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Chapter Twenty

Of all nights for her car not to start, it had to choose that night. When she was at her most bone-tired and desperate to get as far away from the ballpark as she possibly could.

"Perfect," she muttered, trying to turn it over again. It made a sickening rattle before shutting back off, which meant…what? She tried to remember what her dad had taught her. If it was the battery it wouldn't start at all, right?

It didn't matter. Either way, she was looking at calling roadside assistance at best, giving up and paying for an expensive rideshare home at worst. The second option actually didn't sound that bad, if it meant she could get out of there.

She held her phone in her hand, finger hovering over the app, wondering if she should just bite the bullet. But she hated wasting all that money she didn't really have, when she paid an annual fee to get help in a situation exactly like this one. She opened up her roadside assistance app instead, opening a new service ticket to fill out all the information they needed.

She'd only gotten through two fields when a text popped up on her screen.

C: Hey, everything okay?

Oh yeah, everything was great. Only I've been stringing you along and feeling increasingly terrible about it.

C: I just got worried when I didn't hear from you.

And as if she needed any more proof that she was a terrible person, that had never even occurred to her. She typed a quick response into the text message box.

D: Sorry, everything's fine. I couldn't make it to the game, but I do appreciate the thought.

C: Okay.

Just when she thought that was all she would get—that single terse word, with the period after it, which felt sinister even though she'd already noticed that Chris largely respected punctuation and capitalization in his texts—he texted again.

C: I know I said I'd understand if you didn't come to the game tonight, but I realized I don't. Not because I'm mad, but just because I don't understand any of it. Are you still married?

Her first reaction was an incredulous denial—hadn't they talked in detail about her divorce just a few nights ago? But then when she thought about it, she realized that would make a lot of sense from his end. It was almost such a neat explanation that she briefly thought about just saying yes, and using that as her excuse to end things. But telling a lie to get out of another lie didn't feel like the right answer.

D: No.

She left it at that single word, figuring that any long-winded explanations would only get her in more trouble, or make him question her credibility. She expected him to challenge her further, but she didn't expect the text she got instead.

C: I don't think I can do this. Whatever "this" is.

She knew she had no right to be angry, but she also couldn't stop herself.

D: So everything you've said—about being okay to just be friends, about understanding if I wanted to take things slow—was just bullshit? Because I can't make it out to a game on short notice, that's it? I have a life, Chris. I might have plans that preclude me from being able to come to a ballgame at 7pm in the middle of the week. Ever think of that?

C: I get that you have a life. But you won't share that life with me, at all. If you had plans tonight, you could've texted back and just said, sorry, won't be able to make it. You didn't.

The fact that he had a point only perversely made her more upset. She should've responded to his text—it had been cruel not to. She'd just been so unsure of what to say, and then she'd gotten so wrapped up in her actual job covering the Battery that she hadn't been able to explain why she wasn't at the game…that she was, in fact, at.

C: I don't want to fight with you. I do understand if you're not ready for anything beyond anonymous texting. But it turns out that the anonymous texting thing is starting to be hard for me to keep up, so where does that leave us?

This was what she had wanted. Better, in a way, because he was the one calling it quits and she didn't have to feel guilty about being the one to pull away. So why did it feel so awful?

D: I guess nowhere.

C: Fair enough.

How could he say that, when nothing about this felt fair? And it was all her fault. She'd made a mess of this whole thing, and in that moment, her yearning to go back in time and do it all differently was a physical ache. Hot tears were sliding down her cheeks, but she didn't bother to wipe them away as she texted her response.

D: Take care, Chris.

The three dots bouncing up on the screen, then disappearing. He was typing. It was several minutes before the reply came in.

C: You, too.

Daphne was leaning against her steering wheel, no longer actively crying but still sniffling a little, when a knock came at her window and scared the shit out of her. Her elbow hit her car horn, making it bleat just as she let out a little scream. She looked up to see Chris taking a step back from the car, his hands in his pockets.

She rolled down her window.

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to startle you. Everything okay?"

It was the same question he'd asked her only half an hour ago via text. Or rather, he'd asked Duckie. Her alter ego that he was no longer speaking to.

