Married. Squints was going to get married and to Wendy the girl he had kissed and completely pissed off at the pool all those summers ago, the girl that every boy had a crush on and that every girl had envied.
The idea of him getting married to Wendy wasn't that odd, they had been together for years and had been sickly in love with one another ever since they started dating. But married.
I couldn't imagine any of the boys being married, sure they were getting older and would all soon have girlfriends and then eventually get married but I couldn't believe that one of the boys I had met on the field when I was twelve was engaged.
Kenny's parents hadn't been too thrilled about the idea of the sandlot boys staying in their basement but the shock and excitement of seeing the boys cushioned the news a little bit.
It helped that Benny had offered to stay at my house that night. I had ran into Clara that night when I was running up the steps to the front door so I could pack an overnight bag. She had almost hit me with the front door.
"You just fucking ruin everything don't you?" She demanded pushing past me, not caring if a neighbour heard her.
"What did I do now?" She wrenched the door of her car open and sneered at me.
"You were fucking born! He saw your room when he went upstairs to use the bathroom. And I told you not to come back!" I watched her jump into the car and take off down the road, I didn't know where she was going but I doubted she was coming back tonight.
He saw your room. Of course. She hadn't told him she had a kid living with her, didn't tell him it was her step kid from her fleeing husband.
I had called Benny and told him of the news, he had agreed to come to the house and spend the night so that there was at least one less body at Kenny's. I had played with the idea of all the boys staying over but there was no telling when Clara would come back. One boy was easier to hide than nine, I doubted we were missing anything anyways. Smalls, Ham and Tommy had all fallen asleep within ten minutes of being there, tired from the long drive.
"What happened in here?" Benny asked when he entered the kitchen.
"Clara cooked." I explained.
"She cooks?"
I shook my head. "No." The kitchen had been left in the same disastrous state as when I had left. Benny quickly helped me put away the left out food and clean up the spills so we wouldn't have to worry about bugs. The rest of the mess I left for Clara to complain about.
"If she's trying to find a new husband, don't you think she ought to tell them about you?" He threw himself on the couch pulling me down onto his lap.
"Who knows what goes through her head. Besides knowing her, she could probably keep it a secret for a very long time. She kept people from knowing I played ball with all you for about six years, and my dad managed to pretend I didn't exist for a lot longer than that." My tone was light but Benny still frowned worrying himself that talking about my dad might upset me.
He was playing with a piece of my hair avoiding my gaze. "I'm really sorry about today." I rolled my eyes.
"You don't need to be sorry."
"Yeah I do, you're right we're not little kids anymore, starting a fight in the street is stupid."
"And the fact that you know that means you can stop apologizing." I smiled at him placing my hand on his cheek to get him to look at me. Leaning down I have him the kind of kiss that I
hoped proved to him that I wasn't upset with him. "But, if you want to prove to me how sorry you are. . ."
A grin broke out over his face and he stood, me still in his arms. I yelled out in surprise as he took off towards the stairs, carrying me up to my room.
Benny and I laid in bed my naked body wrapped around his as he held me close, stupid smiles on our faces.
"I think that was the stupidest choice I ever made." Benny said, his hand was running up and down my spine. He was talking about when we were younger and Benny decided to show off and
got into a pepper eating contest with Ham.
"Really?" I adjusted myself so I could look at him. "Chewing chewing tobacco wasn't the worst?"
"Nah, I didn't puke my guts out like the other guys did."
"You still felt sick though." I grimaced at the memory of vomit flying off that ride at the fair. "I don't think anyone is ever going to forget that."
"I don't think you every told me how you knew about what was going to happen." He said looking down at me.
"I did tell you, I played on a team before I met you guys. They did it too, they didn't get on a ride but-"
"But you still don't really talk about before you met us." Benny was somewhat right, over the years I had told him and the boys bits and pieces of my time before meeting them. My life really started when I met the boys, before then it was kind of a normal and boring life, I had a lot more happy stories to talk about after I me them. It's not like I kept it a secret, I just didn't really have too many funny stories or memories to tell them. My mom died, my dad ignored me, Clara was Clara and I played on a team that didn't exactly respect me, we had lived in a town where everyone knew us before my dad married Clara so there wasn't much she could say or do about the whole baseball thing. It was when we moved to the Valley that she started her anger towards it.
"It's just not that important I guess. Don't think I'm too sad to talk about it or anything, my best memories is just with you guys."
He leaned down and kissed me softly. "Listen I was thinking about asking the boys on the team to have a game against the sandlot team before they leave."
"I think it's a good idea. . ." I trailed off thinking about it.
"But?"
"But, is it that good an idea to have the boys play against the team? I love the boys and they're great ball players but the eagles are a handpicked team from the best players from around the
country."
"And your worried about them getting embarrassed."
I sat up in the bed pulling the sheet with me to keep me covered as I looked down at him. "They gave you a run for your money a few times. I know the boys are good but, you know how competitive they are and how mean the eagles can be. They're kind of cocky assholes."
