Page 65 of The Way We Swing Back

“Easton,” Mrs. Quinn said.

I looked over, enjoying the Christmas morning atmosphere. “Yes?”

“Go get on the floor with the boys and find a present with your name on it.”

Presents? For me?

I stumbled onto the floor as Gavin handed me a small box wrapped in green-and-red paper. “From Santa, To Easton,” it read. Mr. Quinn’s handwriting.

“We all got one of these, so we need to open them at the same time,” Gavin said. “Ready?”

“Sure am,” I said, my fingers finding tape in the corner and ripping. The Apple logo appeared on each of the four boxes as wrapping paper got tossed to the side.

That was how it went for the next half hour: gift after gift. The Quinns had gone overboard, even for them. My favorite gift was a box of nothing more than new socks and underwear; it showed the simplicity of what they were doing for me.

The last two Christmas mornings at my grandparents’ house had been silent and stiff, filled with quiet thank yous for gifts I honestly had no use for. Yes, I appreciated them, but those Christmases were nothing compared to the chaos, laughter, and flying paper now surrounding me.

Then I got to my last gift of the morning.

“Tanner helped us pick out this last one for you three,” Mr. Quinn said as he handed a box to Zach, Gavin, and me.

I tore open the gift nearly as quickly as Gavin did. The box brushed against the backside of my hand as I reached inside and grabbed a handle. I pulled it out and realized what it was—a new bat. I put the grip in my hand and gave a half swing as I felt the weight and the length in my wrists.

“Whoa,” I whispered to myself. My first bat since Mom. I walked over to Mrs. Quinn and wrapped her in a hug so fierce I thought I might split her in two. “Thank you,” I said as she patted me on the head, letting me know I could release her.

Why were these people so good to me?

Then I remembered I had gifts to give out, and I ran up to Tanner’s room. I picked up the five envelopes, thrilled Nate had given me a job so I could buy presents. They’d cost more money than I should have spent, but I had to.

I raced back downstairs, my feet skipping off the ground, the bell at the end of my hat jingling all the way. “So, I got you guys a gift,” I said, handing out the envelopes.

Gavin still had his bat in his hands but put it down when I reached him.

“I thought, like—” I started, pulling in a breath, watching as they unwrapped tickets to the Cardinals Opening Day game. It was a game I’d always dreamed of going to, and I knew they’d enjoy the heck out of it, too. “I thought we could go to Opening Day. Kind of like we were a family.”

There was a slight pause as everyone looked at the tickets—they weren’t great, but they were what I could afford.

“You’re so stupid,” Zach said, his eyes rolling.

“We are a family, Easton,” Gavin said, exasperated.

Mrs. Quinn walked over to me; this time, she gave me the hug.

After we ate breakfast, Tanner, Gavin, and I made our way into the cage in the backyard. Snow had fallen on the twenty-third, and it had decided to stick with a decent three inches across the grass.

When we got to the cage, we lifted up the mats we had placed in the batter’s box to catch the snow and hauled the white stuff I hated so much outside the cage. It wasn’t necessarily the snow I hated; it was when the snow turned into slush and we couldn’t hit that I was bothered.

We took a couple of rounds, my new black Nike bat stinging my hands as I made contact in the winter cold. When it was Gavin’s turn to hit, I watched a blur of orange and yellow fly through the air as he smacked ball after ball against the net.

These weren’t the dull thuds of Gavin’s hits two years ago or even the sharpness of his hits at the end of summer; his hits now had the oomph of somebody who could drive the ball with absolute authority whenever and wherever he wanted. At one point, the whoosh of the ball was nearly as loud as the ping of the bat, and I thought he would put a ball through the netting.

“Nice round,” I said as I entered the cage to help pick up the baseballs scattered on the ground.

“Thanks,” Gavin said as he dropped to pick up a ball from the snow.

I grabbed his new bat and looked at the label. The words “Hype Fire” were sprawled across the top of it with the company logo and name—which also happened to be mine—beneath it. Yeah, I was named after a baseball company, but it was fun to see it on equipment.

Tanner saw my fingers on my name as I took in the new bat. “I figured Gavin was so obsessed with you, we’d get him a bat with your name splattered all over it.”