Page 97 of Wild Catch
“Hi Logan, Rosalina, my name is Reynaldo and I’ll be your photographer today.” He first shakes my hand and then Rose’s. “Were you briefed already on the kind of photoshoot this is?”
“Yes,” Rose chimes in with a smile. “We’ll reenact one of our videos that went viral, the one where I was recorded interviewing Logan.”
“That’s right, but also…” Reynaldo smirks a little. “We’ll have to offer some fan service.”
I do my best to stifle a sigh, but every single person around me can read my mind, or so I guess from their shared amusement. Even Rose.
Motioning at myself, I ask in a deadpan, “What should I remove?”
“Your agent made us include a clause to keep your pants on, does that help?” Winters asks, doing her best not to laugh at me.
“She gets to keep everything on, right?” I ask Winters while pointing at Rose.
“Yes. She’s not the athlete we’re showcasing here,” Reynaldo explains. “Though, we definitely would like a few shots of you two just being a normal couple.”
I catch myself in time before snorting. There is nothing normal or couple-like between us.
“Like what?” Rose tilts her head at the photographer.
Dude waves his hand in a no-biggie kind of way. “You know, a little flirting, light kissing, that kinda stuff. Nothing terrible that kids can’t see.”
Kissing?
I look at her from the corner of my eye. Her smile has frozen and sure enough, she slides the exact same look back at me.
“Kissing…” She trails off.
“Shall we get started?” Reynaldo signals at me. “Logan, first I’d like to get some action shots of you in full gear practicing with your teammates. Then when you work up a sweat we can move on to the shirtless takes.”
I nod, disinterested but cooperating because I don’t want any backlash for my partner-in-lie.
“In the meantime, I want you to act like you’re recording him for your videos,” he instructs to Rose. “I’ll stand at a distance and capture you both. Does that sound good?”
“Of course!” Rose is all rainbows and sunshine about this, confirming why I have to play nice. This is all for her benefit and not mine.
We end up using the minutes it takes to put on all my catcher gear to start the whole thing. Rose starts a conversation with me about what we’re going to eat after the photoshoot and I play along as the photographer starts snapping pics. I guess this must count for the flirting part, but with literal lenses pointed at me, I can’t ask her what we’re going to do about the kissing part.
Too soon I jog out to the field. The rest of the guys are in the middle of fielding practice, so I head over to the bullpen where it should be quieter. This forces the practice to pause for safety—no one wants fly balls conking someone’s head, and especially notSPORTYpeople’s heads when they’re the team’s biggest sponsor. But the entire team and staff know that today is going to be disruptive with this whole thing and that the sooner we get through it, the sooner we can all get back to real practice. So the pitching coach immediately finds me one of the rookies to throw balls at me so I can pretend like I’m doing what I get paid for.
“Throw slow, I need to watch out for the guests,” I tell the rookie before crouching into position.
Meanwhile, Rose is off to the side, her cellphone up as she pretends to record me. And then there’s Reynaldo and his two assistants pointing reflectors at us for the pictures. It’s ridiculous.
And yet, that’s the easiest part of the whole thing. Where it starts to get dicey is when Reynaldo notices that some weak pitching isn’t enough to make me break a sweat, and that I’ll need makeup assistance.
Practice goes to shit after that, because I’m taken to the dugout to divest of my catcher gear—and my top—so that a makeup artist can oil me up. The catcalling is pretty deafening.
“Hey, you missed a spot!” one of the guys instructs at the poor woman who is rubbing baby oil on my chest with surgical gloves on her hands.
She takes it seriously and observes my chest to find whatever spot that jerk refers to. As she rubs even harder, I’d give her props for being a professional if it wasn’t because her entire face is flaming red.
I lift my eyes from her, ignoring my heckling teammates, and I can’t find Rose right away. I tense, wondering if she abandoned me to these wolves, finally sick of this entire mess.
But then I find her standing next to Reynaldo, watching as the makeup artist runs her hands over my stomach.
Rose’s brown eyes are dark as she watches every motion. It’s too far to hear what the photographer says to her but I’m a pro at reading lips. He’s telling her not to be jealous, that Carly—I assume that’s the makeup artist—is a professional and she’s not really groping her man—Rose’s.
First, Rose is not jealous. Like me, she’s probably just wondering why I couldn’t oil myself up. Second, I’m not her man. At this point, Rose would probably like to toss me over a bridge on I-4.
