Page 35 of The Art of Catching Feelings

She spun on her heel and walked away before he could say anything else, sending something flying at his feet. He picked it up, frowning. A binder clip.

“Damn,” Randy said. “That was hard to watch, not gonna lie. I tried to warn you.”

“I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true,” Chris said gruffly, but he knew he’d been out of line.

“Neither did she,” Randy pointed out.

And with that parting shot, Randy was already disappearing into the dugout, heading back into the entrance to the clubhouse. Normally, Chris would do the same, start his usual postgame routine of getting in the ice tub if he was particularly sore, getting a workout in if he wasn’t, taking a shower and grabbing something to eat. But instead he looked down at the binder clip, then up at the direction where she’d headed. He closed his fist around the clip, and crossed the field to follow her.

FIFTEEN

It would be fitting ifshecried because of somethinghesaid. It would be the moment she’d been waiting for, karma truly on her scent like a bounty hunter. But this was her first day on a new job, and Daphne didn’t want to embarrass Layla, who she assumed had never cried a day in her life, much less while on the clock.

Luckily, there was a lot more work involved in this assignment than Daphne had even realized, and so she could focus on that instead. Layla had prepared her for today as best as she could, and outlined what the role would look like—Daphne would handle reports during the game about injuries, insights from the coaching staff, that kind of thing, and then do some pre- and postgame interviews with the players. Layla was still doing a lot of the prep work from home and handling the social media side of things. Between that and the fact that Daphne wasn’t expected to travel yet, she knew she was only doing half of Layla’s usual job.

It was still overwhelming. Daphne was wearing more makeup on her face than she was used to, which felt weird; trying to read PR sheets that she only half understood about various transactions—who’d been sent back down to Triple-A, who’d been recalled, so many names and words she didn’t know; andcouldn’t help but feel a little starstruck when she was standing next to someone she’d been told only moments before was one of the greatest sluggers of his time. The name Gutierrez didn’t even mean anything to her, and still she’d gotten flustered when he trained his perfect smile on her and started talking about the home run he’d hit that night.

And to top it all off, she was wearing a borrowed dress from Layla. Her sister-in-law had more of an hourglass shape than she did, so the dress puffed out weirdly around Daphne’s chest with extra fabric. She’d followed Layla’s advice to use a binder clip in the back to cinch it tighter—On camera, no one will be able to see, Layla had said with a dismissive hand wave—but she’d lost the clip somewhere along the way, and now the dress hung loose and baggy. It was such a small, stupid thing, but it immediately reminded her what an impostor she was. Even her fitted dress had been fake.

She was standing outside one of the employee-only doors, trying to get her bearings before entering, when she heard a voice behind her.

“I think you dropped this,” Chris said, holding out her binder clip.

Daphne felt her face flame. Hopefully, he just thought she’d been using it to hold papers together. You know, like a normal person. The fact that she hadn’t beenholdingany papers…

It was impossible for their fingers not to touch in the exchange, no matter how hard she tried. She felt the contact in a jolt, a sudden unwelcome reminder of what he’d said in one of his texts.I like to feel the bat.

She couldnotthink about that right now.

“Thanks,” she said stiffly.

He clenched his own fist at his side. “Look,” he said. “I’m sorry. It’s not about you. It’s…” He paused, as if searching for theright words before resigning himself to whatever second-rate ones he could come up with. “I was frustrated, and I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

“I shouldn’t have, either,” she said. “That’s why we’re here in the first place.”

He just looked at her, almost like he was working something out in his head. Maybe whether to confirm or deny what she’d said—the latter option would be more courteous, perhaps, but the former option more true.

“I have no illusions about why I’m here,” Daphne said now in a low voice. “You’re right—I’m hardly qualified. It’s ludicrous, really, that they would’ve offered me the gig at all. But I’m—” She swallowed, thinking better of what she’d been about to say. Best not to get into the whole deal with Layla, how she was hoping to help out her sister-in-law. Better still not to get into the rest of it, how she’d been excited for the chance to make her life look completely different, even if she was scared of what that might mean.

“If you’re not comfortable with me being here, I understand,” she said. “Just say the word, and I’ll quit. Seriously. No hard feelings.”

He was staring down at his shoes now, but leaning in, and she knew he was listening closely even though his face betrayed no reaction. The first few buttons of his jersey were undone, revealing a thin gold chain over the athletic shirt he wore underneath. She thought back to that scab she’d seen on the back of his elbow that first fateful day, and had the wildest urge to check if it was still there or if it had completely healed.

“I don’t want you to get spit on,” she said somberly. “I wouldn’t work with that guy.”

The barest twitch at the corner of his mouth, so tiny she almost missed it. He dragged his hand over his jaw.

“Ah,” he said. “The whistler’s the one who really got under my skin. Probably just jealous.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You can’t whistle?”

He puckered his lips, blowing through them until a small tuneless note came out, more air than sound. He gave her a rueful smile.

“Don’t quit,” he said. “Not on my account.”

And with that, he walked away.

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