The Fox at First Base

Grace noticed the silver hair at her temples while applying lipstick in the car mirror. Three months since David left, and she was still taking prenatal vitamins—habit, she told herself, though the reason was gone. The bottle sat on her desk, next to the baseball ticket stubs from their anniversary game.

Her phone buzzed. A message from Marcus, the new senior VP: "My office. Now."

Marcus was twenty-eight to her forty-two, all sharp angles and wolfish confidence. A fox in a three-piece suit. The office rumors about him were varied and unverified.

"Your quarterly projections," he said, not looking up from the spreadsheet. "They're optimistic."

"Realistic," Grace corrected. "Unless you know something about the market I don't."

He glanced up then, and something flickered behind his eyes. Recognition, maybe. Or hunger.

"I know you're lonely," he said softly.

Grace felt her face flush. She'd been careful—careful with her makeup, her clothes, her conversations. But loneliness had a scent, didn't it? Like need itself.

"That's not professional, Marcus."

"No," he agreed, standing and walking around the desk. "It's human."

He touched her hair then, the silver strand at her temple. His fingers were warm, unexpectedly gentle.

"My mother started going silver at thirty-five," he said. "She wore it like a crown."

"I'm not your mother."

"No. You're brilliant. And alone. And tired of playing by rules that keep you safe."

He moved closer, and Grace didn't step back. The office door was closed. The vitamin bottle on her desk suddenly seemed ridiculous—hope in capsule form, manufactured optimism.

"David left because I couldn't give him children," she heard herself say. Why was she telling him this?

Marcus nodded, like this made perfect sense. "And you've been taking vitamins anyway. Preparing for a future that already happened differently."

He saw too much. This fox saw everything.

"Life's not baseball," he continued, his voice low against her ear. "You don't get three strikes. You get one life, Grace. One chance."

His breath was warm. Her heart hammered like it hadn't in years. The bear that had been hibernating in her chest, heavy and dormant through David's departure and the sterile treatments and the polite condolences—it stirred.

"I'm forty-two," she said.

"I know," Marcus said. "That's the point."

He kissed her then, and Grace didn't push him away. The vitamin bottle sat on her desk, next to the baseball ticket stubs, while outside the window, the city hummed its indifferent rhythm. Some chances, she thought, as she closed her eyes, are worth taking.