The Baseball Player Next Door

Inning 7 ★ Practice Makes Perfect

Santiago joined us a little past five minutes, but I'd give him that.

"Mijo, I made you a shake." His mom guided him to sit next to me. He sank into the chair as if ready to fall asleep at any moment. But he drank it all. Meanwhile, I put the food in my backpack along with a couple of large water bottles. "I hope you have fun today with Peyton."

She always pronounced my name the Spanish way, with hard consonants that almost made her sound mad. But she always accompanied my name with a smile.

Green eyes shifted from her to me a couple of times. "Today. With Peyton. As in, the whole day?"

I stood up from the stool and slapped him in the middle of his back. While he smarted I said, "Clearly you're not getting enough blood to your head. Time to start running."

"Mom," he begged. She kissed his cheek and pushed him off his stool. And all the way out the front door. I flashed her two thumbs up behind his back.

"All ready?" Domingo asked us outside. He was holding Santiago's bike upright. "I filled in the tires and greased up the chain. It's ready to roll."

Santiago went to grab it, but I elbowed him out of the way. His dad helped me adjust the bike to my size and I got on it. Its owner didn't move.

"Jesus, do I need to tell you how and when to breathe, too?" I asked him. "Start running!"

He squinted against the morning light. "Where?"

"Follow me, you doofus."

I put on my favorite ball cap, set the bike in motion and drove away. His parents must have encouraged him because a moment later he was right behind me. I set a comfortable pace to start with. For me it felt like I was taking a leisure ride through a park. We went deeper into the residence until we spilled into the fancy area of Winter Park. In a mile or so we'd bike/run right in front of the boarding school, where I planned to drive the bike handless just so I could flip the bird at the building the entire length of it.

I turned back to glance at him a good twenty minutes into the run. He didn't look out of breath. Sweaty, for sure, but not in the throes of aerobic death. So I picked up speed. When he didn't follow, I began the next phase in the plan.

Heckling.

"You're not going to impress any girls like that."

He rolled his eyes but kept jogging at the same pace.

"See that?" I pointed ahead at the Victorian castle-looking school. "A bunch of hot and rich boarding school girls are watching you from their windows, laughing at how slow you are."

"I don't care," he spewed out with a little difficulty.

"Well, maybe you should care." I pretended to think for a second. "I heard my dad on the phone this morning, and the first game of the season is going to be a friendly against the rich mofos."

We both paused in front of the building. I fulfilled my self-promise of giving them the double finger. Santiago put his hands on his hips and gathered big breaths. His tank was soaked in sweat.

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

The rivalry between our schools had been historic. Ten years ago or so there had even been a war of pranks that had escalated into several expulsions from both sides. Migrations from students from one side to the other had never, ever happened.

Except for Jessica Ashford.

Something had happened while she was at Trinity that got her kicked out, and her parents put her in Metro as punishment. She hadn't taken it as punishment, though; as soon as she started in our school she began a large scale operation of taking it over. She'd wrapped the entire cheer squad in her little finger and thus, secured the admiration of all the jocks and half of the drooling population in school. And then she'd set her aim on the top star athlete. Sebastian. Something went down between them, but it had ended and none of the Mirandas ever filled me in on the blanks.