Page 77 of The Art of Catching Feelings

But that was another thing he’d gotten farther away from this season. He realized that, other than the official things he’d done as part of the team, he hadn’t really made an effort to do anything with the community at all. It had been yet another casualty of his tunnel vision, his lack thereof, whatever. It was so much easier just to keep to himself.

“Sorry,” Daphne said. “This was a stupid idea. We can go.”

“No,” Chris said. “This is perfect. Do they know I’m coming?”

She winced a little, like she knew she was about to give the wrong answer. “No? I thought it would be a fun surprise.”

He grinned at her, unbuckling his seat belt. “Even better. I love surprises.”

He allowed himself only the briefest touch at the small of Daphne’s back as they walked through the parking lot, dropping his hand the moment they came in view of the fields. There was a ripple effect as he approached—it only took the first kid who clearly recognized him to point him out to a friend, and then the word spread until he heard some kid sayChris KEPLER!in an annoyed tone that suggested he’d already said it a couple times. For a few minutes there was a lot of commotion, with kids who were at other parts of the field running over and everyone trying to talk to Chris at once. He did what he could to say hello and respond to questions that were being shouted at him—Did he really play baseball? Was Gutierrez coming? Had he ever met Shohei Ohtani?—but it was overwhelming.

He was grateful when he saw the adult on the field heading over to him, hand outstretched to shake.

“Hi,” Chris said. “Sorry to just drop in like this. I’m Chris—”

“We know who you are, son,” the coach said. “I’m Coach Mike, and over there—”

“But whoisChris Kepler?” a kid said from behind Coach Mike, and the coach turned, the universal expression ofcould younot?on his face, but Chris just laughed and held his hand out to the kid, too.

“Third baseman for the Carolina Battery,” he said. “And this is Daphne Brink, the sideline reporter for the team. We saw y’all practicing and couldn’t help but stop in to see what you were up to. You guys were looking good out there.”

“We don’t have any cameras with us or anything,” Daphne rushed in to clarify, giving Coach Mike a friendly smile. “This isn’t an official visit. Just a drop-by.”

“Well, we’re honored to have you,” Coach Mike said. “We were just about to head to the batting cage, if you wanted to come show the kids how it’s done.”

He’d already started moving with the group over to a chain-link box built over to the side of the field, and Chris and Daphne fell into step next to him.

“He’s batting .218,” one kid from the back said, not in a disdainful way but just in a matter-of-fact way. Chris turned to look at the kid, who had straggly long hair to his shoulders and was all gangly legs and bony elbows. If he had to guess, he’d put the kids at about nine or ten years old.

“Shutup, Jonas.” This from a kid with curly hair poking out from under his baseball cap. Just from the way he held himself, the confident way he walked, Chris could already tell that he was a serious player. Probably a coach’s kid, or at least had a dad like Chris’, who expected him to give it his all every time he was out there whether it was batting practice or a Saturday-morning game or a championship. “You’re such a weirdo.”

“I’m impressed,” Chris said, addressing Jonas like the curly-haired kid hadn’t even spoken. “That’s myexactbatting average as of yesterday. You know your stats, Jonas.”

“You draw the second-most walks of anyone on the team and last year you led the team in steals,” Jonas said, before frowning,like he was thinking about something. “This year you’ve barely stolen at all.”

“I steal at least one base every single game,” the curly-haired kid piped in. Chris just bet he did. Little League was lawless—the kids weren’t adept enough yet to make quick judgment calls or accurate throws, so if you got on base you could almost always get an extra one at some point with fairly little effort. Chris had always been more of a contact hitter than a home run guy, but he was fast, and so he’d carried some of that mentality with him all through his playing career. If you got on base, you had to start thinking about how you might be able to stretch it.

“That’s awesome,” he said to the curly-haired kid, because even though he hadn’t particularly liked the way he talked to Jonas, he wasn’t about to be rude to a child. He met Daphne’s gaze over the kid’s head, and she smiled slightly, like she knew exactly what he was doing.

“Why haven’t you stolen more bases this year?” Jonas asked.

“Let’s lay off Mr. Kepler,” Coach Mike said. “He’s taking time out of his busy schedule to be here today, and—”

Chris waved him off. “No, it’s okay. And please, call me Chris. It’s a good question. I don’t really know why I haven’t attempted more steals this year, Jonas. Some of it is just opportunity—I haven’t been getting on base as much, so I haven’t had the chance. And when you have fewer chances, sometimes you take fewer risks. Sometimes you just don’t like the timing with that particular pitcher. Sometimes your coaches don’t want you to go for it. And sometimes…”

He locked eyes with Daphne again, suddenly sure that she knew exactly what he was thinking, that she could probably figure out a way to phrase it for an audience of children better than he could. Because although he’d never explicitly thought about it this way until now, wouldn’t have even made the connection if hehadn’t been talking about it, the truth was that stealing a base required a certain amount of full-steam-ahead confidence. A belief that you would make it to the next bag safely, and if you didn’t, well, it had been worth it to try. He hadn’t felt that way in some time.

“Sometimes you just need the right motivation,” Chris said.

THIRTY-FIVE

Chris ended up spending two hours working with the kids at the summer camp, running all the way up through lunchtime. Daphne didn’t know how he did it—after about half an hour, she got too hot to be out in the sun any longer, even though she’d just been standing there while Chris had been the one to throw balls for kids to hit during BP, hit balls for them to field. He’d paired with Jonas in a long-toss drill when Daphne begged off, going to sit in the dugout, where she could get some shade.

Coach Mike and the kids had split off to go eat lunch at the picnic tables over by the concession area. The summer camp provided a hot dog and chips, apparently, but Chris had paid for a round of Popsicles for the kids, and he brought one to Daphne in the dugout.

“I figured you for a red girl,” he said, handing it to her.

“You figured right.”

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