Grover's words had stuck with me, and as much as I wanted to ignore the situation and enjoy having a house to myself with my boyfriend, I couldn't.

"You can stay with Kenny." Benny said from where he sat on my bed. "His parents let me stay—"

"I already told you I can't do that. And you know why."

"They wouldn't make you sleep on the streets."

"Yeah but Benny, I'm not going to take advantage of their kindness when I know they wouldn't like it." I was pacing across my room, the lack of furniture giving me plenty of room to wander.

Benny paused. "You can stay with my parents."

I stopped mid step and looked at him. His mom and dad were two of the best people I knew, they had let me stay with them when Clara and I had a fight and were always willing to help me.

They would take me in, I knew they would, but. . .

"Benny." I sighed taking a seat next to him. "I have a job, I'm on a diamond every single day. You're here."

"I'll come back-"

I shook my head cutting him off. "No. It's a well respected team Benny, they're offering a scholarship for school. College Benny, you can't give it up, I'm not going to let you."

He gave me a half smile half frown before throwing his arm around my shoulder.

"I love you." He said. "And because of that I would drop out to make sure you're okay, but I also know how stubborn you are. Therefore, we'll work it out, no matter what I promise to make it work."

I snuggled into his chest and he pulled me closer. "Five years ago, I never thought we'd be here."

"Where did you think we'd be?"

I smiled up at him. "I was twelve, I thought we'd both be professional baseball players for the dodgers while Phillips cleaned our cleats with his tongue."

Benny laughed. "Funny enough I assumed the same thing." His smile turned into a frown and I knew the conversation hadn't ended yet. "Sunshine, you need a place to live when all of this blows up."

I sighed pulling away from him. "I'll find somewhere, but I'm not going to leave you again and I'm not asking Kenny's parents to take in another sandlot kid."

"You don't have to do this alone."

"I'm not trying to."

Benny leaned forward capturing a piece of my hair in his fingers. "I wish I could fix everything you went through with your parents. I watched you go through living in that house alone and I wanted nothing more than to just fix everything, but you made me let you deal with it yourself. Then I finally took matters into my own hands and I ended up making everything else."

"Benny don't blame—"

He cut me off. "I'm not. I know you're family has been something that you have always wanted to deal with yourself, but I'm not going to let you do it anymore. The team isn't going to let you do it anymore. If you don't want my house or Kenny's that's fine but we're not going to let you handle this on your own. Please let us help you."

I nodded and he smiled and kissed me on the forehead. "Why aren't things ever easy?"

"Cause that's fucking boring." He answered.

—

There had been many times in the past in which the boys pissed me off so much that I had wanted to hit them. There had also been many times in the past where I did hit them for comments they made or the antics they did. Usually it resulted in some kind of wrestling match and as we got older the boys became bigger and stronger and almost every time I ended up tapping out. We had been younger then, wrestling each other in the hallways in high school had been frowned upon and we discovered at the age of sixteen that we were probably too old to be tackling each other in rage.

For the past half hour, I had been debating whether or not were were too old for that, but I really did want to start something.

"I'm going to do you a favour and pretend that this conversation has never happened." I told Yeah yeah and Ham as they followed me around town. We had been trying to collect things for

Squint's bachelor party while the others tried to find a venue that we could have it at.

"But we need a stripper!" Ham complained.

"I am not stripping!" I hissed hoping none of the bystanders walking by could hear us.

"But why?" Yeah Yeah asked catching up to walk next to me.

I glared at him. "For all the reasons I just mentioned. Benny isn't going to like it, Wendy for sure will hate me forever, I'm your guys best friend so it's gross, and finally I'm not a stripper!"

"We've seen you strip before!" Ham exclaimed catching the attention of a older couple that was looking at produce.

"Will you shut up!" I snapped. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Ham huffed from behind me. "Uh, when you took your clothes off to get into the pool. Or that time you changed out of your baseball clothes because Smalls spilled a coke on you. Or the fact

that you didn't have a curtain on your window for like two years!" I couldn't help myself, I turned on him and punched him square in the arm. "OW!"

"You guys used to spy on me?"

"It's not spying if we can see into your window and you do nothing to prevent it!"

"Oh my God." I rubbed my face with my hands becoming increasingly embarrassed. I tried to push the idea of what they may have seen far from my mind and tried to focus on the request they

had of me. "Why do you even want me to be the stripper? I'm your best friend. That's gross."

"Yeah Yeah, but you'd be cheap!" This time I turned and pouched Yeah Yeah in the shoulder. "OW! All I mean is, you wouldn't charge us would you?"

"Jesus Christ. Look you can't hire a stripper anyways. Wendy would kill Squints if she found out there was a stripper near him. Besides he's seen Wendy naked, do you really think anything is going to top that for him?"

"The bachelor party isn't just for him." Ham pointed out.

