Chapter Eighteen

Daphne set her phone next to her on her pillow. It would be better if she could forget he was even there, that he could hear her.

The fact that he could hear her would be what got her off.

She slid her hand under the waistband of her pajama pants, into her underwear. She wasn't surprised to find herself already wet, sensitive to the tiniest pressure of her fingers. They hadn't explicitly talked about him taking care of himself, too, but she liked to think that he was—that he was hungry and aching on his side of the phone the way she was on hers. She turned her head, trying to listen for any sounds coming from him, when she rubbed the crest of her clit in a rough circle and let out a whimper.

"Fuck," he groaned, and she tilted her head back, lips parted as she applied more pressure to that same spot. He was definitely also getting off.

It should've shocked her, some of the images that flashed through her mind as she touched herself. Briefly, she thought about something else, anything else, so she didn't have to feel guilty later about all the ways she'd thought about him. She thought about that first night she'd started officially working for the Battery, when he'd handed her that clip. She imagined him being the one to tug her dress close to her body, fisting the fabric in his hand until he could look down and see every curve outlined through the material. She thought about him spitting, she imagined him spitting on her, right between her legs.

It was useless to resist these thoughts. She gave in to them, gave in to the heat building at the base of her spine, crying out when it finally exploded in a way that was decidedly not quiet.

Afterward, she lay on her back, breathing heavily, her hand still resting on her lower stomach as she recovered. Through the phone, she could hear Chris grunt his own release, and the sound sent a flutter through her that almost made her want to reach back down and go again. Then she heard him say her name—only it wasn't really her name.

"Duckie?"

She pushed off the bed, leaving her phone on the pillow while she headed into the bathroom to wash up. When she caught sight of herself in the mirror, her cheeks were flushed and her hair was tangled and wild around her face. She'd never even pulled her pants down or reached for one of the toys she'd started keeping in her nightstand drawer. The whole thing had taken, what, five minutes? It felt like a fever dream, and her body was still hot with fever.

By the time she got back to her phone, the call was still open but new text messages had come in.

C: That was…fuck.

C: You there?

C: Duckie?

Her hands were trembling slightly when she picked up the phone, reaching over to grab one of her earbuds to put in, which she probably should've done from the start.

D: Here, sorry.

C: Everything good?

That was almost too big a question to answer. But she knew he was referring specifically to what they'd just done, and she didn't want him to think she hadn't enjoyed herself there when she had. She definitely had.

D: Yeah, all good.

Over the phone, he cleared his throat. "Can you still hear me?"

Yeah.

She expected him to say something else, but there was such a long pause before he spoke again that it managed to surprise her a little. "Can I ask you a question?" he asked finally.

Okay.

"What's…" He stopped, as if needing to regroup before he got the question out. "What's actually going on here? What are we doing?"

It was basically what Kim had been asking her earlier that night, and Daphne didn't have an answer now any more than she had then. She knew she was getting in dangerously deep, where she might not be able to pull herself out. She also didn't know that she wanted out. It was a confusing place to be.

"I understand being cautious online," he said. "Believe me, I do. My agent doesn't think I should be talking to you at all…"

He'd talked to his agent about her?

"And Randy has some elaborate theory about how you're either some Russian mail-order bride or else a Russian bot trying to hack the election through my phone? It's honestly a little confusing and I don't know where he got Russia from in the first place."

He'd talked to Randy Caminero about her? She'd just interviewed the guy about an amazing double play he'd turned to end a game. She could actually hear him going off about Russian bots, and the idea made her smile. Then her smile dropped again, as she thought about the implications of this. Fuck, she was in so deep.

"The point is," Chris continued. "You won't tell me your name—a Googleable, verifiable version of your name. Meanwhile you know exactly who I am. We're on the phone right now and you won't talk to me. I just heard you come and I've barely heard your voice. I've offered to get you tickets to a game—I would love to get you tickets to a game. I would love to meet you, wherever or whenever that has to be. Even just as friends, although you know I'm interested in you as more than that. And sometimes I get the impression you're interested right back. I don't know what to do with what we just did if you're not interested back. Maybe I shouldn't have said any of this, maybe I'll feel stupid in the morning. But do you see where I'm coming from? Or am I completely off base here?"

She squeezed her eyes shut. Everything he was saying made perfect sense. It wasn't fair for her to keep playing these games with him when he'd been nothing but honest with her.

