Page 38 of The Art of Catching Feelings

C: But it’s late. Sleep well!

The more she and Chris talked, the more of these threads appeared. The one where she wanted to tell him in person that she knew what he was going through, that she wanted to make his life easier, not harder. The one where she wanted to tell him over text that there was nothing more she craved than to hear his voice in her ear. She wished she could find a way to weave the threads together, but she couldn’t. Not without everything falling apart.

D: You, too.

SIXTEEN

The last time that Chris’ agent had flown down to Charleston to visit him in person had been…well, never. So the fact that she was there now was a little concerning, no matter how many times she said she’d been “in the area” anyway to talk to a new prospect.

He’d only met Suze a few times, in fact. She was in her early fifties, although she’d never claim it, an absolute powerhouse who was a partner at a small, boutique agency based out of New York. He’d had another agent at the start of his career, but had liked Suze as soon as he’d met her and made the switch after his former agent started taking longer and longer in between phone calls and emails. “With me, what you see is what you get,” Suze had said, and he’d actually believed her.

Suze’s father still held Nippon Professional Baseball records in Japan, and when it came to the sport itself Suze knew her shit. Unfortunately, she also had a laser-sharp detector for when a client was bullshitting her.

“What’s going on?” she asked point-blank after the waiter discreetly set their drinks in front of them. Chris knew this was one of the nicest restaurants in Charleston—there was a steak thatcost fifteen dollars anounce—although he’d never had any reason to go there. But he hadn’t been at all surprised when Suze made the reservation and told him to meet her there before heading to the ballpark.

“I’ve just been in my head a little bit,” he said. “I’m settling in. It’s still early in the season.”

“Well, keep in mind that you’re playing out the last year of your contract,” she said. “And the Battery could re-sign you, or…”

She gave an elegant shrug of one shoulder, not needing to finish that sentence. If Chris wanted to keep playing for the Battery—if he wanted a chance to continue playing in the major leagues, period—he’d need to show that he was an asset to a team. Right now, with his numbers…he wasn’tterrible. But he definitely wasn’t good, either.

“Maybe it’s for the best if we put out feelers to other teams,” she said. “You’d have more options in free agency.”

Something must’ve flickered on his face, because she set her sparkling water back down on the table with a sudden keen look in her eye. “Unless you’re set on trying to stay here.”

Now it was his turn to shrug, a little more awkwardly than she’d managed it. “I like Marv and the guys I play with. But I understand it might not work out.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Who’s duckiesbooks?”

Of all the possible questions she could’ve asked, that would’ve been at the very bottom of his list. It was so strange to even hear the Instagram handle come out of her mouth that for a minute he just stared at her, blinking.

“What?” he said finally.

“You deleted all your Instagram photos,” she said. “Thank you for that, by the way.”

He really couldn’t follow this conversation. “You’re…welcome?”

For the first time, he saw a flash of genuine irritation on her face. “Of course I’m not actuallythanking youfor undoing years and years of my work. Assistants’ work. Still. Do you think Coca-Cola would thank one of its employees for deleting all its branding files?”

“Well, in that scenario, I’d be the Coke.”

She stared at him like he was talking gibberish. He could explain further, get her to see how flawed and frankly kind of fucked up that whole analogy even was. He wasn’t a product engineered with some secret formula. He wasn’t a brand ambassador. He was a person, and yeah, okay, he was a professional athlete and that meant he had to play a certain role, but he’d neveraskedher to maintain his social media accounts.

But he knew that was beside the point now, and getting away from the main topic at hand. “I should’ve asked you first,” he conceded. “But I just need to get off social media for a bit. Take a hiatus. And when I do come back—ifI do—I’ll be changing the password and taking charge of my own accounts. I don’t recall saying you could read my messages.”

That was the only way she would’ve even known to ask about duckiesbooks.

If Suze was in any way chagrined at being called out, she didn’t show it. “I didn’treadanything in detail,” she said. “I don’t have time for that. But you granted me some control over your social media, and that means Icanaccess everything, including your messages. In the last ten days, I’ve seen you become aThere’s no crying in baseballmeme, had to talk to your manager about why you should do a special interview segment and then later why you walked out of said interview segment, seen you erase years of professional photographs from your feed, and then you haveonenew message chain and it’s with someone who seems to have come out of nowhere. I’m your agent, Chris. I care about your career, and Icare about you. Do you see why this would all seem concerning when put together?”

He did, actually. When she laid it out like that, it seemed obvious that he was on some kind of spiral. Who knew, a few days ago he might’ve even described it that way himself. And yet for some reason, he didn’t feel that way about it now. He knew he had a lot of work to do, but at least he felt hopeful.

“Everything’s fine,” he said. “I’m working on my swing with the hitting coach. I’ve been fielding well. I’m sorry that interview didn’t go the way anyone wanted it, but…”

He thought about her, the interviewer. His heckler. He realized he still didn’t actually know her name. There’d been a single daisy doodled in the corner of one of her notecards the day of that interview, and he remembered staring down at it until his eyes unfocused. He’d been so in his own head, and then later so up his own ass that he’d decided to go on that whole riff she’d overheard. He should offer to sit down for another interview, prove that he could be cooperative and available. A part of him evenwantedto. She seemed like she would be easy enough to talk to.

But he also couldn’t trust himself not to fuck it up again.

“I just need to make sure we’re on the same page,” Suze said. “That we’re both focused on the same goals. You’re allowed to have a personal life. From a branding angle, I wish youwouldhave more of a personal life.” She held up her hand, as if anticipating his retort to that. “I’m not saying you’re only a brand. I respect that you’re rethinking your social media presence. I really do. I wish you would havetalkedto me about it first…but ultimately those are your decisions to make. What Idon’tneed is to have to do a bunch of damage control because you’ve been sliding into some random person’s DMs.”

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