"Fine," she said, resisting the urge to wipe at her eyes. She knew they were probably red and swollen, but she hoped that the parking lot was dark enough to conceal the evidence of her crying. "Just waiting on roadside assistance."

That was a lie, since technically she'd never submitted that service ticket. But she would, as soon as he left.

He shifted his weight to one foot, squinting out toward the other cars in the lot. There were still other people at the ballpark. She recognized Randy's sleek new sports car, Marv's giant SUV.

"Why don't you wait in the clubhouse?" he asked. "I can walk you over there and let you in."

"Oh," Daphne said, trying for a smile and hoping it came across as natural. "That's okay, but thank you. They'll be here any minute."

"I'll wait with you."

The absolute last thing Daphne wanted, especially given that it would probably be half an hour after she put in the ticket, if past experience was anything to go by.

"That's really not—"

"I'll just be over here." He gestured toward the space next to hers before walking away, leaning against one of the streetlamps as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. He checked it briefly before putting it away. His expression didn't betray anything that he might be thinking, and she was left wondering if their conversation had affected him as much as it had affected her.

She wanted him to care as much as she did.

She didn't want to have hurt him. Again.

It was all too confusing, and having him standing only a few feet away wasn't helping matters.

She started filling out the assistance form in the app, then got frustrated and decided just to call. After the technician had established that she was safe, she heard the clicking of a keyboard and then he came back on the line.

"We don't have any drivers in your area at the moment," he said. "It's going to be at least forty-five minutes, more likely an hour or so. Do you still want to request service?"

"What's my other option?"

She'd meant it as a rhetorical question, but the technician jumped in to explain. "If you're going to have the car towed to a service center, you can schedule that for tomorrow and someone can meet you out there. We can help arrange a rideshare if needed, although you will be responsible for any charges through that company. We can—"

"Okay," Daphne said, interrupting. "Never mind. I can figure it out."

"Are you sure? Because—"

"Yes," she said. "Thank you so much. You've been very helpful."

It wasn't his fault there were apparently no drivers in the entire Charleston area, after all. She hung up, taking another glance out the window. Chris was still there, leaning against the streetlamp. When he'd removed himself like that she'd thought maybe that was how little he wanted to spend any time with her—that some chivalrous impulse wouldn't allow him to walk away, but he'd be damned if he'd actually stick around to talk to her.

Only now did it occur to her that maybe he'd done it specifically to give her some space, to not crowd her.

She rolled down her window.

"I'm calling a rideshare," she said. "It should only be a few minutes."

"No worries." He hesitated. "Do you need a ride?"

That brief pause told her everything. She didn't particularly want to spend time in an enclosed vehicle with him, and she really didn't want to as some kind of obligation. "No, no," she said. "I got it."

She lived half an hour away from the stadium, which normally she didn't think of as that big of a deal. But when she put her destination into the rideshare app, all of a sudden the little car icons disappeared until there was only one, fifteen minutes away. Whatever. It was still better than waiting for roadside assistance, right, if it meant that she was home by the same time she would've still been waiting in the parking lot?

"Let me give you a ride," Chris said. While she'd been looking at the app, he'd come closer to her car, near enough that she could smell the faint scent of his soap when the wind blew the right way. It smelled like fresh aloe and summer, and she wondered randomly whether players brought their own soap or if they used whatever the clubhouse provided. This scent was very Chris in some way she couldn't define.

"It's kind of far," she said.

He took his car keys out of his pocket, seeming to sense that she was capitulating. "That's okay," he said. "I could use a drive."

For the first ten minutes, they didn't speak, except for Chris to ask where they were going. His car wasn't what she'd expected, not that she'd known what to expect. But maybe flashier, like what Randy had, or more luxurious, like Marv's. Chris' car was very clean, and obviously fairly new, but other than that it was just a regular car.

Once he'd merged onto the highway, he glanced over at her. "Are you cold?"

"Oh, no," she said, pulling at the hem of her skirt to hide the goose bumps that had broken out over her knees. "I'm fine."

But he reached over to turn the dial for the AC down a notch anyway.

"You're doing a good job, you know," he said.

"Sorry?"

He cleared his throat. "With the reporter gig. It's not easy…absorbing all that information, getting ready on the fly, knowing how to talk to everyone. You're doing a good job with it."