She could say it, right now. Speak into the phone and just say, My name is Daphne…and let that fall into place. Or she could say, At first I didn't want you to know I was your heckler, but now I don't want you to know that we work together…

But then she thought of him in real life. He was hard to read. She couldn't tell how he felt about her, the sideline reporter, Daphne Brink. He'd been kind to offer to help her out, and he'd seemed sincere. He'd given her a few legitimate pieces of information, from the Battery's home run celebration to where to stand to avoid getting hit by a foul ball. But it's not like he'd seemed into her. She was just a person he had to deal with as part of his job, and for all she knew, he still resented it.

I think I should tell you about my divorce, she typed. But it's probably easier if we're both just texting.

"Oh," he said, almost like an involuntary verbal tic, like if she hadn't happened to have him on the phone like this she wouldn't have known that was his first reaction at all. "Okay. I guess I'll…hang up now?"

She hung up first. But once she did, she still didn't know how to start. After a few minutes, a new message popped up on her screen.

C: Was it bad?

She thought she knew what he meant. Was her marriage abusive, maybe, or even just was the divorce messy. She wanted to answer no—it wasn't like Justin had hit her, and once she'd made the decision to end things it had been a fairly clean break, as far as the logistics went. But then she didn't know if no told the whole story, either. Being with Justin had made her feel claustrophobic and small, and she was still working through the aftermath of that.

D: He was my brother's best friend. Is my brother's best friend, I guess I should say.

C: That must be hard. Him still having a role in your life.

So far, Daphne had been able to largely avoid Justin, but she knew she wouldn't be able to forever. She'd go over to visit the new baby, and there he'd be. Cookouts at her brother's house, Thanksgivings when Justin didn't travel to see his own parents…she didn't relish the thought of having to deal with him in all those situations.

D: I had such a big crush on him, growing up. When we finally got together, it felt like a dream come true. Like something out of a movie.

This was the easy part to explain. Daphne was almost ashamed of how proud she'd been of her and Justin's "love story," how much she'd loved to tell it to people. It was what happened after that was harder to talk about.

D: Looking back, I think that's what drew him to me. He loved how much I loved him, if that makes sense. Like, have you ever seen Sixteen Candles?

C: It's been a long time. I don't remember it as well as Pretty in Pink. But yes, I've seen it.

D: Jake Ryan is SUCH a catch, right? He's so dreamy, and he spends the whole movie trying to find out more about Sam. But if you think about it, one of the only things he ever says about her is that it's kind of cool, how much she's always looking at him.

C: Doesn't he also send his actual girlfriend home drunk with a kid he just met?

D: Yeah, and says, "Have fun." Literally this guy is the worst. But the actor is beyond hot, so somehow Jake Ryan still gets to be a certified dreamboat even decades later.

C: I take it you're the Sam in this scenario.

D: Basically. And maybe that wasn't fair to him, either, maybe I loved a version of him I put on a pedestal rather than the real person. But at least I tried.

C: And he didn't.

D: I started to realize that we were always watching whatever new show he was into, or going out with his friends. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind doing either! But it was almost like he didn't care to be alone with me, except for, you know. And even that felt like it didn't matter that it was ME specifically, just that it was a warm body.

She couldn't believe she'd typed all that. She hadn't necessarily planned to get into the nitty-gritty of her sex life with Justin, but it had ended up being a big part of what went wrong. It had been one area where she couldn't deny she was unsatisfied, even to herself.

C: I hate that he made you feel that way. Did you ever talk to him about it?

D: A few times. We even tried one counseling session, but he got angry and said the therapist was a quack and we never returned for the second appointment. We didn't cancel it, either, so we still got charged two hundred dollars.

C: Ouch.

She felt like she was losing the thread of what she was trying to say. She could tell a thousand stories about all the little moments that had added up, like tiny paper cuts that you could shrug off until all of a sudden you were covered with them. The times she'd shared an idea of something she wanted to do, and he'd pointed out all the reasons why she wouldn't be able to. The times she'd worn a new outfit or gotten her hair styled, wanting to try a new look, and he'd made her feel self-conscious and stupid. The times she'd lain on her back, staring at the ceiling, while he'd fallen asleep next to her without seeming to notice or care that she was obviously not happy.

D: It was my fault. I recognize that. I felt misgivings about marrying him on our wedding day, on the day he proposed. But I kept thinking it would get better. That the more he got to know me, the more he'd eventually love me.