I rolled my eyes and continued down the street, them hurrying to catch up with me. It didn't really matter, I doubted they were going to find a stripper in this town anyways. I was a bit concerned that they might just ask some random girl on the street because if their history remained true to their form then they would do it. But after years of having a girl best friend I hoped they had learned at least a little respect and wouldn't do that… they were just going to ask me.

"I hate you guys." I told them as we walked. "I thought Squints just wanted to have a dinner or something."

"Maybe." Yeah Yeah said. "But it's not up to him."

"You guys do know that you will not only be attending about eight bachelor parties just with the amount of friends you have now, but you'll also be able to make choices about your own?"

"Sure. But Benny won't want a stripper, Grover would just want us all to burn stuff in a yard somewhere, Smalls would be too terrified to even go in the building, Timmy and Tommy will probably share a bachelor party where they play stupid games, and you're not gonna have one."

"That sill leaves, Kenny, you and Yeah Yeah."

"But that means—Oh fuck."

"What's your problem. . .oh." Yeah Yeah knew more about the law than I did, what with his dad being a cop and everything, but I was almost certain that if the cops told you not to leave your home as terms to you being released on bail, then Clara was breaking them.

She was shopping, looking through some stupid kiosk of books and smiling at the owner.

"Turn around, lets walk away." Ham grabbed my arm and lightly tugged. "We got a game to get to anyways."

I watched Clara a for a few moments. She was smiling, smiling and she had just hit Smalls with a car a few days ago.

It may have been a small town, but Smalls wasn't from here and news didn't travel as fast as it did in the Valley. If anyone knew about what happened they didn't show it and if they didn't already know, they wouldn't ever. And it pissed me off.

But Clara and I getting into a fight in the middle of the street wasn't the reason the boys wanted me to walk away. They had all come to the conclusion that the less Clara and I saw of each other, the better, and they were right. Clara was going to go to court, which meant I was most likely going to brought up since I was related to both the defendant and the plantiff. The more we saw each other the more we fought, and I didn't need a reason for anyone to think that I would lie about Clara, and I also didn't need a reason for anyone to want to investigate mine and

Clara's situation either.

I didn't even want to think about it, I just wanted her gone.

Despite my desire to not run away from Clara. . . yet again, I followed Ham and Yeah Yeah down the street and towards the baseball diamond.

It felt like we were right back where we had began, ten sandlot kids standing on a diamond and across from us and bunch of fucking assholes.

"This is who you want us to play against?" Adam demanded gesturing to the lot of us. The eagles had come dressed in their uniforms while the sandlot kids came dressed in their usual ball

attire of jeans and t-shirts.

"For the fourth time, yes." Kenny snapped. "What is your problem? We told you who you would be playing against.'

"Toni can't even throw!" He accused pointing at me.

Ham, being the loudmouth that he was pushed his way through myself and Yeah Yeah so he could be seen. "It sounds like you're trying to get out of playing us." he said raising an eyebrow.

"Trying not to waste our time."

"Oh for fuck sakes." Cole snapped growing as tired of the bickering as everyone else. "Let's just play, a game is a game even if its just batting practice."

We all resisted the urge to snap at them, having to actually place a hand over Ham's mouth to keep him from gelling back, and took off towards the dugout anyways. Their field, their home field advantage.

"Whoa whoa whoa, DeNunez, Rodriguez where are you going?" Adam asked.

The two boys stopped in their tracks and turned to look at him confused. "Last I checked, you're Eagles."

"Are you serious?" Kenny asked. Adam nodded crossing his arms. "You do realize that if we play with you guys they only have eight."

"If we're gonna have a game to practice, we're gonna practice with the whole team like it's supposed to be."

"Adam-"

"Sorry Benny." Marcus said. "But I agree with him. We should be playing as a team, the season needs us to be ready and we should be getting to know each other's strengths and weakness'. You can play with eight."

Squints rolled his eyes. "Just go." he huffed.

"Yeah." Tommy sighed. "I don't wanna fight I just wanna play ball."

"But—"

I stepped in before he started arguing."We can all play a game together after."

I knew Adam's game, he didn't like to lose and with their best pitcher and hitter joining another team there was a stronger chance we would beat them. It wasn't worth arguing over and Benny and Kenny both knew it too.

Reluctantly, and looking miserable about it, the two boys walked over to their grinning teammates and joined them.

"You know what this means right?" Squints asked as we tried to find helmets that fit.

"What?" Timmy asked.

Squints turned towards me eyebrows raised. "Sunshine, you're pitching." I opened my mouth to argue but he cut me off. "We have no pitcher, both Kenny and Benny are over there."

"Grover—" I didn't get the chance to even suggest it when Grover pushed me on the shoulder interrupting me.

"Don't you dare try and convince everyone that I can pitch, remember what happened last time?" I did.

