Page 5 of The Art of Catching Feelings

“Layla, no,” he said. “She’s under contract. But me…”

He drew out the last word, and she wished she could tell if he was playing it up to make her feel bad, or if he really was worried.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’ll make it better. I’ll do anything to make it better.”

He gave a snort that was far from encouraging. “Good night, Daph.”

After hanging up, she tortured herself by watching the video again with no sound, and then scrolling down the comments before giving up. The gist was either that she was an obnoxious bitch who disrespected the game, or that he was a crybaby loser who disrespected the game. No matter what, commenters were positive that the game had been disrespected.

She wondered if he’d said anything about the incident. Her thumbs hovered over her phone, not even sure where to start, but eventually she just searched his name and filtered the results to the most recent.

At the top was a clip from an interview he’d apparently done with Layla after the game. One of the other side effects of Daphne leaving early—she hadn’t even been able to see her sister-in-law other than a brief wave before the game started. She wasn’t super close with Layla—not because she didn’t want to be, but just because her sister-in-law was intimidating as hell.

Chris looked uncomfortable in the video, his body language closed off. Daphne heard Layla’s familiar voice saying, not unkindly, that he’d seemed emotional, and what was going through his head in that last inning?

“They played us tough,” he said. “I’m still making adjustments to my swing, and I know I wasn’t at my best on the field. I’ve already talked to Marv and some of my teammates, and we know what we have to do in this upcoming road trip.”

It was the most nonanswer Daphne had ever heard. But she was surprised by his voice—it was smooth and deep, the kind of voice you wished would narrate an eighteen-hour audiobook about a sweeping multigenerational saga. Something about him, in fact, gave her the impression of a 1940s soldier about to ship off to the German front. Maybe it was the short, utilitarian cut of his brown hair, or the hard line of his jaw.

“Chris,” Layla said, her voice even gentler. Daphne had neverheard her use that tone before. They’d been out to a restaurant and had people turn around and glare at their table before; that’s how loud Layla usually was. “I have to ask—what happened before that last at-bat? Did a fan say something to upset you, or—”

If he looked uncomfortable before, it was nothing compared to the way he seemed now. His eyes cut to the side, almost like he was looking at someone off camera. Maybe he wanted someone to end the interview, if that was a thing you could even do. Daphne had no idea how that all worked.

“It’s baseball,” he said. “You want to win and it can get emotional. But I’m grateful to our fans for coming out and supporting us. I hope to earn that support as the season goes on. Thanks so much.”

And with that, he was walking away, back toward the dugout, where only a few players remained. It was almost impressive, how little he’d managed to say. The way he’d left the interview felt casual, normal, like he was always supposed to talk to Layla for exactly twenty seconds and that’s how much he’d done.

Somehow Daphne knew that wasn’t true.

She sat up in her bed now, drawing her robe tighter around her. If she was going to creep on Chris Kepler’s social media, she’d feel self-conscious flashing his Instagram feed. She found his account easily—the unimaginative combination of his name and his number, with a little verification check to prove it was the real him.

It was a nice-looking feed. Professional. Literally professional; she assumed the team had someone who took all these photos of him, crouched down by third base, on the run with his batting helmet flying off his head, leaning against the dugout with a teammate. There were no captions on any of the pictures except a short video posted last year, the crack of the bat as he hit a home run that apparently had won them the game.

This feeling, the caption said.

She scrolled back to the picture of Chris in the dugout. It was from last season, as most of the pictures seemed to be. In it, he was smiling, crinkle lines around his eyes. The guy she’d seen earlier that day, the one from the interview, didn’t look like he’d ever smiled a day in his life, but here was proof that he had.

Daphne knew what it felt like to have a bad day, a bad month—hell, a bad year. She knew that the YouTuber and commenters had a point; this was his job and he was paid well to do it. But she hated the idea that she might’ve added one more brick to the pile, kicked him when he was down.

She’d feel better if she could at least apologize, or explain. It was probably pointless—she doubted he ran his own Instagram account, and even if he did, he wouldn’t accept a random DM. But something made her click on the message button and start to type.

You don’t know me, but I wanted to reach out to

“Reach out.” God. She sounded like she was sending a business follow-up. She deleted the words and started again.

Hi. It’s me—I’m the problem

Maybe quoting song lyrics was too flippant.

I was at the game earlier—I was actually the one who

Paranoia kicked in that she’d accidentally send the message before it was ready, so she opened up her Notes app instead, figuring she’d type it there first and then cut and paste it over.

And she should probably lead with his name, even though it was what had kicked off this entire nightmare scenario in the first place.Chris, she added to the beginning of her message, and then leaned back against her pillows, her thumbs hovering over her phone while she thought about what to say.

THREE

Chris leaned his head back against his seat and closed his eyes. Beau had brought his Bluetooth speaker again, which meant that electronic music was pulsing through the plane like they were in a club flying thirty thousand feet. Earlier, one of the rookies had been sliding up and down the aisle on a flattened cardboard box like it was a sled. He’d come through on all the alcohol he was supposed to bring as one of his rookie duties, so everyone was in an indulgent mood. Or maybe just a mood to distract themselves from the fact that, thanks to today’s game, they were officially in last place in their division.

---