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“Yeah, the way you talked about her, I figured she was more of a Benz.” He hit the inside of his glove. “Did you know she led a sit-in at the coffee place in town a couple years ago?”

“At the Brew?” I kicked a few stones away from the mound.

God, this infield really sucked.

Ben nodded. “Brett read about it on their bulletin board when he grabbed coffee the other morning. The town wouldn’t let some poet read her stuff there. Eliza organized the protest. She also won the hitting derby contest last year.”

I almost dropped the baseball. “She won Fairfield’s Hit and Run Derby?” Holy hell.

“Right?” Ben laughed. “How shitty of a town do you gotta have for a girl to win that?”

Seriously, Ben?

“Eri Yoshida was drafted by the Japanese men’s league when she was only sixteen. Remember her sick knuckleball?” I propped my gloved hand on my hip. “Mo’ne Davis pitched a freaking shutout in the Little League World Series in 2014. Melissa Mayeux, Marti Sementelli—”

“Okay, okay.” He held up his hand. “I got it.”

Would’ve been cool to see Eliza put her dad’s best players in their place though.

Not that I’d ever admit that out loud.

“Come on.” Ben waved for the ball. “You dragged me out here. Show me whatcha got, Ace.”

I leaned forward and stared at Ben’s signals. The sun grew warmer on my neck.

He asked for a high-and-inside.

I shook it off.

Then he asked for a fastball.

I shook that off too.

He chuckled and brought up his middle finger before pointing it down and away.

My slider. Perfect.

I straightened my back, checked an imaginary base runner on second, brought my chin down, knee up, and arm out.

My cleat dug into the dry dirt as the ball zipped out of my hand. It crossed home plate with a perfect angle into his glove.

“Strike! That’s what I’m talkin’ about.” He threw it back to me. “Now let’s see that fastball, and make it a two-seamer.”

Fuck. “I can’t do my two-seamer yet.”

“Dude. You gotta practice it again sooner or later.”

Easy for him to say. He didn’t hit three batters and send one to the hospital with a two-seamer last summer. He made it sound like it was nothing. “I dunno—”

“What did the coaches say when they came up to you after the first evaluation?”

“Control. Consistency,” I muttered.

“Right. So focus on that.” He moved back into position. “We won’t win if you can’t nail down those two things, and if we don’t win, summer scouts won’t even remember our names.”

My stomach knotted up.

Scouts.