Grover was an amazing first basemen and he was not afraid of the ball but he was afraid of pitching. Tommy had hit a line drive right at him and broke his glasses, his mom had come to the sandlot just to give us a lecture about how Grover was no longer allowed to pitch. We knew that Grover's mom had a lot to do with his refusal to pitch again but a small part of us thought that maybe Grover had encouraged him mom a little bit to tell us that he wasn't allowed to pitch.

I didn't push the subject after all, he wasn't our best pitcher, fourth string at best.

"Well why can't any of you do it?"

"Cause we're not looking to completely embarrass ourselves." Yeah Yeah said handing me a helmet.

"My arm is in a sling." I reminded them.

Timmy rolled his eyes. "Out of the 's out of the sling Toni" His gaze drifted to where Adam was taking the mound and then turned back to me. "Are you scared?"

I stretched my arm out in front of me. It didn't hurt, not really. And it hadn't been hurting when I was just playing catch a few minutes ago for warm up. But I was scared.

I wanted to pitch, so badly but the idea of harming my arm even more was in the back of my mind. The doctors warning's were in the back of my mind.

"Sunshine, you at half your best is way better than any of us could ever do." Squints said talking out the on deck circle. "We don't wanna see you get hurt but, don't you wanna pitch? Is it

really worth it to not play?"

Benny was staring at me from short stop, clearly knowing what we were talking about and looking worried. I gave him a half smile half frown nodded at him.

A smile spread over his face at my confirmation.

"Alright assholes, I'll do it, but Squints if you think you're lead off you got another thing coming." I said putting on my helmet and selecting a bat.

The boys smiled as I walked up to the batters box, they cheered me on as I made my way up.

"Don't worry Spena, I'll go easy on you." Adam said.

"That your excuse for when I hit the ball over the fence?" I called back to him.

He smirked. "You may be able to pitch but don't you know pitchers don't hit?"

"This one does." I muttered griping the bat a little tighter. I brought my arm up and pointed directly at Benny who flipped me off in return grinning like a fool.

I knew Adam, my entire job was to analyze a players routine, and their patterns, Adam had some terrible patterns that were far too easy to follow. And his arrogance had resulted in him not listening to me and refused to change his pithing style.

I couldn't help but smile as he wound up. Drop ball, he had a habit of exposing the ball rather than hiding it in the glove when he throws his drop ball.

The sound of the ball cracking against the bat was the greatest sound I had ever heard. It didn't go over the fence, far from it but it did go flying over Benny's head, even as he jumped and tried to catch the line drive he came up a foot short and I took off towards first base.

A base hit off of Adam wasn't as good as a home run off of him but it didn't matter, getting on base was all that mattered.

Cheers came from the bench as I ran to first base and I couldn't help the smile that broke out as the right fielder was still running towards the ball and I rounded first and headed to second.

Safe at second I watched as Squints walked up and set up left handed, he had been working on switch hitting for a while now and had been getting pretty good. Him batting lefty meant that

Benny would be covering second. He danced behind me smacking his glove teasingly trying to distract me and make me go back to the bag.

"Give it a rest Rodriguez." I snapped keeping my gaze straight ahead.

He laughed. "What the hell are you doing batting right handed?" He asked me.

Without looking at him I answered. "Got me on base didn't it?"

"But you bat left." He said.

"I switch hit."

"I know that. We found that out the first day on the sandlot, but don't you want to embarrass these guys?" I slowly walked back to the base as the first pitch was a ball.

"Make them hate me even more?" I took my primary lead, waiting for Adam to get his signal.

"They hate you anyways." He joked tapping me on the butt with his glove. I swiped my foot back, kicking dirt at him in the process.

"Rodriguez get your head in the game!" Their catcher screamed from behind the plate. Benny only laughed waved him off.

Foul Ball.

"Hey." I said keeping my eyes on the pitchers mound. "You think we'll win?"

Benny didn't get a chance to answer as Squints hit the ball and sent me to third base.

Three runs and three outs later and I was heading off to the mound. The Eagles field was much larger than the sandlot and it was almost intimidating. We played on uneven grass littered with rocks and random patches of sand, our bases were potato sacks that we had filled with dirt and our baselines were painted with spray paint and when it washed away we had used ground up sidewalk chalk.

This was a real field with smooth grounds and beautiful equipment. We didn't fit in, we looked like little kids trying to play out a fantasy in our jeans and t-shirts.

Ham met me on the mound as the lead off Cole took some swings off to the side.

"You don't gotta do this." Ham reminded me.

I shook my head. "No point in waiting it out. I wanna play might as well start now."

"Benny bats fourth right?" He asked. I nodded. "Walk the second batter."

"Screw you I'm not walking anyone." I snapped.

"Toni, Strike out Benny you're gonna get some major respect which I know you need around here."

I rolled my eyes. "They're just gonna think he did it on purpose."