"Thank you," she said, a little surprised. "I know it came from ignominious beginnings."

The corner of his mouth twitched. "Ignominious," he said. "Yeah."

And for a while, that's all she thought they were going to say. He seemed content to just drive, and she had to admit that there was something almost peaceful about being in the car with him. He drove easily, one hand resting on top of the steering wheel, the other resting on the gearshift almost as though he were used to driving a manual. He used his signal light and didn't follow too closely or speed too much. She found herself staring out the window, watching the passing streetlamps and trying not to think about the way things had just ended with the very same man who was sitting so close she could feel the body heat coming off his arm.

"Why did you say that comment, about Christopher Robin?"

It actually took a second for her to catch up to what he was talking about. The incident that had started it all, and it seemed so long ago now. Like that had been another version of her entirely. She was so sick of all the different versions of herself.

"I don't know. I was drunk. I was trying to get into the game, and the guy next to me was shouting different stuff, but I didn't know much about baseball so I could only riff on people's names, and your name is Chris and the guy said you hadn't been hitting well, so…"

She shrugged awkwardly. A circle of hell should definitely be having to re-explain your unfunniest joke again and again until the end of time, because it was its own excruciating torture.

But he laughed, the sound low and husky and a little sudden, as though he'd surprised himself with it. "Your name should be Christopher Robin, 'cause you're hitting like Pooh," he said. "That's pretty good. Who says that at a baseball game?"

"To the home team, no less?" She groaned. "God, I wanted to die."

His smile fell, and she only thought about what she'd said after it was already out there. Her excuse for the heckling might've been the drinks she had, but there was no excuse now. She'd just been thoughtless and insensitive.

"I used to watch that movie so much as a kid," Chris said. "Winnie the Pooh."

"Really?"

"My brother called me Christopher Robin when we were young," he said.

"Aw," she said, hoping she didn't sound too strangled. "That's cute."

So that was the reason he'd cried. It made so much sense now. It made her heart hurt. She waited for him to say more about his brother, hoping that maybe he would open up to her—Daphne, not just Duckie—but he just signaled for the next exit and kept driving. She was conscious of the fact that they only had ten minutes left in the drive, and suddenly she was anxious to get him to keep talking.

"I'm sorry I had to ask you about that last play tonight," she said. She could tell he really hadn't wanted to talk to her, even more than normal—but it was to his credit that he'd stopped and done so anyway.

"It's your job," he said. "It's fine. I haven't had the best night."

"Neither have I," she said, more to the window than to him. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him glance at her, but she didn't turn her head. He pulled up to a red light, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.

"Just the car troubles, or something else?"

She did turn to look at him then, and was surprised to find him looking right at her. She had another one of those paranoid frissons up her spine, the sudden certainty that he knew. But of course that was ridiculous.

"You looked a little upset earlier," he clarified. "After the game."

"Did I?" she asked faintly. She hoped it hadn't come through on camera, but from what little footage of herself she'd actually watched, it probably had. She was still getting used to seeing herself in high definition.

She was still getting used to seeing him this close. If she really thought about it, it was wild, how only a month ago she wouldn't have known who Chris Kepler was. She wouldn't have cared. Once, only a couple months before she'd said she wanted a divorce, Justin had dragged her to some fan event, where a bunch of Battery players had been signing autographs. For all she knew, Chris had been there—she'd mostly stayed to the back of the crowd, fanning herself with a small paperback she'd pulled out of her purse. It had been unseasonably hot, and she'd gone home with a sunburn on her bare shoulders that had bothered her for a few days afterward.

"It's cool if you don't want to talk about it," he said. "I don't particularly want to talk about my night, either."

"Look at us, the life of the party," she said, then wondered if that was presumptuous somehow, putting them together in the same sentence like that. But he just glanced over at her, giving her a quick smile that didn't reach his eyes. The light turned green, and he turned his focus back to the road.

"You don't like giving interviews, do you," she said. It wasn't really a question, since the answer was already extremely obvious.

He shrugged. "I know I have to," he said. "And it's not always so bad. I like talking about baseball."

"Just not about yourself."

"I know it's a privilege to have this job, and to get to talk about baseball as part of it."

