Nodding, Mikey did what she was told. She kept throwing until he gestured for her to stop, and then told her to start throwing curveballs until he told her to stop again. She did that until he stopped her again and again, telling her to switch it up until finally he told her to go back to throwing fastballs before walking away. She kept throwing, ignoring the way that her arm was starting to ache and forced herself to focus. When he came back an hour later, he gestured for her to stop.
“Go bat,” he said, motioning for her get on with it.
Nodding, Mikey tossed the ball back to the pitcher and quickly did as she was told. Once she had a bat in her hands, she stepped up to home plate, rolled her arm a few times and got in position while a kid that looked a lot like the coach headed to the pitcher’s mound. Once he was settled, he took position and threw the ball, but she’d been ready for it. She saw the way that he gripped the ball before he threw it, letting her know that it was going to be a curveball. She managed to hit the ball, sending it to center field.
Before one of the boys trying out for center field managed to
catch it, someone was throwing the kid another ball. He kept throwing the balls and she kept hitting them, ignoring the way that the muscles in her arm and shoulder protested and–
“Campbell, get back on the mound,” Coach Dilmore said a half hour later.
Nodding, Mikey dropped the bat. She grabbed her glove and headed back to the mound. She glanced at the coach to find him gesturing for her to get on with it. By the time he finally told her to stop, the muscles in her arm and shoulder were on fire and she could barely feel her hand, but she couldn’t stop smiling.
“Line up!” Coach Dilmore called out, and within minutes, had everyone hoping for a spot on the team standing quietly in front of him.
“Listen up,” Coach Dilmore said as he finally looked up from his iPad. “You all did a great job and you should be proud of yourselves. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough spots on the team for all of you, and in the event that you don’t make the team this year, I don’t want you to give up trying. Next year, I will be taking over as head coach at the high school for the freshman team and will do my best to try to find spots for those of you who put in the work,” he announced, taking Mikey by surprise, because she hadn’t known that he would be taking over at the high school next year.
If everything worked out this year, that meant she would have a better chance to start next year. She just had to make sure that she showed him what she had, Mikey told herself as she stood there, biting back a smile as she risked a glance to her right to find Sebastian watching her.
She could definitely do this.
“If you make the team this year, just know that you will be expected to show up on time, work hard, and leave the excuses at home, because they have no place on this field. The team roster will be up Friday, until then, go home, relax and try not to worry,” Coach Dilmore said, gesturing for them to leave.
Sighing in relief, Mikey turned to follow everyone off the field when the coach said those magical words that had her stopping and turning around.
“Campbell, can I talk to you for a moment?”
“Of course,” Mikey said, somehow resisting the urge to rub her shoulder.
God, it hurt. She’d never had to throw that hard for that long before without breaks, but maybe that was a good thing, Mikey told herself as she stood there, waiting for the coach to say something. He waited until everyone was off the field before he finally turned his attention to her.
“Why aren’t you trying out for softball?” he asked, which wasn’t exactly a surprise.
Every time she tried out for a team, the coaches always took her aside to make sure that she wasn’t making a mistake. They wanted to make sure that she was comfortable playing with the boys, and while she appreciated it, it got kind of annoying after a while, but she didn’t say anything, mostly because she wanted to make sure that he gave her a chance.
“I love playing baseball and I’m not really a big fan of softball,” she admitted with a shrug.
“Why?” he asked, looking like he was trying to decide something.
“I’m not a big fan of the way the ball is thrown and the game goes too slow.”
Nodding, he glanced back down at his iPad with a heavy sigh. “Look, right now I’m not really sure about you, Mikey. You have a decent fastball, but I’m concerned about you being able to throw under pressure. Your arm got tired quickly. You’re small for your age, which has its advantages at bat, but when you were running drills you had problems keeping up with everyone else. You don’t have enough upper body strength to handle pitching at this level and I’m not really sure that this is a good idea,” he finished with a heavy sigh before reluctantly adding, “If you really want to play, I could probably use you in right field.”
For a moment, Mikey could only stand there, struggling to wrap her mind around everything he’d said, but the one thing that grabbed her attention had her weakly mumbling, “But I’m a pitcher.”
“No, you’re not.”
*-*-*-*
“Mikey!” Sebastian yelled as he ran after Mikey only to curse when he saw where she was going.
Damn it!
He didn’t know what happened to set her off, but he knew that whatever it was, that it was bad. While he normally liked to spend time on his roof to clear his head and get his mind off everything for a while, Mikey only did it when she was upset about something. A few years ago, Uncle Reese built a treehouse for her, hoping that it would help, but it was never enough. When Mikey was upset, she needed space so that she could lose it without anyone seeing, which meant…
Damn it!
Sebastian watched helplessly as Mikey climbed onto the pile of old pallets stacked by her garage and pulled herself up onto the roof before disappearing around the back. He moved his ass faster, jumped on the pallets, grabbed onto the edge of the roof and pulled himself up. Once he was on the roof, he moved faster, heading toward the back, climbed onto the flat part of the next roof and–