“I have a girlfriend, Harper. I think you’ve even met her couple of times,” I said.
“What does you having a girlfriend have to do with you going out with us?” Mona asked.
“Seriously, David. When you went out with Peggy it never stopped you,” Pam added.
They had me there. I could see where the difference between dating and a girlfriend could cause some confusion.
“Peggy and I were dating. We were not committed to each other. Harper’s my girlfriend.”
“Would it be easier if we all just come over Friday night and have our way with you?” Kim helpfully suggested.
They’d teased me since I made the announcement Monday. If I hadn’t known they were teasing, I would have crawled up a wall. I got a big smile on my face thinking about all four of them being naked in my apartment. I was about to call their bluff until I noticed the little smiles that came across their faces. They’d be willing to go through with it. I groaned when I realized they were evil girls trying to break me.
“You four stay away from me,” I ordered. “I might be able to resist you one-on-one, but when you gang up on me, I want to do bad things. You have to stop!”
Gina selected that moment to come over to our table.
“I need to talk to David,” she said.
Thank God. I got up to go with her when they all burst out laughing. I glanced down and it was obvious what had caused their merriment. Mr. Happy had tried to burst through my jeans. I’ll never understand women. Gina took an involuntary step back. I just glared at her and then she joined in. I was about to storm off, but Gina grabbed my hand and led me outside.
“I take it they’re still testing your willpower.”
“They upped the ante. They suggested we all get together on Friday.”
“Slut,” she accused me.
“Hey, I used to resemble that remark. Not anymore. I’m now in a committed relationship.”
“You poor ‘stupid boy,’ we all know you won’t last,” she said and then squeezed my hand. “You just aren’t made to be a one-woman man. I think it’d be sad to see you trapped like that.”
The sad part was I knew Gina meant every word of it. I didn’t feel trapped being with Harper. I liked the idea of us being exclusive. I decided I wanted to change the conversation.
“Okay, I need to work on this a little bit. Now tell me why you rescued me.”
“I wanted to let you know Kara’s coming home for the day on Friday. She wanted to know if she could spend the night with you,” Gina said with a straight face.
Oh Dear God! How could they do this to me? Wait a minute, was she teasing me?
“I call bullshit!” I exclaimed, and then she started laughing. “Do you all think this is funny?”
“Oh, yes. This is the most fun we’ve had in a while. Wait till we send Lisa Felton after you.”
I knew that wasn’t happening. She still hadn’t talked to me.
“So, you wanted to get me alone so you could torment me?” I asked.
She just squeezed my hand and smiled at me. I saw Mike tossing a baseball to Tim out of the corner of my eye. He’d seen us come out. I decided to get a little payback on Gina. She walked me to my thinking tree and began to sit down, but I pulled her back up and pressed her up against the tree.
“You win,” I said, looking deep into her eyes. “I’m weak and have all the base urges a horny teenage boy has.”
I started to lean in to kiss her. I heard her suck in her breath and her eyes went wide. At the last moment, I turned my head and went for her earlobe. I sucked it between my lips and heard her moan. I felt a tapping on my shoulder and turned to see Mike giving me a curious look. I winked at him. He knew me well enough to know I was just teasing Gina. I blew a raspberry on the side of Gina’s neck. She gave me a hard shove and squealed. She was surprised to see her boyfriend standing next to us with his hands on his hips. I decided to help.
“It’s not what it looks like,” I said in a panicked voice, raising my hands and taking a step back.
Gina blushed. Mike and I couldn’t help it, we laughed. You could see the changes on her face from the look of being caught, to confusion, and finally ‘all boys must die.’ Mike and I both took a step back when we saw the last one.
“You’re supposed to be my boyfriend! Do not encourage this one,” Gina said as she pointed at me. “And you!”
She huffed and stormed off. I looked at Mike and shrugged.
“You might want to go after her,” I suggested.
“Are you sure?” Mike asked.
“I know it makes no sense, but it’s worse if you don’t,” I assured him. “And find out why she needed to talk to me.
I snatched his glove out of his hand and he trotted off to find Gina. I put Mike’s glove on and Tim tossed me the ball.
“What was that all about?”
“If I understood girls, I’d be rich.”
“I thought you were rich,” Tim teased.
“Don’t you get started. I have pictures of you,” I threatened.
“What? What pictures?” Tim asked with more than a little touch of concern.
I just gave him an evil grin. He about wiped it off when he threw a high hard one at my head. It was a good thing I was an athlete, or I might not have caught it. I threw one at his nuts. Who knows how these games get started? Someday, someone would get hurt. By the end of lunch, we had a crowd watching us as Tim and I tried to kill each other. We laughed our heads off and threw taunts as well as the baseball. I think we were lucky the bell rang, or one of us would have eventually killed the other.
AT TRYOUTS, THE COACHING staff concluded they weren’t going to weed us out through conditioning, so they went old-school and had us run baseball drills. Moose had the infielders break up into groups of four. I (at shortstop) teamed up with Jake (at third), Mike (at second) and Wolf (at first).
Moose would call out where the base runners were and then smash a grounder to see us handle the ball and then throw to the correct base. The four of us had practiced together at State. I guess Moose saw that after only hitting about ten balls.
“Get in here,” Moose ordered us. When we were close enough where only we could hear him, he gave us our assignments. “I’ve seen enough. I heard you were working out together, and it shows. I need to have some versatility on my roster. Jake, I want you to go practice center field. Wolf, you go work on playing right field. Mike and David, I want you to go with the pitchers.”
“I guess this means we made the team,” Mike told me as we jogged over to his dad.
“Sounds like it,” I answered. “What do you think your dad’s going to think of my new pitching style?”
“I think if you can get batters out, my dad’ll be fine with it. He called Shiggy to find out what you and Bert were doing. Dad told me Shiggy has also talked to Moose. He’s getting his background checks done and will be helping coach this year. Moose wants to develop a deeper rotation so we can go further in tournaments.”
I could count on Mike to get the inside information since he lived with one of the coaches. We found Coach Herndon.
“Mike, go warm David up. I want to see him pitch,” Coach told us.
Mike and I warmed up and did some long toss to loosen up my arm. When I took the mound, I threw Mike all my pitches at three-quarter speed. I hadn’t pitched in six days, so I felt fresh.
“It all looks good. Throw me the four-seam fastball at full speed.”
I uncorked it, and it felt good as I used my lower body to power the ball into Mike’s glove. I heard the satisfying pop that told me I’d done it right. Mike had a big grin on his face as he popped up behind the plate and jogged the ball out to me.
“Want to have some fun?” he asked conspiratorially.
“Of course, need you ask?”
“No, but this might piss my dad off,” Mike warned me.
“He likes us. How mad could he get?”
Mike thought about it for a moment. Then he clued me in to his plan. I wasn’t convinced, but I owed Mike for dealing with Gina earlier today.