The Hitting Zone

Mom and Dad came home just in time to see us throwing the couch pillows at one another. Mom didn't get mad and merely sent us upstairs to take our showers before dinner. As we all sat down for dinner, Mom was last despite trying to hurry us along.

"Who was it on the phone?" Dad asked her while we filled up our plates.

"It was Rose." She surprised us with her answer. We all turned to look her way. She smiled. "She invited all of us to a celebratory dinner this weekend. Saturday, at the stadium, they plan to get the team together to celebrate Jeremy's achievement."

"Wow!"

"That's gotta be exciting!"

"Do you think Zeke will want to come?"

"He might be busy with school."

"I'll text him and tell him about it."

"It's a black tie event." Mom spoke over the boys. "That means all of you need to find the suits you wore to the banquet a few months back. Make sure everything still fits and that you can find your shoes, ties, and belts."

"Does Jeremy know?" I asked. It was strange that Rose would call Mom. Wouldn't it be more normal for Jeremy to tell me directly?

Mom shook her head with a smile. "It's a little bit of a surprise. From what I understand, Rose will make him go to the stadium for some made up reason."

"How is she going to get him to wear a suit?" Noah asked. "I'm not wearing a suit if he doesn't have to."

"I'm sure she can handle it." Mom said. "Even if she can't get him into a suit, it's his day. He doesn't have to wear one." She pointed at Noah. "You do. No matter what."

Despite Noah's resistance to wearing a suit this weekend, he was the first one out of all of us to look for his whole outfit right after dinner. He had it all laid out on a chair.

"Aren't you going to get yours out?" He asked me, watching as I climbed into bed.

I made a face. "I'll do it tomorrow after practice."

"I'll just do it for you." Noah started going through the closet again. Sure enough, when I woke up Friday morning, my outfit was laid out next to his. Noah's excitement was unmatched. He wasn't just happy for Jeremy; he was excited to be hanging out with the whole A's organization on Saturday night.

"Do I even want to know?" Kaylee asked, squinting at Noah who was bouncing in his seat.

"Even if you wanted to know, we can't tell you." Noah stuck his tongue out at her.

I raised an eyebrow. "Pretty sure Mom only said not to tell Jeremy..."

"What if it leaks out and gets back to him?" Noah whispered to me.

I stifled a laugh. "I don't think Kaylee would tell anyone."

Noah rolled his eyes. "Fine." He sighed. "If you must know, we're celebrating Jeremy's MVP award at the A's stadium tomorrow night with the whole team. Jeremy doesn't know so keep it on the down low."

It was Kaylee's turn to roll her eyes. "You're such a loser."

I grinned.

That set Noah off and the two began to argue about whether this classified as cool or not. And if it did, does that make Noah cool? And would Noah even be invited if it wasn't for my relation to Jeremy. And this, and that, and it just kept going.

I was happy to leave Noah for once when it came time for second period. Him and Kaylee barely acknowledged my leaving as I went to Spanish III.

Having Coach Luis as a teacher made me realize how laidback he really is...off the field anyways. On Fridays we took short quizzes and then got free time afterwards. Sitting with Sean and Mitchell, I used my free time to look over the list of players that Coach gave me yesterday. Just to make sure there were no surprises.

Only one particular pair stood out. I looked up at Mitchell and interrupted his conversation with Sean. "You're pairing up with Joey?"

Mitchell paused for a second. "Well...yea."

I blinked. "Why?" The two of them were complete opposites.

Mitchell shrugged. "There's not one single reason. We're both juniors. We pair up sometimes during practices. He'll likely make it to the varsity team. He asked me to. It'd be rude to say no." He stopped. "Hey, are you worried because of his attitude problem?"

I gave a small nod.

"Don't worry about him." Mitchell told me with confidence. "Coach has really set him straight, for the most part. I mean, he still has an attitude problem, but don't expect him to take it out on you. Coach had a talk with all the pitchers about sportsmanship. I'll keep him in line too."

"Hm." I nodded slowly, not convinced.

Only about half the amount of pitchers signed up compared to last week, with the majority of those coming from other sports. The quality was better per pitcher, but there was no Robbie or Garret there to stun me. Bryce and Brian both chose not to take part, and the twins would never. I did see Matt again. Marshel too.

There were no slip ups today. I was never pushed to a strike two. Not even against Joey. He had made a face, but didn't say a word. He took long strides off the mound and threw his glove in his bag before taking off. Like Mitchell said, he still has an attitude problem. But as long as he doesn't take it out on me or any other player, then it's livable.

As the last catcher again, Mitchell stuck around to help me collect the baseballs. Then we casually hung out in the parking lot until the twins and Noah showed up. The twins were both complaining about not being able to pitch today while Noah bragged about how well he did off of Brian.

"Since Coach is hosting tryouts next week, we probably can't use the bullpens here." Mitchell said. He looked at Dave and Kyle. "If you guys don't mind, I can come over every day next week for split bullpen sessions. Maybe even a couple days of thanksgiving break too?"

"That'd be great!" Kyle agreed immediately. "We only have Noah to throw to, and it's hard splitting time with him when he keeps running off to the batting cages."

Noah grinned. "Well if you guys have Mitchell, then Jake and I will do nothing but hang out at the cages."

"How are you going to get there?" Kyle shot back.

"You can drop us off after school, then Mom or Dad can pick us up after." Noah said, coming up with a plan right off the top of his head.

Dave nodded. "Yea, that'll work. Even if Mom or Dad don't want to do pickup, whoever isn't pitching to Mitchell at that time, can go pick you guys up."

Noah beamed. I was happy too. A straight week of just casually hitting the baseball? I couldn't wait.

Mitchell went to his own car to go home, while we did the same.