"That'll be their excuse, sure, but how many excuses can they come up with when you strike all of them out?"

I sighed looking at the ball in my hands. "I'm not gonna be able to strike out everyone."

"Sunshine if you're telling me that after months of being with these guys you don't know their weakness'—"

"No I do but—"

"I know you Sunshine, you analyze and breakdown players better than anyone I know. You know everything about them, don't you dare let them hit off of you cause I'll know when you do."

I sighed flipping the ball through my fingers. "They're not gonna respect me any more than they do, Ham."

"Sure. But they won't respect you any less either." At my still conflicted gaze he nudged me in the shoulder. "Come on, where's the Sunshine I know? What would do if this was Phillips?"

I didn't want to admit it but Ham had a point, since moving here I had lost a bit of my edge, at least when it came to the team. The last time I had really stuck up for myself I had gotten myself into a world of trouble and had basically become a pushover for the team. Cleaning up dixie cups and racking the field was bad enough, but when they thought I was a talentless injured girl it made things a lot worse.

The only time I had gotten any kind of support from the team was when I was being used as a way to insult them. Their heart wasn't into defending me, I knew it wasn't, because the only thing they wanted out of it was to make themselves look good.

I didn't deserve to be a point of weakness to them. I didn't deserve to be the reason they got insulted, and I certainly didn't deserve to be the target of their mean jokes, it was time to show them what I could do and shut them up.

"Get behind the plate." I told Ham. "Cole is up first. He doesn't swing at the first pitch, after that change ups, he can't hit them no matter how many are thrown. Second batter I'll throw rise

balls, he won't swing and demand that they were all balls, and we'll give it to him. Third batter; call whatever you want but he crowds the plate, throw the ball outside and he'll swing but it has to be way off the plate so he won't hit it and he'll just keep getting closer and closer to that plate.. Third pitch jam it in on his hands, he'll jump back but it'll be strike three." I cast a glance over to where Benny was watching up with a furrowed brow. "If anyone is going to believe I can strike out Benny. . . First two pitches don't give him anything to hit. From then on. . . wringer."

Ham was smiling up until the point I mentioned the pitch that had been the cause of my arm being as messed up as it was. "Sunshine—"

"I can handle it, it's the one pitch Benny hasn't been able to hit."

Ham looked distraught but at the sound of the other team yelling at us to hurry up he agreed and lowered his face mask before heading back to the plate.

My plan worked, I had been telling the boys for weeks the patterns they were exhibiting in their batting but like usual they ignored me. It was now costing them their dignity.

It killed me to walk anyone but I did as Ham mentioned and waited as Ham and he argued over the strike zone until Ham finally let him take his base.

Benny came up to the plate smiling just as their third spot batter took a walk of shame back to the dugout. The first two pitches Benny furrowed his brows at me wondering what the hell was wrong. Two balls way too low to be considered even close to the strike zone.

My hand was sweating as I gripped the ball my arm trembled and whether it was from fear or from protest I wasn't sure.

I let the ball fly, STRIKE ONE. Silence followed.

"Sunshine what the hell are you doing?" It was Yeah Yeah that called out from second base.

"What the fuck was that?" Someone called from the dugout. Ham smiled a large grin, Benny looked terrified. But my arm felt great.

Ham threw the ball back and I turned back towards the mound.

"Sunshine don't do it!" Grover hissed from the sidelines. "You proved your point now stop before you ruin your arm forever."

I wasn't listening though, I looked at the scoreboard, a brilliantly expensive piece of equipment that had been installed just one year previous. Someone's little brother was running it so we didn't argue over the score throughout the game, but the score wasn't what I was looking at.

The pitch speed had flashed on the board and was still there. . . 96 mph. Then it disappeared.

"Oh my god." I whispered. We didn't grow up with fancy equipment, we barely had a field to practice on so we never knew out batting stats, or our ETA's. . . and I didn't know how fast I could actually pitch.

"Do it again!" Ham called out grinning.

"Are you fucking crazy!?" Benny demanded. "Sunshine you're gone ruin your arm!"

I couldn't hear them, I was drunk on the rush that the information on the board gave me. I was suddenly obsessed with knowing how fast I could actually throw the ball.

I turned on the mound quickly and set up to pitch, the bat wasn't even on Benny's shoulder but he stood in the batters box.

"Sunshine! Don't!" I didn't listen I let the ball fly, not caring how badly the pain ripped through my arm as I did so.

The was a crack as the ball his the leather of Ham's glove and I turned around to see the scoreboard when a foreign and much louder voice called out.

"HEY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" Coach O'Niall's voice spooked us and soon we were all rushing to get off the field and somehow hide what we were doing.

We were in trouble, we weren't supposed to use the field for personal use but I couldn't take my eyes off the scoreboard and I stood on the field lamely staring at it as the 101 mph disappeared from sight.