Page 18 of Most Likely to Match
There’s something that happens to a ballplayer, a whole team, when they’re in a hitting slump. They grip their bats tighter; they lose their read on the ball. The longer a team goes in a game without a base hit, the harder they swing at soft contact and the wider the strike zone gets.
“They need to loosen their grip,” Dad would say, mimicking the swing of a bat. That one movement would bleed into the next, into their stance in the batter’s box, the speed of the ball as it leaves the pitcher’s hand.
If I bothered to tell Dad about any of this now, I think that’s what he’d say, that I need to loosen up, but I haven’t told him. It’s too embarrassing to tell a successful businessman, an entrepreneur himself, that I am failing and because of something so…stupid.
“Ready?”
I jump back, yelp. Dean stands in front of me, his thumb hooked into the strap of his messenger bag and a camera already hanging around his neck.
“Sorry.” He frowns, holding his hand out like he wants to steady me, but I step away.
“Sorry,” I say back.
He holds his camera up, half a smile on his face. “Ready?” he asks again.
And I nod.
Apparently, the main space of the Toronto Reference Library has “cool” light and “interesting” colors and textures, which is why he wanted to do the headshots here. And, apparently, he knows someone— a librarian, I assume— who works here and said it was okay for us to take photos today.
But also, and perhaps most importantly, he says I look “too tense”. He keeps taking a photo and then looking at the digital screen and frowning; keeps posing me— “chin up…no, not that high”— and then telling me to forget it.
“Do you want to try again later?” he asks.
“Am I that ugly?” I ask, mostly joking.
“You’re not ugly,” he says, seeming angry for the first time since we got here. “You just don’t seem into this.”
I look at my phone, which has been in my hand more than necessary for a photoshoot. Every time the screen lights up, I’m terrified I’ll see another email notification informing me of a cancellation.
“Listen, I know you don’t want to do the whole boyfriend-for-hire thing,” I say.
In response, Dean’s face goes blank.
“What if we took one photo? One I could use for the social media account?”
“No,” he says flatly.
“It doesn’t even need to have a caption,” I say. Maybe it could be enough to convince the clients who’ve left to come back. “It could be a soft launch.”
“No,” he says again, firmer this time.
“At this rate, there’s not going to be anyone left for you to coach,” I mutter.
Dean tutored me in French in high school. Languages have never been my strength. I’m nowhere close to proficient in French now, andI’m lucky I don’t have to use it at all living in Toronto, but I still remember some of it. “S’il vous plaît.”
“Don’t,” he practically growls.
Shit. “Sorry,” I say quickly. “I forgot.” Then flush, because that probably makes it worse. S’il vous plaît was what I’d say to him when I wanted to stop studying and make out but he didn’t. I almost always got what I wanted after that.
“Fuck.” I think if he could right now, he’d spit. His shoulders slump and he turns away from the second-floor landing, stomping to the stairs. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” I trail after him.
“Making us official, I guess.”
“Oh.” I run after him.
“Here,” he says, pointing down a quiet aisle on the fifth floor, in the general arts section. “This is fine, I guess.” His tone is annoyed, but his palm has been pressed to my lower back the entire trip up, a steadying presence.
