Page 26 of The Art of Catching Feelings
D: To be honest, the divorce did quite a number on me. I can’t even imagine dating anyone again.
A particularly egregious lie, given that she’d only recently started to imagine it. But a necessary one. She needed to put some distance between her and Chris Kepler. Milo, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with distance, and snuggled his warm body right over her chest, half blocking her view of the phone and practically smothering her under the blankets.
She threw off the covers and sat up, adjusting Milo into her lap while she checked the new text that had come in from Chris.
C: That’s understandable. Did you want to talk about it?
Fuck, it made it worse when he wasniceto her. Didn’t he know she didn’t deserve it?
D: I think I just need to go to bed. I appreciate it, though, seriously. More than you know.
She stroked Milo’s head, giving him a few little scritches under his chin. She’d gotten him only a week after she’d moved into the apartment, stopping into an animal shelter on a whim one day as she’d driven by. She’d always wanted a cat, but Justin had said he didn’t like the smell of a litter box, no matter how many times she’d promised she’d clean it out every day. Marriage was aboutcompromise, that’s what people always said, but you could keep compromising until suddenly you looked up and realized nothing about your life looked the way you wanted it to. Now, when she found herself feeling occasionally sad, Milo was a reminder—she wasn’t lonely. She was free.
D: FWIW I think it’s possible to do “Eye of the Tiger” in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way, not in a hubris way. Rocky’s the underdog after all, right? But no matter what you pick, I bet it’ll be great.
She put her phone on Do Not Disturb and resolved totryto get some sleep. But her mind kept churning all night, and it felt like hours before she finally drifted off.
—
Daphne showed up at her brother’s house the next day with a half-dozen donuts and a giant tote bag filled with her stuff, out of breath from trying to juggle everything from the car. Layla had called her and asked her to bring over her makeup and a few of her most professional outfits, and Donovan had piped up in the background and requested the donuts. It was such a bizarre combination that Daphne couldn’t figure out what was going on. They wanted to eat dessert together in style?
“Is everything okay with the baby?” she asked Donovan when he opened the door. It didn’t really make any sense that there would be an emergency and they would call her over with these specific requests, but until Layla had safely delivered, her mind would always jump there first.
“Everything’s fine,” Donovan said around a mouthful of donut. He’d already opened the box and selected the jelly-filled one she’d gotten just for him, bringing the rest back to his and Layla’s bedroom. Layla was lying back in their bed, a laptop propped up on a tray across her lap.
“So when they say bed rest, they mean literally,” Daphne said,looking around at the mess her brother’s normally neat bedroom had become.
“Oh, I can get up,” Layla said. “I do little stuff around the house, nothing that would exert myself too hard. But this is my new home office right here.”
“I call her Bed Lady,” Donovan put in.
“Clever,” Daphne said dryly. “So what’s with the makeup and clothes? Are you guys renewing your vows or…?”
Layla swatted at Donovan, who was standing far enough away to make the motion ineffectual. He probably knew the danger zone to avoid.
“I knew he wouldn’t tell you,” she said. “So, remember how I talked about you interviewing Chris Kepler? The network agreed it would be a great idea to film a pregame segment before tomorrow’s game. It’ll be a fluff piece, nothing hard, but you can address the heckling thing, show that it was all in good fun. They’re having me script some questions for you, and I can get you all prepped up.”
Daphne froze. Words were coming out of her sister-in-law’s mouth, but they made no sense. Layla had beenseriousabout that? And now they wanted her to be on TV?
“But I don’t know anything,” she said, then blinked, catching herself. “About baseball, I mean.”
“Maybe you had it right the first time,” Donovan said, a piece of donut tumbling out of his mouth and onto the carpet as he spoke. He scooped it up and put it back in his mouth. “Five-second rule.”
Daphne ignored her brother. “I can’t interview a baseball player on national television when I barely understand the sport in the first place.”
“Regional, not national,” Layla pointed out. “And that’s what I’m here for. I’ll tell you everything you need to know—which forthis, honestly, isn’t much. You’re not going to be talking to him about his five-four-three triple play.”
At Daphne’s nonplussed expression, Layla leaned over her laptop and started typing something, as if trying to pull up video of the referenced play right then and there. “This was last season,” she said. “The Marlins hit a line drive to Kepler, who gets the out at third, then turns it to second, who’s able to throw the guy at first out in thenickof time—”
Daphne held up her hands. “Please,” she said, “for the love of god, no more. See? This is exactly what I’m talking about. I’m so out of my depth here. Plus, I mean.”
She gestured at herself, like,look at me.
Layla gave her an appraising glance, then asked Donovan to leave them alone for a bit. After her brother had closed the door behind him, Layla set her laptop to the side to study Daphne closely.
“You studied broadcasting,” she said. “In college. You did like book reports for the university public access channel or something, didn’t you?”
Daphne shrugged. “Technically, I majored in communications. Broadcasting was just a part of my degree. I’ve never had any real experience, outside of covering some local events and interviewing a couple authors for the eight people who actually watched that channel.”