"It's just for fun." Benny smiled sitting up with me arms resting on his knees. "Plus it would be nice to play against a team that actually gets a chance to bat." he joked.
A silence stretched out between us before I finally had the courage to say what was really on my mind. "I can't play."
"We can wait till the end of the week. The doctor told you that it would be okay to start getting back into it."
"What if I do something to it again though? What if the first ball I throw completely ruins my arm?"
He furrowed his brows at me. "Are you scared?"
"Yeah." I admitted. "Benny I want to play ball more than anything but completely destroying my arm forever scares me."
"You don't have to pitch." He reminded me.
I rolled my eyes. "Oh and what other position am I supposed to play? Outfield."
He grinned. "No you're a terrible outfielder." I elbowed him in the ribs earning a laugh from him. "But you're an awesome infielder, and you're a better batter. I won't set up the game and torture you with the idea you having to sit on the sidelines but we don't know when we're all going to be together again to play."
He was right, we didn't know when we would see the boys again and although that though upset me, the idea of playing a game with them sounded absolutely amazing, especially since I had been spending all my time on the bench scorekeeping and keeping statistics. That urge and ache to be on the field was bad enough to agree to the game despite my fears about my arm.
We had Kenny, Kenny could pitch and the rest of us could rotate positions.
"Alright."
Benny smiled pulling me into his arms and back down onto the bed. "I know the boys are here, but can we forget about them for a second?"
"What do you wanna talk about then?" I asked giving him a knowing look.
"I didn't want to talk about anything." pulling me close he growled softly before kissing me hungrily. Sighing I melted into him and let him deepen the kiss, tongue sliding over my own and rough hands sliding over my exposed hips. It always amazed me how Benny made me feel, how absolutely happy he made me.
His hand slipped over my exposed hip pulling me closer as his lips travelled down my neck. Hands tangled in his hair I sighed contently as he worked some kind of magic on the sensitive skin
of my throat, sending tiny shivers down my body with every nip, lick and press of his lips.
I wanted to scream in frustration when someone started banging on the front door.
"Ignore them." Benny muttered into my skin.
I had no intention of leaving where I was but the knocking continued. When it happened a third time I pulled away from Benny and sighed. "Are you kidding me?"
"They'll leave." Benny said pulling me closer to him again.
"It's the police!" A voice boomed, my window was open so we could hear what was gong on outside. I blushed thinking about how that meant the neighbours probably heard the actions Benny and I had been partaking in about an hour ago.
"They here for me?" Benny whispered looking towards the window.
"I doubt it." I said getting up from the bed and quickly dressing. "But you better stay here just in case."
Benny nodded but started getting dressed himself. Frustrated and confused I headed down stairs to the door, where indeed a police officer was waiting. I had been half expecting it to be Ham pranking us.
Opening the door the officer nodded in greeting. "Good evening, are you Toni Spena? Clara Spena's daughter?"
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and reply with a smarts remark, I half smiled. "Yeah, she's my step mom."
"I'm here to inform you that unfortunately she has been involved in a car accident." Despite my hatred towards the woman I felt my stomach drop at the news. "She's fine, she's at the hospital but I guess your phone is disconnected and they couldn't call you, I offered to come over and offer you a ride to the hospital if you need it."
"Wait. . .what happened?" I asked shaking my head to get over the shock of the news and focus on the fact that he said she was okay.
"She hit a child, he was riding a bike, she ran through a stop sign."
"Shit." I muttered running a hand through my hair and looking back at the kitchen, I was suddenly very aware of the empty wine bottle Benny had placed by the sink earlier that night. "Is the kid okay?"
"I can't disclose information about him. Do you need a ride?" He asked.
"Uh." I looked at the stairs and knowing Benny was probably listening on the stairs out of view. "No thank you, I can get a ride."
He nodded and said some kind of farewell but I wasn't listening. "Your phones disconnected?" Benny asked coming down the stairs.
"Benny!" Really, that was what he was thinking about?
"Right. Sorry, lets go I'll drive you to the hospital."
The ride to the hospital was quiet, the officer had said that Clara was fine but we couldn't think of anything to say about it that wouldn't make the tension worse. So, we travelled in silence each thinking about what might have happened and what might be happening at the hospital.
"You have got to be kidding me." Benny said catching my attention.
"What's going on—oh." Squints standing at the emergency doors of the hospital was not what we were expecting to see.
Benny parked quickly and we took off towards the doors almost running towards Squints, he was cleaning his glasses furiously in a nervous habit.
"Took you guys long enough!" He snapped seeing us.
"Why are you here? I mean I appreciate it, but I didn't think you cared about Clara."
Squints looked at me as though I had said the dumbest thing he had ever heard. "I don't give a damn about Clara that bitch walked away with a fucking scratch on her forehead."
I shared a look with Benny. "You saw her crash or something?" Benny asked.
Realization spread across Squints face. "Guys, she hit Smalls."