Blaine Anderson sat alone on one of the benches, trying to ignore how hot the sun was as he waited for the coach to call his name. All the other kids already seemed to know each other already, and Blaine had been out of the loop from the second he got out of the car, though that was really nothing new. So when a taller blonde boy with shaggy hair came over, Blaine was startled when he realized the kid was actually talking to him.
"Can I sit here?"
Not knowing what else to say, Blaine slowly nodded his head as he scooted over on the bench. He'd always been on the shy side as a little kid and he wasn't used to having people his age talk to him much or be friendly with him.
"Thanks," the blonde replied as he sat down, immediately holding his hand out to shake Blaine's. "Name's Sam Evans. What's yours?"
"Blaine Anderson," Blaine introduced, cautiously reaching out to shake Sam's hand. Blaine had always been on the smaller side, and even his hand felt tiny in Sam's.
"Nice to meet you, Blaine!" With a happy grin on his face, Sam pulled his hand back from Blaine's as he continued to talk, making up for Blaine's lack of conversation. "This your first year here? I don't think I ever saw you back at Tee-Ball last year."
Blaine nodded slowly, a small smile creeping onto his face because Sam was a lot friendlier than a lot of the others and it was sort of nice having someone to talk to. "Yeah. My dad signed me up because he wanted me to hang out with other boys. Most of my friends in school are girls," he explained to Sam with a light shrug.
"So you've never played baseball before!" Sam questioned in disbelief, though he regretted it because by the way Blaine quickly looked away, Sam could tell he had embarrassed or upset him or something. "No, no, no. I didn't mean it like that. I just never met anyone who's never played before. I've been playin' since I was, like, five so I could help you out if you ever need tips. I bet you'll be real good, though. You're sorta small, so you'll be able to run the bases real fast." That compliment got a small smile out of Blaine, and Sam felt a lot less guilty about making him feel bad earlier.
Tugging at his bottom lip with his teeth, Sam tried to change the subject. That was what his parents did whenever they wanted to make things feel less weird. "Why's your hair like that?"
"Huh?" Blaine's brownish eyes filled with confusion as he looked over at Sam. He wasn't sure, but Sam was pretty sure the color was called hazel when people's eyes looked like that.
"Your hair," Sam pointed out. "It's all…hard-like." Without thinking, Sam reached out and gently poked Blaine's head. Yep. His hair was hard as a rock, but Blaine pulled away as soon as Sam's hand came towards him so he didn't get to figure out what is was that made Blaine's hair like that.
"It's gel," Blaine answered shyly, fiddling with his hands. He had inherited his mother's hair and was known for having curls like her. "My dad makes me use it because he says my curls make me look unruly. He says I look better like this."
Sam pursed his lips as he tried to figure out why someone would try to cover up their curls, and it sort of made sense because he had always been wishing that his lips were smaller. Sadly, gel really couldn't fix how big his mouth looked compared to everything else. He didn't think it was that bad, but occasionally a kid in school would point it out and that was never fun. "Doesn't it make your head hot, though?"
Blaine shrugged and absentmindedly brought his hand up to touch his gel-coated hair. "Not really, but whenever my head itches I can't really do anything about it because it'll mess up my hair if I try to scratch it," he explained, wrinkling his nose up at the thought.
"Oh, man. That sucks! I mean, that's lame," Sam corrected himself. His mother told him that telling people something 'sucks' wasn't a very nice way to put things. "My hair's always all over the place. Wanna see?" When Blaine grinned and nodded his head, Sam shook his own, smiling as his hair went all over. It wasn't that long, but it was definitely a lot longer than Blaine's and without the restrictions of the curls. "You can touch it if you want."
Blaine giggled as he reached over to play with Sam's hair, smiling happily as he ran his fingers through the mess of hair on top of Sam's head. Before he could say anything, a loud, firm voice shouted out his name.
"Anderson, Blaine!"
Sam and Blaine quickly turned to look over at the coaches, and Sam gave Blaine a tiny push of encouragement as he urged him off the bench. "G'luck, Blaine."
Blaine suddenly felt as if all eyes were on him as he made his way over to the home plate, politely thanking one of the coaches as they handed him the batting helmet, which seemed to be a bit too big for his head but it worked. After remembering how he had learned to hold the bat, he positioned himself at the plate, nodding to let the pitcher know he was ready. Suddenly, the bat seemed a lot thinner and the baseball a lot smaller.
The pitcher released the ball, and Blaine knitted his brow together in concentration, his tongue poking out from the corner of his mouth as he tried to focus on the ball coming towards him. He swung, he spun, the ball went into the mitt of the umpire behind him. He could hear the bout of laughter coming from the stands where most of the little kids were seated, and he could feel his cheeks heating up with embarrassment as he adjusted the helmet on his head. He hesitated before looking over in Sam's direction, hoping that he wasn't laughing at him too. Maybe Sam would realize he didn't want to be friends anymore once he saw that Blaine had no idea how to play baseball. But Sam wasn't laughing. He was watching intently and as soon as he caught Blaine's eye, he shot him a quick two thumbs up as if trying to encourage Blaine to try again.
Blaine smiled back before returning his focus to the pitcher, keeping a tight grip on the bat as he tensed up his muscles. He could do this. The ball came flying, Blaine swung, and missed again as the ball went flying past him. After a few more failed attempts, one of the coaches gave Blaine a gentle pat on the shoulder and told him they'd be working on batting one-on-one during the next practice and that he could go take a break while the other boys took their turns.
Embarrassed, Blaine made his way back over to Sam, sitting down next to him without saying a word. "I was terrible," he sighed as he rested his elbows on his knees.
"No, man. You weren't that bad." Sam patted Blaine's back to try to comfort him. That's what his dad always did whenever he was having a bad day. "You just gotta relax a bit. Don't hold onto the bat as tight as you did. You know Azimio?"
Blaine nodded, recognizing the name as one of the kids that had just laughed at him.
"Yeah, well, he couldn't even hit the ball on his first try during Tee-Ball, and the ball was right in front of him!" This got a small smile out of Blaine, but Sam could tell that the kid was still upset. It didn't help when Azimio and his friend David came over, looking smug as they had both hit the balls on their first try.
"Hey, Anderson," David greeted, though it was obvious he wasn't here to congratulate Blaine in any way. "You know you're supposed to hit the ball, right?"
"Leave him alone," Sam spat back as he stood up off the bench, not giving Azimio time to throw his insult at Blaine as well. The two kids were a lot bigger, even than Sam, but that didn't mean they could go around picking on his friends. "He's never played before and he doesn't need guys like you being jerks to him."
"Well then maybe he should try playing for the girl's team," Azimio suggested, and David laughed as he gave him a high five.
When David turned back to look at Blaine, Sam was already shoving into him, slamming both his hands up against David's chest as he pushed him back and away from Blaine. "I said leave him alone!"
The thing with Azimio and David was that they were all talk and no action. That and they didn't want to get in trouble with the coaches. They turned to each other with shocked expressions, and Sam knew he'd probably have to pay for shoving David later but for now they were both retreating back to the rest of the group.
"That was really brave of you, Sammy," Blaine noted quietly from his spot on the bench. Sam turned around with a soft smile as he looked down at Blaine, taking his original seat next to his friend as Blaine continued to speak, "Thank you."
"No one's gonna make fun of you anymore, Blaine," Sam promised as he rested his hand on top of Blaine's. He wasn't sure if boys were supposed to hold other boy's hands, but he didn't see the problem with it if they were both best friends. "Not while I'm around."