“Nah, center of mass, man. Like you’re trying to put it through me.”

  Ben socked his mitt for emphasis. He crouched over the meal tray they were using as a makeshift home base, punched his glove again. Behind him, the girls chatted while Kendall made her rounds, tugging on the doors of the Raising Cane’s, making sure they were locked for the night.

  “Seems, I dunno, a little too intense.” Ali rolled the baseball in his hands, traced the stitching absently with his thumb. “Like I said, it’s gonna be, like, six year olds. Little, little league.”

  “You gotta learn to throw fast before you can throw slow. If you wanna pitch strikes at least. Gotta learn to run before you can walk, feel me?”

  “That’s super not how that saying goes,” said Kendall, from somewhere behind a cloud of vape smoke. She and Jenny were waiting now, leaning against the wall by the dumpsters, watching.

  “Don’t catchers need knee pads?” Jenny added. “What if he hits your knee?”

  “He’s not gonna.” Ben rocked back, already uncomfortable in his squat.

  “What if he does? Ben, we’re not going to the ER for you again-”

  “You won’t have to-”

  “It was so fucking embarrassing last time. They’re gonna remember us and the receptionist is gonna laugh at me again.”

  “She only laughed at you last time because you threw up into your Stanley or whatever. And it wasn’t even a laugh it was, like, Ali, back me up, it was like a gasp.”

  “It was kind of a laugh,” Ali kicked at the asphalt under his feet, drew up, and launched the ball, hard as he could, at Ben’s waiting glove. It sailed three feet over target, and Ben had to lunge awkwardly, froglike, after it.

  “I only threw up,” Jenny said, watching, unimpressed, as Ben hustled after the rolling ball. “Because you had a dart sticking three inches into your cheek and you kept doing that thing where you’d open your mouth and you could see it from the inside-”

  Ben was belly laughing now, as he jogged back across the parking lot with the ball. Kendall and Ali joined him, giggling while Jenny faux-pouted.

  “He was only doing that because your reaction was so great the first time.” Ali caught the ball, tried to get back into position.

  “I’m always saying, you gotta stop giving him material,” Kendall added.

  “Why is it on me? Huh? It’s always ‘Jenny, stop encouraging him’ and never ‘Ben, stop being such a fucking freak.’”

  Ben laughed harder at that, then punched his glove again. “Ok, down the middle! I hit legs yesterday, I don’t have more of those chases left in me.”

  “I’m trying, man.” Ali reared back and threw again, sending the ball skidding into the ground a foot early. Ben caught it as it bounced up, tutting, and tossed it back.

  “Why’re you putting yourself through all this?” Kendall said, handing her vape over to Jenny, who was wordlessly groping for it. “I can get you a gig at Cane’s, it’ll be easy. Paul is literally obsessed with me, he’ll put you on the schedule if I ask.”

  “Join usssss,” Jenny hissed. “Slang some chicken.”

  “I can’t put ‘chicken slanger’ on college apps.” Another pitch, far outside. “‘Little league coach’ has a sorta community-builder angle to it. It’s athletics-adjacent. Right?”

  “Don’t ask me, man,” Ben tossed the ball back. “I just sign where the counselor tells me to sign.”

  “Easy for you to say, you’re gonna get the full ride.” Ali groaned as the ball slipped past him. Kendall shuffled over and put out a foot, stopping it from rolling into the street.

  “You’re gonna do fine, bro. State schools take whatever.”

  “State schools don’t take whatever. You need a 2.0 to get into the U, I’m pretty sure.” Ali nodded his thanks and stepped back onto his imaginary pitcher’s mound, wincing against yet another headache starting to seep in behind his eyes. He squinted through the pain, trying to picture an 8-year-old-sized strike zone.

  “It’s gonna be senior year,” Kendall said. “Just take fluff classes or something. Last year my sister took ceramics twice. GPA doesn’t care where the Bs come from.”

  “Or just, like, don’t. Who gives a shit.” Jenny said. “Do community college. Universities are super obviously a scam at this point. You’re not trying to be a lawyer or something.”

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  Ali scowled and pitched again, whipping the ball hard and high. Ben whooped as he lunged to catch it.

  “What?” Jenny turned to Kendall, imploring. “He’s not trying to be a lawyer, right? Ali? Swear I wasn’t trying to be mean.”

  “Nah, he’s just got a complex.” Kendall said, fishing out her keys. “You guys get five more throws and we’re out. It smells like Texas Toast and bus fumes out here.”

  “It’s not a complex, it’s just me being realistic,” Ali said, shuffling to catch another lob. “Trying to prep for the end of everything next year, make it as painless as I can.”

  “Man, why’s pain gotta enter into it? Just be psyched to graduate like a normal person,” Ben said.

  “Cuz he’s got a Neverland complex about this shit,” Kendall smirked. “Already decided he peaked in high school.”

