Chapter 4
Axe Murderer: Favorite movie?
Oof. Too many to list.
What? Everyone has a favorite.
What’s yours? If you say a Tarantino film, I might “lose” your number.
What’s wrong with Tarantino?
Is that what you were going to say?!
...
Wow, Axe Murderer. Things were going so well.
Don’t hold it against me.
Redeem yourself, then. Favorite book?
Oof. Too many to list.
Fair.
I take it you like to read given your polite acceptance of my dodge.
Accurate. I couldn’t pick one either, so I’ll give you a pass. As long as you aren’t secretly a pretentious Lit Bro who worships
the Jonathans and pooh-poohs romance as a genre.
I don’t even know what half of that means, so chances are slim I fall into that category.
Good.
Best concert you’ve ever been to?
Ooh, good one. My parents took us to see the Rolling Stones when I was little. It was amazing.
I bet. You must have cool parents.
A sharp pain lanced Emmy’s heart at the family memory. She’d opened the door herself without even thinking, a door she kept closed.
“Um, Em? Are you going to put that down anytime soon?” Her best friend, Beth, cut her text conversation short.
Emmy looked up to see her sitting next to her, one eyebrow raised. She’d met Beth Coolidge in a computer science class freshman
year of college. As a software engineer for a biotech company, Beth too knew what it was like to live in Boys Town. She wore
slip-ons and jeans and lanyards at work, downplaying anything feminine about herself, but unlike Emmy, she turned into a glamazon
outside of business hours. Winged eyeliner, tumbling blond beach waves, chest out and chin high. This early evening, she wore
a candy red maxi dress that turned heads while she walked, and a pair of platform sandals fit for a Spice Girl. Not exactly
baseball game garb, but Beth was Beth. The two of them sat next to each other sipping margaritas high up in left field at
the ballpark.
The exclusive patio nearly had a bird’s-eye view of the field with the city skyline peeking in from outside the stadium. Beth
had all but begged Emmy to meet her downtown for happy hour, and when Emmy asked for a rain check yet again because she was
working late, Beth compromised by showing up at the game. She’d sent Emmy a Let me in text, to which Emmy, still in her office, responded Where? in confusion, and then received instructions to meet her at the ticket gate. Guilted into hosting her guest, Emmy met Beth
at a side entrance and grabbed them both wristbands before heading to what Beth referred to as “the best seats in the house.”
Arguably, the best seats in the house were behind home plate, or in one of the private boxes, but neither was an option, seeing
as they showed up when the game was already underway.
First pitch had been at 5:05, which meant they were somewhere near the fifth inning now, but Emmy had been so distracted by
texting Axe Murderer she’d lost track—which was saying something. She didn’t even know the score.
She glanced at the towering scoreboard across the field and saw the game was tied.
“Sorry. I lost track of time,” she said to Beth and set her phone on the bar in front of them. The narrow railing facing the
field dropped straight into the lower decks below them.
“Thank you,” Beth said with a flip of her silky hair.
“I came here to hang out with you, not watch you crunch numbers on your phone. You can’t constantly work, you know.
I mean, it’s awfully telling that the only way I can have a happy hour with you is if I literally come to your place of employment.
You don’t see me hanging out in the server room at my office after hours, do you? ”
A pang of guilt hit Emmy like a foul ball. Her history of skipping out on Beth’s invites was well documented, and when they
did go out, Emmy was notorious for checking scores and updating stats between conversations. “No. But to be fair, my place
of employment is a lot more entertaining than yours,” she said, and nodded out at the field.
Beth gave her a frosty glare. “You know what I mean.”
“I’m sorry. But if it helps, I wasn’t working.”
“Oh?” Beth asked with a curious tilt of her head. “Were you talking to someone? Is your sister having another bridezilla meltdown?”
Emmy snorted. “Thankfully, no. But the night is still young.”
Beth let out a breezy breath and reached for her margarita. “Thank goodness for that.” She lifted it and tapped it against
Emmy’s with a dull, plastic clunk before they both sipped. “So, who is it then?”
Emmy smacked her lips against the tart pucker of the citrusy tequila. The evening summertime air hung thick with the signature
smells of the ballpark: hot dogs, beer, spicy tacos from the booth behind them. Laughter and conversation bubbled around them.
The next batter’s walk-up song blared through the PA system, and fans cheered. Despite sitting in an enormous, wide-open space,
the focused attention on her best friend’s face narrowed Emmy’s world to a private little bubble.
