We left Dalton and Logan amicably, and joined the twins at the car. They weren't too surprised when they heard about our conversation.
"Sounds like they're getting more serious. Good." Dave nodded in the front passenger seat. "It's good for you guys to put the drama in the rearview mirror. Focus on baseball and winning. That's all that matters."
"Yea, it'll be good if they can fill in some holes in the lineup so Bryce and Brian can focus on their pitching." Kyle commented. "You guys will need it with us gone."
We got home and started to take showers, all having plans to go to the mall and movies tonight. Marie and Kaylee would pick up Alisha and meet us there. Dave split off first, wanting to go find his friends. Kyle left with Marie next, leaving the four of us. We talked about baseball, softball, school, other classmates, and just life in general. Never did I imagine myself at the mall with friends on a Friday night. I was really starting to put some distance between the 'me' right now and the me that almost died.
Even last year's me started to feel unfamiliar. I really owed a lot to Noah for making me feel safe. For the whole Atkins family for taking me in and letting me know the best kind of family. For teammates like Garret, Jason, and Sean. For friends like Alisha and Kaylee. For some of the best coaches and doctors.
"Yo, Jake. Snap out of it." Noah snapped his fingers right before my eyes. "We're thinking about going to get a bunch of samples from the chocolate store. You in? Or are you going to stay outside and I'll bring it to you?"
I grinned. "I'll go in."
The four of us went into one of the smaller stores that strictly sold chocolate. All kinds of chocolate including things dipped in chocolate. A lady behind the counter offered up sample size chocolates. I was lucky and got a chocolate covered Oreo and a chocolate covered marshmallow.
Kaylee made a face after eating her second sample. "I got a cherry."
Noah laughed. "Hey, that counts as fruit right? So you don't have to feel guilty for eating sugar."
"I wouldn't feel guilty anyways." Kaylee huffed.
The two went back and forth most of the night, but it was small petty stuff. It reminded me of the twins and their bickering.
Kaylee and Alisha invited themselves to the cages tomorrow after hearing that Dalton and Logan would show up too. Noah added that we would be practicing at the park too and Kaylee jumped on that as well. Only Alisha said she would be the designated spectator.
Mid-morning Saturday, Dalton and Logan found the four of us playing video games.
"Is this considered practice too?" Dalton joked.
"Of course!" Noah raised his voice over the game. "I'm working on my hand-eye coordination clearly."
"You're pretty good at bullshitting." Logan scoffed.
"What can I say?" Noah grinned. "It's a talent."
We finished our game and turned to face the pair, making our group grow to six.
"Do you guys want to go straight to the cages or play some games first?" Kaylee asked.
"I say we hit first." Dalton said.
"Yea, I want to hit too." Logan agreed.
I eagerly looked to Kaylee.
Kaylee nodded at me. "It's written all over your face, Jake."
I gave a small smile, happy that she knew my vote.
"Okay, okay." Noah said. "Cages first then lunch. We can play more later." He looked to Alisha. "Are you sure you don't want to join? You can use my gear. Even in the slow stuff. I don't mind."
Alisha perked up. "You would go to the slow-pitch with me?"
Noah rubbed the back of the head. "Well, maybe for a little? But I still want to hit with the guys?" He looked around. "Maybe a friendly competition?"
"Is there any competition with Jake around?" Kaylee pointed out.
"He can be the judge?" Noah offered with a shrug.
"No way." I automatically rejected. "I want to hit too."
We started throwing ideas around before a format was set up: we would pair up and combined scores. I automatically got Alisha on my team. Noah would pair up with Logan. Kaylee was with Dalton.
"We'll start slow so Alisha can have a chance." Kaylee said, taking the lead as we started to head back towards the cages.
"How slow?" Logan asked.
"The slowest." Noah told him. "Jake does it too as a warmup."
"A warmup?" He looked at me.