  “I probably have!” Ali dropped from his pitcher’s stance, cocked his head toward the girls. His head throbbed again. “Just saying. I have things pretty good right now, and I don’t have anything lined up to keep things good.”

  “You do?”

  “What, you don’t like this?” Ali gestured vaguely around. “I think this is pretty great.”

  “You’re standing like nine feet from a dumpster right now.”

  “I don’t mean- Not literally this parking lot.” Ali shrugged, drew himself up to pitch again. “This, generally. Us hanging out all the time.”

  “Awwww,” Jenny cooed.

  “It’s gonna go away in a year. You don’t think about that? Ken, you’re gonna go to school out of state-”

  “Somewhere warm, please, God.”

  “And Jenny’s gonna go be with her mom in NC, and Ben’s going with whatever team gives him the best deal, probably, and it’s not gonna be the Gophers.”

  Ben nodded. “Unfortunately, yeah, they are kinda ass.”

  “It’s gonna be me, alone, in a year, and I want to make that as comfortable as I can. So yeah, I’m gonna keep almost nailing Ben with baseballs so I can get the little league job so I can maybe trick the U into taking me, because maybe at an actual college I can scrounge together something half as good as what I’ve got now.”

  For a moment they were quiet, just distant traffic and crickets and a ball hitting leather.

  “See, that would be sweet if it wasn’t crazy and harsh and negative,” Kendall said.

  “Yeah, you just have depression, my guy,” Jenny added.

  “I do not! I do not.” Ali fired off another pitch.

  “You sure sound like you do.”

  “Even if I do, tell me I’m wrong.”

  “Ok, you’re wrong,” Kendall crossed her arms.

  “What, you’re gonna stay here? We’ll all go to the same school? We’ll buy a van and solve mysteries together?”

  “No, I mean your approach is wrong. You’re deciding everything’s gonna suck ahead of time, but you’re insisting you’re trying to make sure things don’t suck. Can’t have both at once.”

  “I haven’t decided shit. It’s just how it is.” Ben tossed the ball back, and Ali winced as he hopped up to catch it, his headache making his vision swim briefly. “Everyone in my family, as soon as they hit my age, their life went to shit.”

  “Yeah, for reasons that don’t really apply to you. They’re avoidable.”

  Another pitch. “I’m sure my dad would’ve loved to avoid getting his leg blown off.”

  “Avoidable. Don’t join the army.”

  “Hah!” Ben barked as he lobbed the ball back. “Ali in the army. Not happening.”

  “My brother, his whole- He went completely broke. Lived out of his car.” Pitch.

  “Don’t spend all of your money on magic mushrooms and Dogecoin.”

  “Besides, didn’t Reggie’s bum ass get fired from Subway day one anyway? That’s not a you problem.” Jenny shivered. “Come on, let’s goooo.”

  “Jenny you can’t possibly be cold right now,” Ben said. “Ali, two more! Give me some fire.”

  “Ok, those specific things aren’t happening to me, but I could have my own version of an IED or Subway firing coming down the pipe.” Raise up, kick, pitch. “It’s a little patronizing to act like that’s not possible.”

  “Come the fuck on, man,” Kendall huffed. “I’m not patronizing you, I’m just not enabling your little death spiral.” Ali’s pitch went low again, skidding to a stop at Ben’s shoes.

  “It’s not a death spiral, it’s reality.”

  Ben scooped the ball from the ground, tossed it back. “Harder, man. You’re coming up short because you’re not giving it enough gas.”

  “Oh, it’s reality now?”

  “You’re gonna do fine, Ali. I believe in you!”

  “Thanks Jenny, but you also believe in mermaids.”

  “Don’t be a dick to Jenny.”

  “Hey, I know what I saw!”

  “One more, man. Down the middle!”

  Wince. Another wave of pain. Ali straightened. “I’m not trying to be a dick.”

  “Well you’re coming off like one. Or, just, more like a know-it-all.”

  Draw up, rear back. “Know-it-all?”

  “Like you know the future. You’ve got a bad gut feeling, fine.”

  “Right here, man!” Breathe, aim.

  “I fuckin, I saw something on that cruise.”

  “But how could you possibly know how things are going to turn out?” Wince. Stumble. “How do you know for sure it’s gonna be so bad?”

  “I just DO!” Pitch. A thunderclap.

  More silence. Engines and crickets again.

  Ali’s vision was gone, replaced by a kaleidoscope haze of shifting auras. His ears rang, muffling the sound of Jenny’s surprised yelp, Kendall’s gasp.

  It took a few seconds for Ali’s vision to clear, for him to regain his footing. He’d fallen? He didn’t remember falling.

  Up ahead of him, still clouded somewhat by the shifting blur in his eyes, he could make out Kendall rushing over to Ben, who was slumping to the ground, still on his knees. A finger of smoke trickled upward from his shirt, dissipating in lazy twists. Blood pooled on the asphalt ahead of him, spurting out from a hole in Ben’s gut.

  A hole the exact size and shape of a baseball.