris said, then smiled when he saw the dubious look on her face. “I know that sounds cheesy. But I mean it. I think I was meant to have someone to talk to at that time. I needed that. But it was a fantasy, you know? It ended up not being real. And now I’m grateful to have you in my life, and if it meant that you had to get divorced first, well, I’m sorry you had to go through that but I’m grateful it brought you here.”

“You barely know me,” she whispered. “You said it yourself.”

He leaned back against the headboard, turning to look at her, his hazel eyes dark and sleepy as they traveled over her face. “I’d like to know more,” he said. “But in the meantime, I know enough. I know that you’re a hard worker. It’s not easy, jumping into Layla’s job and having to figure out the player personalities and how to convey so much detailed information in a short amount of time. I know that you care. You didn’t have to help me with my walk-up song, or interview the team about me, but you did. Not just for a segment but because…”

This time when he swallowed, it looked almost painful, like he had something stuck in his throat. “My brother died at the beginning of this year,” he said. “Just after New Year’s. It was suicide. He—”

Daphne only realized tears were streaming down her face when Chris reached out to wipe one off her cheek. “Ah,” he said. “Don’t cry. It’s okay.”

She shook her head, wishing she could say something, wishing she could justtellhim. Because right now she felt just about the most awful she’d ever felt in her life. She felt awful for him, for what he’d lost. And she felt awful about the fact that this wasn’t even the first time he’d opened up to her about it, and of course he didn’t know that. “It’s not okay,” she said finally.

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