“Are you not going to tell me?” Beth asked with a flirty shake of her shoulders.
Emmy fidgeted and took another sip. “You’re going to think I’m weird.”
“Em, I’ve known you for over a decade. I know you’re weird.”
A laugh popped from her lips. “Fine. So, the other night I got a text from an unknown number. It turned out to be this guy who someone had given a fake number to at a bar the night before. He thought I was her. I explained I wasn’t, and now we’ve been texting for the past five days.
” Emmy buried the end of her sentence with another gulp of her drink.
Beth blinked wide. “Wait. Someone fake numbered this guy, and the number happened to be yours? What are the chances?”
“I know, right?”
She could see Beth trying to mentally calculate the literal chances of randomly landing on a ten-digit combination of numbers
that happened to belong to a specific person. Emmy had tried it herself, and the answer was: astronomical.
“It’s weird, right?” Emmy said, embarrassed she’d finally confessed to someone. At least that someone was Beth. “It’s totally
weird.”
“Not necessarily,” Beth said with an astute shake of her head. “Something like 80percent of relationships start online or
via digital messaging these days.” She leaned in and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I should know, because
I’m part of that statistic.” She winked.
Emmy gasped. “Does that mean you met someone?!”
“Shhh!” Beth said, and flapped her hands to quiet her. “Maybe. I don’t know yet. But we had a promising date last weekend.”
“Oh! Is this Mustache Guy?”
“ Ugh. No. Mustache Guy didn’t get a callback. I’m on to Nose Ring Guy now. I wasn’t sure I was into it at first, but he’s got a
whole Lenny Kravitz vibe going, and I don’t think there’s a soul on earth who’d kick Lenny out of bed for eating crackers.”
“Well then,” Emmy said with an approving nod.
Just then, the batter roped a single out into right field, and the crowd erupted, startling Emmy from their conversation.
She joined in the clapping and eyed the scoreboard, knowing exactly how that hit would change his stats.
“Yay, sports!” Beth hollered from beside her.
She threw her arms in the air and bounced around in her seat.
The man sitting next to them eyed her tumbling hair and the tight outline of her dress.
She might as well have been a blinking siren amid all the jeans and ballcaps and jerseys.
Emmy knew her enthusiasm was genuine, despite Beth having told her on more than one occasion that she didn’t understand baseball, didn’t want Emmy to explain it to her, but was happy to cheer along.
The crowd continued cheering to the next batter’s walk-up song, riding the momentum. Davey Hollander, the center fielder.
Emmy knew from studying his stats all season that chances were low he’d get on base. A sequence of numbers cascaded through
her mind. She knew against a right-handed pitcher with a runner on and one out, he had a 60percent chance of striking out, and if he
got a hit, it would most likely be a grounder straight into a 6–4–3 double play that would end the inning.
Still, she hoped against the odds.
“So, who is he?” Beth asked, drawing Emmy’s attention back to their conversation. “Text Message Guy.”
Emmy kept one eye on the field, lifting her shoulders in a shrug. “That’s the thing: I don’t know.”
“Is that safe? I mean, there are a lot of creepers out there.”
“I know there are, but I honestly don’t get that vibe from him. Like, at all. When I’m talking to him, it’s like I’m...”
She trailed off and gazed out to the field below. It may have been the booze or the atmosphere or perhaps that her thoughts
had strayed to Axe Murderer, but everything—the lights, the grass, even the dirt—looked twinkly and soft. Glowing.
“Like you’re what, Em?” Beth cut in, and Emmy had no idea how long she’d been staring in a daze.
She snapped back to focus, only narrowly pulling herself from the gauzy dream.
She met her friend’s eyes and confessed something she hadn’t even admitted to herself.
“It’s like I know him. Like I want to know him.
I don’t know. I can’t really explain it, but I’ve never felt so comfortable talking to someone before. Is that
strange? I mean, I don’t even know his name.” She sincerely looked to her friend for advice. Beth was the dating app expert;
of the two of them, she knew most about text communication. The only reason Emmy hadn’t come to her earlier was because she
wanted to keep Axe Murderer as her own little secret.
Beth shook her head. “I don’t think it’s strange. A connection is a connection, regardless of when or how.”
She should have known her best friend would understand.
“Unless he murders you, then I take it all back. And I will hunt him down and kill him.”
Emmy leaned in and whispered, “I saved his name as Axe Murderer in my phone, so if anything happens to me, that’s how you
find him.”