Seventh Inning Stretch

Leo pulled his baseball cap lower as the stadium erupted around him—easily the loudest place he'd ever been, and somehow also the loneliest. His iphone burned in his pocket with notifications from the group chat that was currently at Jessica's party without him. The party where Jordan had promised to finally make a move on Chloe, where everything that mattered to Leo was happening three miles away while he sat here living his dad's dream instead of his own.

Then a cat dropped into his lap.

Leo yelped, nearly spilling his $12 soda, as a scrawny calico materialized from nowhere and curled up on his thighs like this was exactly where it belonged. Stadiums didn't have cats. This was absurd, impossible, like someone had dropped a random piece of chaos into his carefully calculated Saturday night.

"Is that—" Chloe said, appearing beside him with two friends in tow, their varsity jackets bright against the graying cement.

Leo froze. This was it—the moment he'd been calculating for three weeks, ever since he'd started sitting closer to the softball team during games. He'd memorized her coffee order, practiced exactly what to say about her TikToks, spent twenty minutes choosing the perfect baseball hat to look effortless but thoughtful.

Now he had a cat on his lap and mustard on his chin.

"I think it's a sign," Chloe said, sitting down next to him instead of walking past like she'd done every game since April. "Like, the universe is telling you to stop overthinking everything."

Leo's phone buzzed again—a notification from Jordan: SHE'S ASKING ABOUT YOU WHAT DID YOU SAY???

"I don't—" Leo started, but the cat was already asleep, purring against his thigh like it owned him, like it had decided who he was allowed to be.

"You're always watching," Chloe said, so quietly he almost missed it. "Like you're scared to actually be here. But you're the only one who noticed this cat, Leo. You're the only one paying attention to anything real."

His phone buzzed one more time. Jordan again: DUDE SHE'S LITERALLY SITTING WITH YOU MAKE A MOVE

Leo turned his phone off, for the first time since seventh grade, and looked at Chloe instead.

"I'm not very good at this," he admitted.

"Neither am I," she said, and reached for his hand across the sleeping cat.

Behind them, the crowd erupted as someone hit a home run. But Leo wasn't watching the game anymore.