"Easy now," she said. "I don't have a microphone in my hand this very second. You don't have to give me any sound bites."

This time when he smiled, it did crinkle the corners of his eyes just a little bit. "I didn't use to be this bad," he said, then quickly looked over at her, as though he realized how that sounded. "It has nothing to do with you. Like I said, you're doing a good job. But suddenly I feel attention on me and I just…clam up. When we were sitting down to do that first pregame segment, everything was fine. And then out of nowhere, my heart started racing, I couldn't breathe. I felt like I was underwater, running out of air, and I just knew I had to get out of that interview and back to the surface."

His Adam's apple bobbed a few times, as if he was having trouble swallowing. "Like I said, nothing personal to you."

That definitely put that whole incident in context. She'd thought he hadn't wanted to be in the same space with the woman who'd heckled him, or that he'd been frustrated by her amateurish stumbling over the scripted questions. She hadn't known he'd been feeling trapped.

"It sounds like you had a panic attack," she said gently.

He glanced at her. "I've never had anything like that happen to me before. I even had the trainers check me out."

"What'd they say?"

"They said everything looked fine." He pulled a face. "They said it was probably stress. But who isn't stressed?"

Ain't that the truth. "Who would you talk to, though, about stress? Like, does the team have a sports psychologist or, I don't know, a counselor or something?"

It wasn't lost on her that she was basically re-creating the first conversation she'd had with him by text, after he'd told her about his brother. But she hadn't gotten a satisfactory answer then, and she couldn't help but bring it up again now.

"I'm sure," he said, then tightened his grip on the steering wheel. "We're off the record, right?"

The whole time they'd been talking, she'd barely remembered her role as a reporter, even though they'd literally referenced it several times. "Of course," she said, then gestured at her window. "It's a right at this next street, by the way. Then your second left into the complex with the palms strung with Christmas lights."

"?'Tis the season all year round, huh?"

She shrugged. "Makes it easier to give directions at least."

After he'd made those turns, she had to remind him of the apartment number and show him where to park in front of her duplex. She knew they'd lost the train of what they were talking about, which was a shame, because she'd thought maybe she was getting somewhere with him. But then she also thought about those last text messages, the finality to them, and reminded herself that actually they were going nowhere.

"This is me," she said unnecessarily once he'd parked, gesturing toward her front door. At least the outside of her apartment looked clean and inviting, even if the inside was tiny and perpetually a little messier than she would like. She'd lined her front step with some potted plants, and put out a welcome mat with a giant sunflower on it. Not that you could see much of it in the dark, but it made her feel good to know they were there.

She hesitated, wishing suddenly that she could ask him in for that cup of tea. But of course that was impossible, for so many reasons.

"You have a cat," he said, as if reading her mind.

Yes, Milo was definitely one of the reasons she couldn't invite him in. She'd sent him so many pictures of her pet that he could probably pick him out of a lineup. But how did he…?

Chris pointed toward her window, where Milo was clearly silhouetted, loafing on the sill and crinkling the blinds again.

"Yup, that's my cat." She gave him what she hoped was a brilliant, distracting smile. "Well, thanks for the ride. I guess I'll see you tomorrow?"

She asked it like a question, but of course they would see each other tomorrow. The Battery were playing an afternoon game, and she was supposed to arrive at the ballpark by eleven o'clock for all her prep. She knew the players often got there even earlier, for batting practice and other warm-ups. Chris was usually one of the first ones to arrive.

She got out of the car before she could embarrass herself by saying anything else, but she heard him call her name once she'd reached her front step.

"Daphne!"

She slowed, turning around. "Yeah?"

His window was down, his forearm resting on the edge. He was messing with his side mirror, not looking at her even though he'd been the one to call for her.

"Do you need a ride in the morning?"

"Oh, that's…" A really nice offer. Her apartment had to be so far out of his way, especially since she was pretty sure just from a few things he'd said in his texts to her as Duckie that he lived relatively close to the stadium.

But they'd closed the book on the text relationship. She'd known they'd still see each other in person, obviously, but she had resolved to be careful, to make sure there was no chance he ever connected her with her online alter ego.

"You'd have to be ready around nine," he said. "For us to get there by nine thirty."

"Okay," she said. "I'll be ready."

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