Chapter Forty-Two

The game had been an absolute roller coaster. The Brewers had taken an early lead, but then a two-run homer by Gutierrez had put the Battery ahead. The Brewers had scored again, but the Battery had had an incredible seventh inning, bringing home four runs on some two-out magic. Daphne always worried about games—had trouble believing that any of them were in hand, no matter what kind of lead was on the scoreboard—but for once she was feeling good about this one. It felt like destiny.

Or maybe she was just feeling good because Chris had smiled at her. It hadn't been much of an interaction—he was on his way to the on-deck circle, a reminder of that first time she'd ever met him. She'd been standing near the photography well, looking down at her notecards while she received a few instructions for her next segment in her earpiece. She'd seen some motion out of the corner of her eye, and she'd glanced up just in time to see Chris walk by. And he'd smiled at her.

It had probably just been a polite smile, the kind you automatically give anyone as you pass by them. Probably Chris hadn't even fully clocked that it was her he was smiling at, thought he was acknowledging some random person, a photographer or the batgirl or whoever, she didn't know.

But it hadn't felt like that. It had felt personal, special, a little secret. It had sent tingles from the base of her spine all the way down to her toes. It felt like the kind of smile that guaranteed some kind of ninth-inning heroics, which was why she wasn't even concerned when the Battery's closing pitcher walked two guys in a row and then hit the third to load the bases. It was the kind of smile that she could cling to even when the inning got completely out of control, with a wild pitch and a double and a two-run homer to end up putting the Brewers back on top. It was the kind of smile that she felt sure would send any ball that connected with a Battery bat sailing four hundred feet over the outfield fence. It was the kind of smile that she started to worry she'd imagined like some sort of mirage when the game ended on the Battery's final out, Randy Caminero swinging and missing on a curveball at the knees.

One of her least favorite parts of her job was talking to players after a loss, and this one hurt more because she knew it was an important one. They weren't out of playoff contention, but they'd made things that much harder. They'd have to be perfect from here on out, and they still had one more series against the Padres coming up, who'd been on a winning streak.

"Randy," she said, stopping him on the way to the dugout with her microphone. "What was going through your mind during that last at-bat?"

She'd asked Layla once, Why do we ask these kinds of questions when the answer has to be clear? Like, obviously the guy is hoping to get a home run, or at least a base hit; obviously he's hoping to score the runner on base and help his team take the lead. She'd heard so many versions of these same answers before that she could almost script their answers herself.

Of course it's filler, Layla had said. She'd said that half of what they did was filler, and that was okay, that was part of sports. There was a patter to it, the speculation and observation and reflection. Being good at your job didn't always mean providing the most incisive analysis or the most unique answer although, sure, those were great when they happened. It was also just coloring in the background around the game, helping it to feel like a complete experience.

Now, Randy gave her the exact answer she'd expected, and Daphne tried to focus on active listening instead of looking around to see if Chris was still in the dugout or if he'd already left. She knew she was supposed to ask Randy about the upcoming series, so she pivoted to that question once he'd finished.

"I feel good about it," he said. "My boy Kepler has a saying—he says baseball is being endlessly optimistic in the face of math. I'm feeling optimistic. And I think he is, too."

And then Randy winked at her, heading to join the rest of the players disappearing into the clubhouse. She threw it back to the anchors who handled the postgame show, and once the camera was off her, she unclipped her microphone and handed it to the production assistant.

What had that wink been about? And why had he brought up Chris—was that on purpose? Players mentioned other players all the time, especially if they'd had a particularly good game and deserved a shout-out. Chris had played well that night, and had stolen a base in the ninth inning to set himself up to be the potential winning run if Randy had been able to bat him in. But Randy hadn't mentioned any of that. So what could that mean?

Daphne retrieved her purse from where she stowed it while she was doing broadcasts, withdrawing her phone to check it for any new messages. There was one from Donovan—apparently the first three nights of perfectly blissful full-night sleeps in the hospital had been some weird fluke, or a bait and switch, because now he said the baby was up every two hours and it was driving him and Layla out of their minds. The phrase ‘sleeps like a baby' is a crock, he said.

She smiled. Send me a picture of my nephew and I'll give you my opinion.

A picture came in right away, and she saved it to the album on her phone she'd created of baby pictures before typing her response. Sorry, looks pretty legit to me. (When the season is over, I can come over and watch him for a few hours so you can nap?)

