Running The Bases

Chapter 5
It’s been one month. One month of training in the sun, mornings and afternoons. Catching balls, throwing balls, swinging bats, and running the bases. Also in one month, we lost a team member. August had to transfer to another school due to family stuff. So that means we had exactly nine team members. The exact amount of players needed to be on the field. To play.
It’s also been a month since we all gained a new friend. After the team getting use to Dana, she unofficially became the co-manager.
It was a pretty warm day, so I left my hoodie inside this time. Dana and I were going over the batting order for Geneva and Batavia considering the opening game for the Spring Tournament was only two days away.
“You think they’ll win?” Dana whispered to me across the bench.
“I mean we should hope considering this is our team.” I said picking up the roster and a highlighter.
“Man, only a month here and I’m tired as hell.” the blonde stretched her arms out forward almost hitting me in the face.
“Get use to it.” I sighed capping the marker and setting the papers down. I stood up and sighed wishing that it wasn’t time to go yet. I heard Andrei and Michael calling out to the guys in the field saying that it was time to go. Here we went again with a blob of white running towards the dugout. At least this time they actually bothered to go to the locker room to change, also because it was in the afternoon and hot outside.
I looked around to find Coach Amy, yet she was nowhere to be found. I went back to the dugout and sat down next to Dana.
“I think I’m gonna go home.” said Dana as she stood up. “I’ll text you later k?” she smiled and waved off. She stepped out of the dugout just as few of the boys came running in. Dana got around and left the fence.
The guys that came in walked to the back to pick up their bags. I couldn’t help but to overhear some of their conversation.
“Do you really think it’s true?” I heard one ask.
“They are a battery and all, but I doubt it.”
“Remember how red he was though? Maybe it’s just the pitcher.”
“Catcher’s are just always to overprotective. Nothing else.” The group of guys walked past me not saying anything else and left the dugout. What were they talking about?
I watched as one by one each team member came out of the locker room passing the dugout and leaving, of course saying good bye to me too along the way. I nodded and sat there until I was the only one left, or so I thought.
As I left the dugout, I saw the team’s star battery walking out of the locker room. Brett had taken off his hat and wiped his eyes with his arm. I stopped where I was and put both hands in my pockets.
Andrei looked over in my direction yet didn’t say anything. He turned to his pitcher and said something to him.
I didn’t bother, and turned away. I walked out of the fence to leave our battery alone. I walked passed that one tree to see her there again.
“It’s the ginger!” I said to myself. This time she had no book and just sat there staring ahead. I smoothed out my shirt and headed over in that direction. I raised an eyebrow at her, and stepped in front of her.
“Are you on the baseball team?” she asked. Her voice was in a monotone. She didn’t even look up at me.
“Uh, I’m the manager.” I said. “Why?”
“Is practice done?” she stood up, and looked down at me.
“Yeah, it has been for a while.” I said looking up.
“Oh.” she said looking away and towards the field.
“Looking for someone?” I asked. She muttered something and nodded. She turned back to me.
“I heard there are two managers now for the team.” the tall female said.
“Yeah, me and my friend Dana.” I said.
“Oh.” she said once again.
“I’m Julia.” I said.
“Audrey.” she said.
“A-Audrey?”
The ginger took a step back and turned around.
“There you are!” she said running up towards Brett. “God.”
“S-sorry.” Brett muttered. His voice was shaky, and filled with nervousness. He looked down at his feet; I don’t think he even noticed me.
“Let’s go home.” Audrey said taking Brett’s arm. What was there relationship? Audrey gave a weak smile to me and walked off with the jumpy pitcher.
I stood in the patch of green under the tree for some time trying to figure out what those two were. Come to think of it, this was the first time I’ve actually heard Brett speak up close. Weird.
My body still wouldn’t move from the grass. I was stuck. Why?
“Julia? Your still here?”
I snapped out of my thinking mode and focused on what was in front of me.
“Uh yeah, not in a rush to go home today.” I said.
“Neither am I.” said Andrei. “You hungry? It’s almost six.”
“Sure.” I said. I didn’t even bother asking where we were going, considering it was the same thing every time.
The two of us usually saved our conversations for when we ate and sat down, so it was mostly quiet on the way to the restaurant. I was glad, I liked walking in silence. It felt nice, except for this ridiculous weather of course.
“Why were you and Brett so late?” it slipped.
“Oh, umm, just talking.” said Andrei. He ran his fingers through his thick hair. I just nodded and decided not to mention anything else about it.
Once we got there, we sat in the same spot, and ordered the same thing. Nothing unusual. We talked about the same things, along with new things and nothing else. At all.
Once we were done with eating, it was around seven thirty.
“You going straight home?” Andrei asked. I shook my head.
“Probably not.” I said. “I think I’m gonna go to the park and chill out there.”
“Just try not to fall asleep this time okay?” Andrei asked with a grin.
“Shut up.” I muttered hitting his arm. We exited the restaurant thanking Marvin like always and stopped outside on the sidewalk.
“Hey-“said Andrei. He looked at his bag. “I have some gloves and ball…” I raised and eyebrow.
“Oh I get it.” I said. “You wanna throw around the ball?”
“If you want?”
“Sure, why not.” I shrugged. We walked over to the park, lucky for us that the lights were still on.
“Here.” Andrei threw me a black mitt and I put it on my hand, pounding it with a fist. Andrei threw me the baseball and I caught it with no worries. I threw it back. We were only warming up.
After a few more rounds of that, he finally crouched down.
“Really?” I asked. “Today?”
“Come on.” he said.
“Just once okay? You know how I hate pitching.” I said.
“I do know that, yet I don’t know why.” said Andrei holding his mitt up in front of his face. I sighed and picked up the ball from my glove. I did a normal windup and threw. Hard.
“Shit.” I muttered. Too hard, but I did hear the ball land perfectly in Andrei’s mitt. That sound. The sound of the ball. I sighed and Andrei stood up.
“Sometimes I wonder…” he muttered.
“Hey, shut up about it okay?” I said. “I’ve got reasons.”
“It just still makes no sense. Does your family hate baseball or something? Is that why?” he asked as he threw the ball back. I caught the ball and squeezed it tightly while biting down on my teeth.
“Far from it. My family is religiously baseball.” I said throwing it back. Andrei caught the ball but didn’t throw it back or anything. All he did was stare at me.
“Really?” he asked.
“I have my reasons.” I said.
“Yeah.” he said.
“Its pretty late, I think I should get going.” I said.
“Alright.” he said. I handed him back his glove.
“See you tomorrow.” I said walking away. I walked about five steps then stopped. “Andrei?”
“Huh?” he was walking right behind me now.
“Even if I would play baseball, I wouldn’t be able to. The creators of baseball are sexist. I would have to play softball. So you shouldn’t keep on bothering me about it.” I said.
“Alright you smartass. Now you need to shut up.” he said patting my head.
“Yeah whatever.” I muttered.
“Let’s not fight okay?” he smiled at me. “We’ve got a big game right around the corner.”
“Great.” I said.
We walked together in silence all the way home; with me secretly hoping that this game in two days would go smoothly. Nothing else.