“Jesus,” he breathed, pulling back. “I forgot what you look like in person.”
“I’m prettier with filters,” I teased.
He snorted. “Debatable.”
I smirked, then my eyes automatically scanned the crowd. “Any sign of her?”
He lifted his phone. “She texted the group chat about ten minutes ago.”
I pulled mine out. Not sure how I missed it, but there it was:
Landed. Meet you two in baggage claim at carousel seven
The last few nights, no matter how late it got, the three of us ended up on video calls. Sometimes it was quick, just a check-in to make sure we were all doing okay and to recap our days. Sometimes it dragged, because none of us wanted to be the first to hang up and sit alone with our thoughts.
But the calls didn’t stop everything going on outside of them.
Reporters had been pushing for comments the second I stepped into the clubhouse. Beat writers lingered a little longer at my locker. Postgame questions turned personal really fast. Even when the mics weren’t pointed at me, I could feel people trying to get a reaction for their clip. My phone was worse. Unknown numbers, voicemails that started with “Just a quick question,” texts from people I hadn’t talked to in years, and message requests that sounded friendly while fishing for anything they could twist into a headline.
And on top of all that, I felt bombarded by internet trolls and their hateful comments on every single photo or clip of Dylan and me we’d ever shared.
The clip of Dylan hugging Faye after the game was everywhere, paused and zoomed in, and reposted by accountsthat didn’t even pretend to care about baseball. People treated one second of footage like a sworn statement.
Wait, I thought she was with Jase?
So was St. John fake or what?
Why is she switching brothers?
Is this a love triangle?
Poor Jase.
Dylan’s the better one anyway.
No, Jase is the better one.
She’s playing them both.
They’re using her for clout.
She’s using them for attention.
The Secret Service is gonna tackle him.
This is why they’re losing.
Keep politics out of baseball.
Some comments were meant to be funny, as if people get a pass because they used a laughing emoji. Others were just nasty, the kind that turned Faye into a headline, Dylan into a prop, and me into an afterthought. Threads spun off into theories, timelines, screenshots from St. John, slow-motion clips of the hug, and arguments about who she “really” wanted, as if her attention was something to earn instead of a choice she got to make.
I kept telling myself to stop looking, but I continued doing it anyway, because apparently I liked punishing myself almost as much as I liked baseball.
Dylan had looked relaxed on the calls, but standing there in front of me, I could see what it had cost him. His shoulders stayed high, his jaw remained tight, and his eyes were constantly tracking movement as if he were waiting for someone to pop up with a camera and a question he didn’t have an answer for.
The media and others hadn’t been kind to him either, given that he was labeled a “homewrecker.”
I lowered my voice. “You sleeping at all?”