The grounds crew were already at work repairing the pitcher's mound, and there was no one in the stands save for a couple people in yellow vests still cleaning up around the seats. This transition always felt a little dreamlike to Daphne, the way the stadium could go from loud and crackling with energy to quiet and deserted only a short time later. Tonight it was making her feel especially melancholy, but she supposed the whole night had been filled with its ups and downs. The smile, the loss, the wink, and now it was time to go home, and she knew there were only a few games left before the season might be over for good.

She was halfway out one of the exits when she heard it. It sounded like a radio being tuned, little clips of voices and songs, some static underneath. Then the music started, and a man's voice singing—

They made up their minds and they started packing…

She recognized the song even quicker this time than she had the last time. She'd been primed to, maybe. She hadn't been able to get those few lines she'd heard out of her head, playing them on a loop with the memory of that look on Chris' face.

She glanced toward the field automatically, her gaze going up to where she knew the music came from during games. But of course she couldn't see anything from all the way down there, and so she turned around, facing the dugout.

Chris was coming toward her, still in his uniform, clay streaked across his chest and down one leg of his pants. He stopped when he was right in front of her, and she waited for him to smile again, waited for some sign that this was really happening. But he looked quietly serious as he held out a hand.

"Dance with me?" he said.

But you don't dance, she wanted to say. Or, Here? Now? To this song? But the moment felt big and fragile all at once, and she didn't want to risk it. She put her hand in his, and just the feel of his strong fingers wrapping around hers, his other hand gripping her waist…it felt like that first time back in your own bed after spending nights in a hotel.

"I got your message," he said. "Sorry it took so long. I'd deleted Instagram off my phone."

"That's okay," she said faintly.

"Have you really never seen the Rocky movies?"

Of everything she'd said in that message, that was what he wanted to talk to her about? "No," she admitted. "But I mean, I know the gist."

"Hmm."

They were barely swaying to the music, the merest hint of dancing. He still held her hand in his, rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb. He wasn't wearing his hat, so there was nothing hiding his face from her, but his eyes were hooded as he looked down at their joined hands. She was about to break the silence when he spoke again.

"I wanted to thank you," he said. "For telling me all that. I don't know that I needed it—I'd already started thinking about how I could convince you to give me another chance. But there was still a lot in there that I did need to hear."

She craned her neck to look up at him. "Me give you a second chance? I think you have that backward."

His gaze flickered to hers. "I said some things that day that I really regret," he said. "And I didn't say some other ones that I regret even more. I do love you, Daphne. I fell in love with you twice—first with your words and your kindness and the way talking to you always felt like the best surprise and the greatest comfort all at the same time. Then I fell in love with you—with your laugh and your generosity and the way you make everything else brighter. You're the book I want to reread. For the rest of my life."

Her eyes had filled with tears, threatening to fall, and he cupped her face in his hands. "Ah," he said. "Please don't cry. I never meant to make you cry."

"These are good tears," she said. "I promise."

He swiped his thumbs across her cheeks, still holding her face. "Feel your feelings," he said, then gave her a crooked smile. "That's what my therapist says. I see her once a week now."

That surprised her. "Has it been helpful?"

"You know…yeah. It has." He sounded almost surprised himself. "She told me that my goal couldn't be not to have regrets, or not to feel sad, or not to ever experience any bad emotion ever. Those are all inevitable. My goal has to be to find ways to live my life even with those feelings in it, to leave space in my life for those feelings even."

"And that resonated for you?"

"It did," Chris said. "I mean, I immediately translated it into a sports metaphor to make it resonate more. But yeah, I can see how I was trying to make my grief as small as possible, and that just wasn't going to work. And then even when it came to you—any feelings I had about finding out you were Duckie, I should've stuck around to express them, to process them with you. But instead I just shut down again."

"I don't blame you for that," Daphne said. "What I did—"

Chris shook his head, sliding his thumb down to press against her mouth. "It's okay," he said. "You said everything you needed to already. I understand how it happened. In a weird way, I'm grateful it all happened the way it did. I can't imagine a world where I didn't get to have those conversations with you, where I didn't get to know you in all the ways that I did."

"I'm really sorry I stood you up for the game," she said, her voice a hoarse whisper.

He looked up, glancing around the empty stadium. He dropped his hands from her face, and she missed their warmth, but then he was drawing her closer to him by wrapping his arms around her waist. "I don't know," he said, starting to move to the music until she twined her own arms around his neck. "This would've been how I'd hoped that night might end up. I'd have spotted you in the seats, and when the game was over I would've caught your eye, gestured for you to come down to the field. Not to brag, but I know the woman who works that gate over there."

