Page 66 of The Art of Catching Feelings
—
By the time the Battery was on the road again, Chris had made several decisions. First, he couldn’t do batting practice at his dad’s anymore. It wasn’t helping him; it hadn’t helped him for a while. It was more for his dad than for him, and it wasn’t a sacrifice he was willing to keep making.
He also realized hedidcare where he ended up next year. He knew the Battery wasn’t the best team in the league, knew it was possible he was just prioritizing what was comfortable over what was best for his career. But he was invested in this team. He respected his manager. He liked living in Charleston, wanted a chance to really be a part of something in this community. “You’re not giving me much to negotiate with,” his agent had said when he called to tell her that he really wanted to stay out of free agency next year. “I trust you to help convince the Battery that I’m still an asset,” he’d said. “Just do anything you can to keep me here.”
The final thing he decided was that it was fine if Daphne didn’t want to give him her number yet. He’d just have to earn it.
“Hey,” he said, leaning into Daphne’s hotel room once she’dopened the door. She’d just gotten out of the shower, her hair still wet and smelling like vanilla, her cheeks all pink. She was wearing the hotel’s fluffy white robe, her bare toes sticking out from underneath. She looked adorable, and he immediately wanted to kiss her.
She gestured him into the room, closing the door behind him, but she was backing away, holding the lapels of the robe tight at her chest. “Bad news,” she said, and his heart dropped into his stomach. Was she okay? She didn’tlooksick, but…you couldn’t always tell. Or was it something aboutthis, about their relationship? Someone had found out, she didn’t want to do it anymore, she’d met someone else.
She pulled a face. “The Red Sox are in town.”
Automatically, he ran through his mental Rolodex of matchups and schedules, remembering that Boston had a big divisional matchup this weekend. “They’re in Tampa,” he said. And why would that be bad news either way?
Daphne rubbed her eyes with one hand, giving a self-deprecating little laugh. “Sorry,” she said. “Trying out my baseball humor again. I just meant I have my period.”
“Oh.” It still took a minute for Chris to catch up. The only reason he could think of why that would bebadnews was if they were trying to get pregnant, which…suddenly he had a flash of images of Daphne, her belly swollen, Daphne, holding a baby. His chest clenched with a sudden ache, and he felt almost desperate to think about something else, anything else. It was outrageous, to have those kinds of thoughts about someone he wasn’t even in a relationship with. It was surprisingly painful, and he didn’t know why.
She was looking at him now, and he wondered how long he’d been standing there, silent in the doorway. “I’m feeling kind of crampy and tired anyway,” she said. “So it’s not going to be agreat night to get up to anything. This whole series, probably. Sorry.”
Chris wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to apologize. That despite whatever ground rules they’d established around hooking up, it had never had to be only physical for him. But he still didn’t know how she felt about all of it, so he figured it was better to play this one with soft hands.
“Want to watch a movie?” he asked. “We could see what’s on TV.”
She hesitated for a moment before giving him a nod. “Sure. I have to finish with my hair, if you want to find something.”
He settled in on the bed, grabbing the remote to start to flip through channels, but he kept getting distracted by her movements out of the corner of his eye. The room had one of those setups where the counter and sink were outside of the bathroom, and she had several products all laid out, spritzing her hair with a spray bottle before she put a dollop of cream in her hand and started spreading it through her curls.
“What’s all that?” he asked.
Daphne turned toward him. Her robe was gaping a little bit now, showing him the soft swell of one breast, almost exposing the nipple. He meant it when he said he was fine with not doing anything that night. If he was being honest, he was pretty exhausted himself, his body achy from the late game the night before and the flight today. But what could he say, none of it turned off the way he reacted to her.
“It’s the problem with curly hair,” she said. “If I don’t use the right shampoo, condition and moisturize it properly, get all the tangles out, it’s a nightmare.”
Chris loved her hair. He loved it when it was big and perfectly styled during the broadcasts. He loved it when she pulled it up in a loose bun on the top of her head with one of those elastic bandsshe always wore around one wrist. He loved it when it was sweaty and stuck to her neck while he was still buried inside her.
He tried to turn his attention back to the TV, flipping through channels without registering much of what he was seeing. “That must take a lot of time,” he said.
“It can,” she said. “But I kind of like that part. I didn’t use to take care of my hair like this—I just used whatever products were on sale and sometimes I blow-dried it for a special occasion and that was about it. It was one of the things that made me the most nervous about being on television. I didn’t really feel camera-ready, you know?”
Chris realized he’d never even thought about that part of this new job for her, how jarring it must’ve been to suddenly have to worry more about her appearance. He fixated on how he was playing, whether his glove had actually tagged an opposing player out at third before he touched the bag, whether he’d been stupid to take a big hack at a ball obviously in the dirt, ending up on one knee. He didn’t give a lot of thought to how helookedon camera.
“You’re always camera-ready to me,” he said. “If it makes any difference.”
He could see her smile at him in the mirror. “It’s been a benefit to the job, when you think about it. I used to feel like spending too much time on your appearance was vanity, or just a waste when you could be doing other things. But now I see the ways that it can be really good, actually. To take a little extra care with yourself, to give yourself something that’s just for you. After my div—”
She broke off, her fingers still caught in her hair where she’d been combing the cream through. Her eyes met his in the mirror, and she looked almost stricken.
“Go on,” he said.
She gave a brittle laugh, scrunching her curls with one hand before she finally started putting the products back in a clearplastic pouch propped up on the counter. “I feel like I’m in an infomercial,” she said. “Like I should be telling you all these products can be yours for the low price of nineteen ninety-five a month for twelve months. Sorry, this is so boring. Did you find anything good on TV?”
He turned his attention back to the television. Commercials, commercials, some religious programming. Then he stopped on a channel that was showingPretty in Pink. The movie was almost over, Molly Ringwald already in her prom dress.I’m Team The-Dress-Looked-Better-Before. He changed the channel, letting it sit on a commercial for talking to your kids about drug and alcohol abuse, the child actor’sLove you, too, Dadvoice-over plugged in where his lips didn’t even move.
“It’s not boring,” he said. “I’m interested. I don’t know that much about you.”
Once again, he had the impression that his comment somehow bothered her. She just gave a jerky shrug, then disappeared for a second before coming back wearing a white T-shirt,Carolina Batteryacross the front in script letters.
