Chapter Ten

Daphne stared at the glowing screen of her phone. She'd already been in bed when he'd texted her, but since sleep regularly eluded her for hours after she lay down, she hadn't seen the harm in texting a little.

It had started out innocently enough, talking about music. She'd enjoyed listening to the song he'd sent her, and sharing a song with him. There'd been that brief moment, when they'd been talking about dancing, and she'd tried to turn it into something else. But he hadn't responded right away, and she'd felt silly…what was she trying to do, sext with him?

Then he'd made that comment about bringing her boyfriend to a game, and she'd started spinning out. Was that a sign that he was interested in her that way? Or maybe it was a sign that he wasn't…that he assumed she'd already have someone and wasn't bothered at all by that idea.

On top of that, she felt a weird guilt not explaining about the divorce, like she was withholding information when she said she was single. Kim had coached her through this already when they'd been signing her up on dating apps. It was nobody's business what was in her past, Kim had said, and she could choose to share that information whenever she felt comfortable and not a second before. And yet Daphne couldn't shake the feeling almost like she was doing something wrong, even though she wasn't with Justin anymore, hadn't been for a while, and knew she never would be again. That feeling went away eventually…right?

She was already lying to Chris about so much, she had a weird need to be brutally transparent about at least one major thing in her life. Maybe it would cool any interest he might feel toward her, but maybe that was a good thing. Maybe she didn't want him to be interested.

Actually, I'm divorced.

Oh, who was she kidding. She wanted him to be interested.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," she muttered, pulling the covers over her head as if to trap herself in some kind of protective fort. Only her phone was in there, too, so really the call was still going to come from inside the house on this one.

C: Oh.

C: Sorry, I don't quite know what to say. My first instinct was to say, "Cool," but something tells me that's not it?

She huffed a laugh that fogged her phone screen in her little covers fort.

D: That's not bad, actually. A lot of people respond that they're sorry to hear it, which is nice, but awkward when you want to be like, "Don't be! I'm not!"

She hoped that wasn't too negative. She tried really hard not to shit-talk Justin openly…except to Kim, of course, who'd had a front-row seat to Daphne's feelings. She believed that Justin might make someone a decent husband one day. It just hadn't been her.

D: What about you?

C: I've never been married.

She rolled her eyes. That kind of information she would've expected his Wikipedia to cover. Whether he was currently dating anyone, on the other hand…

C: And no girlfriend right now.

Daphne felt something behind her rib cage lift, before dropping down into her stomach again. It was irresponsible to be talking to him at all, much less like this.

She wanted to keep talking to him. She wished she could go back in time, handle everything differently from that very first message. Maybe if she'd come clean right away…but then maybe he wouldn't be talking to her at all.

The best thing she could do now would be to either confess, or to break this off before it became something. Already it was starting to feel like something.

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 was nice to 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 about compromise, 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 to try to 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 been serious about 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 for this, 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 the nick of 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."

"Still," Layla said. "You have some experience, and at least at one point, this was something you wanted to do. So why didn't you?"

"I—" She thought about how many times Justin had told her that those kinds of jobs were nearly impossible to find, how she should think about where her talents were. You can write up those little blog posts in an hour, and get fifty bucks a pop. Hell, that's more than I make.

She'd tried to explain to him how the math didn't always work out in her favor—when they took more than an hour, when she was in between jobs, when she had to chase down payments or not get paid at all. But somehow Justin had managed to make her feel like her dreams were too big but also pathetic and small, all at the same time.

"I had a hard time finding a job," she said finally, opting for a neutral truth. "You know how it is."

Layla grimaced. She certainly did know how it was, which was no doubt why she was so keen to do anything to ensure stability in her current gig. And Daphne definitely didn't want to do anything to mess that up. If Layla wanted her to do this, and believed that she could, well…she still thought she might crash and burn, but she guessed she could give it a try.

"At least we have a while to get ready," Daphne said, trying to put a brave spin on it.

But to her surprise, Layla burst out laughing. "Oh, honey," she said. "It's the pregame segment they'll air tomorrow, which means you'll shoot it after the game tonight. That's why I asked you to bring all your stuff over. We're going to get you camera-ready in the next three hours."

Daphne clutched her duffel bag to her chest as if she were planning to make a run for it. Today? She was going to be on camera today and all they'd told her was to bring fucking donuts?

She was going to see Chris today. She would have to talk to him, and not behind a phone screen, not under a veil of anonymity, but as herself. The Heckler.

She couldn't do it.

Layla must've read the play of emotions over her face, because she gave her a gentle smile. "You've got this," she said. "We can role-play and I'll coach you through it. But first, let's figure out what you're going to wear."