He nodded toward the gate that opened from the stands out onto the field, and Daphne glanced over at it before looking back at Chris, raising her eyebrows incredulously. "You know her?" she said.

"Her name's Edna," he said. "Very nice lady, but normally pretty strict about letting random people through that gate."

"But I'm not random."

His gaze ran over her face, from her forehead down to her mouth. "No," he said finally. "You're Duckie. And I would've convinced Edna to let you through."

She slid her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck. It was a little longer than he usually kept it. She liked it. "And then what? You would've convinced me to dance with you on the field?"

Chris laughed. "I wish," he said. "I would not have had that level of game."

"Don't sell yourself short."

"I would've really wanted to kiss you, though."

She raised her eyebrows again at that. "But you wouldn't have?"

He tilted his head, like he was really thinking about that one. "If the moment was right," he said. "I like to think I would've gone for it. But I was trying to be so careful."

"This was back when you weren't stealing any bases."

He smiled at that. "Definitely not," he said. "But I was trying to be so careful with you. You said your divorce had done a number on you, that you weren't sure if you were ready for a relationship. I wanted to respect that, but I also couldn't stop thinking about you."

"Well, who's to say I wouldn't have made the first move?"

"Would you have?" He had that expression on his face again, the one she'd seen before. The one that still seemed a little surprised and flattered—touched almost—when she expressed how much she wanted him. Sometimes he treated her like she was so far out of his league, and even though she knew she wasn't, knew that she didn't want to be, knew that the idea of leagues at all was silly and borderline offensive…she still liked it when he looked at her like that.

"You probably would've been walking me around the field," she said. "Saying something about baseball that I was trying to pay attention to, but I would've been too focused on your mouth the whole time."

His hands tightened at her waist. "I see no issue with that."

"Tell me something," she said.

"Like what?"

"Anything. Talk baseball to me."

He squinted up at the sky, clearly trying to come up with something. "Uh," he said. "Every infield is the same. The pitcher's mound is sixty feet, six inches away from home plate, for example, in every single ballpark. But the outfield dimensions can be different, and that's one thing that makes baseball so special, because each stadium—"

She pulled him down toward her by the back of his neck, pressing her lips against his in what was an emphatic, if not particularly elegant, kiss. It was how their first kiss probably would've gone if she'd been in charge of it—all wanting and yearning and raw emotion without any finesse.

"Something like that," she said. "But, you know. Better."

"It was perfect," he said. "I'm already looking forward to the second one."

"Oh," she said. "In that case…"

She stood up on her tiptoes, her body pressed against his as she brought him down for another kiss. This time she slanted her mouth against his, shivering a little when his tongue stroked her lower lip, invaded the warm invitation of her mouth. His hands were firm at the small of her back, drawing her even closer before they slid down to cup her ass. Daphne moaned—she couldn't help it. Everything disappeared except for the crackling nerve endings wherever her body touched his.

That was when a loud whoop went up from the stands, followed by a smattering of applause. She broke away to see that there were still a few workers cleaning up trash around the seats, and they'd stopped to watch her and Chris down on the field. They were grinning and clapping, and Daphne could only give a sheepish wave.

"I guess the secret is out, huh?"

He smiled down at her. "Let's give 'em a show," he said. He took her hands in his, starting to move more to the music, swinging her arms out and then back in as he brought her closer to him and then away. For all that he talked about never dancing, he wasn't bad at it, even though they were just goofing around. He twirled her once, then spun her into his arms, swaying a little with her until spinning her again. She was laughing and half off-balance when he picked her up by the waist, lifting her as she instinctively wrapped her legs around him.

She enjoyed this rare perspective of being taller, where she could hold his face in her hands and kiss him like she was the one sheltering him instead of the other way around. He shifted her weight to get a better grip, but didn't seem in any hurry to let her go.

She realized that the same song had been playing on a loop at least a few times now. "I'm glad I didn't ruin this song for you," she whispered.

"Daphne, you gave it to me," he said. "You were right. If you love something, there's no reason to deprive yourself of it. Love's not a superstition. It's not a game of failure. It's…"

He swallowed, his gaze searching her face like he wanted her to understand what he was trying to say. And she did. Love was this. It was him, and it was her, and it was the future stretching out ahead of them in a million different possibilities.

"Do you want to get out of here?" she asked. "Go back to my place? I normally wouldn't do that on a first date, but…"

He grinned. "I thought you'd never ask."