C: You wanted the relationship to work. That's nothing to beat yourself up about.

D: I feel like such a failure. Our last big fight came because of this board game we played over at one of his friends' houses. I can't remember the name, but it was one of those where you try to guess how someone else will answer a question, almost like a Newlyweds style game. It was us and two other couples, and I don't know, I guess they thought it would be fun.

C: Already the idea of this game is making me break out into stress hives, but go on.

D: Right? So much pressure, because no one wants to be the couple who doesn't know each other as well. And then he missed literally EVERY SINGLE QUESTION about me. My favorite color. My biggest fear. My least favorite place I've traveled. And okay, it's not like they make you take a survey to get your marriage license, but his answers were so off I actually thought he was trolling me.

C: But turned out he was just an oblivious prick?

Daphne snorted at that one. She shouldn't encourage the shit-talking, probably, but damn. It felt good to see Chris lay it out like that.

D: We got into a huge argument in the car on the way home. Basically, it retreaded familiar ground about how I felt like he didn't care, he said I was being overly sensitive and reading too much into it, and on and on. Only this time we said stuff we couldn't take back. He said that maybe my problem was that I wasn't "interesting" or "charismatic." And I said I wanted a divorce.

The phone lit up with a call, vibrating in her hand, and Daphne automatically tapped the screen to accept the call before she could even question if she should.

"First of all," Chris said right away, not bothering with a hello. "Fuck that guy. Second of all—no, second, fuck that guy. That's a horrible thing to say to someone, much less your wife. Not to mention, it's categorically untrue."

Daphne had started to cry. She didn't want to—she hoped it wasn't obvious over the phone, although she had a feeling that her shaky breath was probably a dead giveaway. "Not completely untrue," she said in a ragged whisper.

She wasn't uncommonly beautiful. Her biggest hobby was to read, the most solitary of acts, and even her attempts to connect with people about books fell flat, if her weak social media presence was anything to go by. Until she'd had this incredible stroke of luck, her job had been solitary and boring, as well, and even now that her job was probably the most interesting thing about her, she felt like she didn't deserve it. She hadn't earned it.

She didn't even deserve this, right now. Talking to Chris, having him take her side and be kind to her. But it was also hard to deny herself, when it felt so good to hear.

"I've been drawn to you from that very first message," he said now. "I still remember what it said. You said you were having to stay aggressively in the present, and maybe that was what those yoga influencer accounts had been saying this whole time. I liked the way you phrased that—aggressively in the present—and the influencer part made me laugh. Actually laugh, out loud, on the plane. I couldn't remember the last thing that had made me laugh in the few months before that."

She gave a shaky laugh herself then, pressing the back of her hand to her nose, trying to stop it from running without getting snot all over herself. Eventually she had to reach for tissues she kept next to the bed, putting the phone on mute while she blew her nose. On the other end, Chris was quiet, too, almost like he could tell she needed a minute to get herself together.

"God," he said finally. "I hate that I'm not there. I hate that I can't really see you, and talk to you, and tell you what that message and all the others since have meant to me. Not interesting or charismatic? That guy is a troll. I hang on every single word you say. And more importantly, Duckie, you have a good heart. You reached out to me when you didn't even know me, just because you saw I was hurting."

Daphne closed her eyes. He couldn't have picked a worse thing to say.

"I have to go," she said, and hung up. She tossed the phone toward the end of the bed, where it bounced off her mattress and onto the floor. If she'd cracked the screen, it would only be fitting.

She couldn't do this. It was getting out of hand. So she'd developed a crush on Chris Kepler. She'd get over it. She could extricate herself from the online relationship, keep the in-person relationship strictly professional, and move on. Kim had been right—this was a complete disaster.

But when she retrieved her phone, she saw that there was a new message in her texts. She knew it had probably hurt his hand to type it, and she felt terrible about that, too.

C: I'm sorry if anything I said made things worse for you. You're not a failure. You're the opposite, in fact, because you were able to see that you were unhappy and do something about it. That takes a lot of guts—guts I wish that I had sometimes. And I'm sorry if I'm moving too fast for you. I know things are a little complicated because of your divorce, my job, etc. I just really like you. I have from that first message.

Daphne couldn't just ghost him. That would be the easiest thing to do, but a true coward's way out. She had to figure out how to do things the right way, give him some closure. But she knew she wouldn't be able to figure it out tonight.

D: Good luck at your game tomorrow. Thanks for talking with me.

C: Anytime.