Page 77 of Wild Catch
The fact that she’s asking such a polite question while her pretty face is still scrunched up in severe anger does something to my chest. Something snaps, something that had me as tightly wound as a spring, and suddenly I can breathe easier, my shoulders relax and so does my jaw.
“Well?” she presses.
I blink hard. Run my tongue across my lips. What the hell just happened?
“None. I could eat an elephant,” I respond with a voice that doesn’t sound mine.
“Great.” It almost sounds sarcastic. She points to the side. “I’ll order the food and you find us a table.”
“Rose, I—” I reach for my pocket with jerky movements. “I should get the food. It’s the least I should?—”
She stops me by just raising her palm. “Trust me, you’re getting a fair bargain. The hardest part is finding where to sit.”
“Fine.”
I leave her to queue up and head over to the oversee the expanse of plastic tables and chairs. This food truck must be really popular because the place is packed, forcing me to peek into how far along people are into their meals to guesstimate how much longer they might take.
“Logan Kim?”
My head whips to the source of the question. A guy gets up from his seat nearby, grinning up at me in that way that fans have when they spot one of their favorite players. I unfurl my arms to adopt the more friendly postures I had to learn after fans kept complaining online that I was a jerk. I still am, I just try to mask it better.
“Hey, yeah,” I say in a calm voice, hopefully denoting openness.
“Whoa. Guys, this is the best catcher in the world right now,” he says to his friends congregated around two tables that are stuck together.
I’m not the best catcher in the world, just the top All-Star catcher right now. But there’s no need to correct an enthusiastic fan who also seems a bit tipsy.
“For real?” one of the friends asks, completely surprised. Clearly not a baseball fan.
Another one, a woman, also gets up. “Wow, can we get a selfie?”
“Uh, sure,” I say.
Next thing, I’m surrounded by a bunch of strangers as one of them angles a cellphone camera to snap a few selfies. I do my best to smile but I’m completely overwhelmed. The bodies of a bunch of strangers sticking to me isn’t my idea of fun after a rollercoaster of a night.
Suddenly, like drawn by a magnet, my sight travels the distance to spot Rose as she approaches. She tilts her head at me and I don’t know how, but I can read her mind from clear across the tables—and she’s asking me if I’m okay.
I hesitate. I don’t want to put her on the spot again, but I amnotokay. I am so not freaking okay. I was on the mend until these people surrounded me and now I’m regressing, my lungs constricting, my jaw tightening.
So I take a leap of faith and I answer back with a minuscule shake of my head.
Rose immediately picks up the pace. When she’s close enough, she calls out, “Babe, are there no tables?”
There’s thebabeagain. Instead of cringing, I fling it right back. “Sorry, babe.” To the fans surrounding me, I say, “Excuse me, I have to get back to my girlfriend.”
The woman from earlier who didn’t seem to recognize me gasps. “Wait, I have definitely seen you somewhere.”
“Oh, hi.” Rose gives a little wave. “I’m the baseballer’s girlfriend.”
I swallow hard. If only.
No, I can’t go down that path.
What the hell is happening to me?
“That’s right! I saw you on TikTok.” The woman snaps her fingers.
Slowly, with careful movements, I extricate myself from the mass of people—but right as I think I’m free, a hand stops me.
