MR&MRS. RIZZ

At 22, PIRATES PITCHER PAUL SKENES and LSU GYMNAST LIVVY DUNNE seem to have it all—wild success in their respective sports, movie-star good looks, big-ticket deals, and crackling chemistry. Now what? We went to Baton Rouge to find out.

- SAM SCHUBE

IT wouldn’t be hard to make the case that Olivia Dunne (you probably know her as Livvy) and Paul Skenes are the archetypal Gen Z power couple. She’s the gymnast-slash-influencer reshaping the way college athletes can profit off their own labor. He's the generationally talented Pittsburgh Pirates ace who throws three-digit heat and won last season's National League Rookie of the Year award. They're the pride of Baton Rouge and Pittsburgh, respectively, but the truest measure of their influence lives online, where they nurse a rabid social media following in the millions. (To be fair, most of those millions are Livvy's.)

But their relationship nearly derailed in the early going for one perhaps surprising reason: “He wouldn't follow me back on Instagram,” Livvy recalls.

It’s a breezy winter night in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and we're meeting at a restaurant they like that’s not far from LSU’s campus, where they met as students just a couple of years ago. It’s a slow enough week in their busy schedules, all considered, but still a heady time: Livvy’s staring down the back half of her final gymnastics season, while Paul’s in town for a few days, clearing out his rental house before heading to Pirates spring training in Florida, and after that to his must-watch sophomore season in Pittsburgh. They share a couch in the center of the dining room. He sits ramrod straight in technical fabrics, while she's fresh out of practice in a tank, sweats, and a perfect February tan.