I swallowed a small lump, and started to explain. "It's not just about hitting the ball fast and hard for me. Taking it slow, I can focus on my arm angle, speed of my bat, my hand placement, things like that."
"He's working on his mechanics." Kaylee elaborated.
I nodded more enthusiastically. "Yes. Exactly. It's a different kind of practice. Working on my hitting skills like timing and reaction speed."
"Do you even need to work on that kind of stuff?" Logan was skeptical.
"Of course." I was surprised he would even ask. Seeing him still not believing it, I started to talk some more. "I'm growing so my angels change. If I'm off by a centimeter, then I lose a lot of control."
"Wow. I didn't even notice." Dalton looked me up and down. "You would think you would struggle more this year, but you really took off."
"That's because we practiced hitting every day." Noah told them. Our group made it outside and started to head for the slowest machine. "There's never been a weekend we didn't come here to hit. Heck, we came a lot after practice sometimes too. Depending on the twins, of course." He told them about the deal he had going, catching for the twins in exchange for rides to the cages.
I thought it would be a little awkward with Dalton and Logan joining our party of four, but it wasn't so bad. They all knew each other and knew me. No one forced me too far out of my comfort zone and let me talk when I wanted to. It soon became competitive between Kaylee and Noah as we moved up to faster cages. I did my best to help Alisha, suggesting she just bunt or stick her bat out to help us get points. Her fouls and touches counted yet the five of us had to clearly hit the ball into fair territory.
Our three teams were pretty even as we neared the end, but Alisha and I took over thanks to my advantage in the 90mph cage. Which led to a fierce battle for number two. In the end, Noah and Logan stole second. Kaylee and Dalton came in third.
"Geez. Learn to carry your weight." Kaylee elbowed Dalton. She looked at Noah. "Want to do another round, but this time we switch partners?"
"What about them?" Noah gestured to me and Alisha.
Alisha made a face. "You guys want to go again?" She held out her two arms. "I'm so tired already. I'm practically shaking."
Kaylee looked at Noah. "We would have a better chance to beat Jake."
I rolled my eyes.
"Nah. It's no fun if we have to really give him a handicap." Noah rejected. He looked at Alisha. "Well, we did what we wanted, so why don't you pick next?"
Alisha chose to go back inside and put our legs to work...at 'Dance Dance Revolution'. I made a face of distress and dropped my bag off near the wall.
"You're joking, right?" Dalton asked, putting his bag near mine.
The others did the same.
Alisha already started pulling out a couple of dollars. "Come on, it's fun!"
"They probably don't think it's fun because they're bad at it." Noah said nonchalantly, already picking one of the spots.
"Hey, I didn't say that." Logan got up on the other one and started to stretch. "I might be a little rusty, but definitely not bad."
The two of them started. Noah dominated per usual, but Logan really wasn't bad. The girls went next, leaving Dalton and me to go last.
"Be honest with me, Jake." He said in a low voice. "You're not good at this either right?"
My lips twitched. "Alisha makes us play this a lot..." I hinted that I wasn't bad.
"Oh man." Dalton said with some worry.
I tried not to laugh. "Don't worry, I'm not as good as Noah and the girls. Just follow the beat and look at the screen. We can pick something less difficult too."
That didn't help Dalton much. He was either too fast or too slow, not really catching the rhythm. Unexpectedly his errors started to mess me up too. We looked ridiculous and made the others laugh.
We got lunch after a few more rounds and joked about this and that. After lunch, Alisha's dad came by to give us all a lift to the park. It was a tight squeeze that made me a little anxious but the ride was over before I knew it.
At the park, I was designated hitter and Alisha was in charge of collecting the baseballs thrown back to us from the other four. I actually liked this more than the cages once I found out I could make it difficult for them to make the catches. Hitting grounders though made me a little nervous. Especially when Noah told me I had to hit some hard ones at them so they could work on all types of grounders. I didn't want to hurt anyone so I couldn't commit to that as perfect as hitting fly balls.
