Page 41 of The Art of Catching Feelings

He’d taken off his jersey and was only wearing the athletic shirt he normally wore underneath. So it was a simple motion for him to peel the shirt up, showing a tanned expanse of skin overmuscle until he reached the affected area, which was already turning an angry purple. Daphne swallowed, suddenly glad that there was the netting of the lower dugout between them, preventing her from doing something wild like reaching out to touch it. He seemed to realize then that he was showing her half his stomach, and he dropped his shirt again.

“I’ve had worse,” he said.

Daphne was positive that it wasobviousjust how much she was leaning in to hear him over the noise of the game, how much she’d wanted to smooth her fingers over that bruise, how much she’d thought about how to make it better. There’d been that moment—the way his eyes had swept over her…but he’d just been tracking her own hand. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to make a real fool of herself. She cast around for something to say, anything to bring their footing back to the professional.

“Why does Randy do that, with the batting helmets?”

Kendall had gotten a home run the previous inning, and Randy had done the same thing she’d seen him do on the tape and in other games, where he was waiting at the top of the dugout to lift the hitter’s helmet off his head. He did it with a certain flourish, almost like a crowning, but in reverse.

“It’s just a home run celebration,” Chris said.

“Ah.” Well, that much she’d figured.

The Battery’s left fielder, Mitch, kept fouling off pitch after pitch, and both she and Chris watched the at-bat. Chris leaned over the railing, turning away from her to spit in the dirt. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she said, because she was used to it at this point, and they didn’t usually bother to turn their heads. Or apologize. She’d noticed Chris liked to chew gum during games and would sometimes blow bubbles out at third base when nothing was happening, which she tried not to find cute.

She also noticed now that, after he’d leaned forward, he didn’treturn back to his former position as he picked up the thread about home run celebrations. “Lots of teams have even more elaborate ones. The Mariners have a six-foot-tall trident they parade around with.” Mitch drew a walk, and they both watched him make his way to first base, giving the first base coach a fist bump. “Here’s a tip for you—donotask Mitch about the batting helmet thing.”

That took Daphne by surprise. “Why not?”

Chris crossed his arms on the dugout railing, his elbow so close to her now that it brushed her arm. “He doesn’t let Randy do it,” he said. “He’s sensitive. About his hair.”

“Really?” Daphne had the impulse to laugh, which would surely be rude. It was just that it was unexpected, this big brawny man who played professional sports being that hung up on something like a receding hairline.

“One time he colored it in a team photo with a Sharpie.”

That time Daphne couldn’t help the small giggle that escaped her, although she immediately put her hand up to her mouth. When she glanced over at Chris, she thought she’d catch him smiling, but instead he was looking at her mouth again. Then his gaze lifted to hers and for a minute she was lost in his hazel eyes until he looked back toward the field.

“We all give him a hard time and he’s a good sport about it,” he said. “But yeah, it’s a team thing and he doesnotwant to be without a hat or batting helmet on TV if he can help it. Also, if you move a little to the left you’ll be better protected from foul balls.”

With that, Chris headed back toward the rest of the team in the dugout, stopping to fill a cup with some water before he took up another place farther down the rail. Daphne moved a few steps over like he’d suggested and glanced back up at the scoreboard, trying to reorient herself to what inning they were even in.

—

Daphne used the next travel day to meet up with Kim again, needing a bit of normalcy after the whirlwind of the last week. They met at a local pub they’d been to a few times before, with dark lighting and amazing chicken wings. They’d already spent an hour on breaking down Kim’s latest Tinder disaster when Daphne’s phone buzzed with a text. Before she could reach for it, Kim turned the phone toward her.

Kim raised her eyebrows. “Chrissays he just got on the plane and it made him think of you. Are youstilltexting with that baseball player?”

Daphne grabbed for her phone, annoyed at her friend’s nosiness even though she knew she had no right to be. They’d glanced at each other’s phones countless times on nights out, laughing over a meme someone had sent or rolling their eyes at a last-minute request from one of Daphne’s clients.

“Sometimes,” she said.Every day. “Here and there.”

“I would be the first person to tell you to climb that tree,” Kim said. “You know I would. But doesn’t it make it awkward now that you work together?”

Daphne took a sip of her drink, grimacing a little when the ice crashed against her teeth. “It’s…complicated,” she said.

“Complicated like…you’re hooking up?”

“No!” Daphne said, a little too forcefully. People at a nearby table glanced over, trying to see what the commotion was about. “No,” she repeated, quieter this time. “Nothing like that. We just, you know. Talk.”

“Why doesgetting on a planemake him think of you?” The way Kim said it, it was almost like there was some innuendo in the question.

“The flights can be long, he gets bored, sometimes we text,” Daphne said. “That’s it.”

“Ah,” Kim said. “I’m starting to understand all those ‘late nights’ you’ve been working.”

Now Daphne was legitimately annoyed. She didn’t know how many times she had to repeat herself, but she was also conscious that the more she did, the more it sounded like she was hiding something. And shewashiding something. Just not that.

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