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Reed shoved his hand into a pocket. “Well…this was fun.”

I snorted and started climbing down the ladder. “Highlight of my day.”

“So does your family own this theater now too? I saw your grandmother’s pictures all over the lobby.” He climbed down after me.

“No. The hardware store and the stadium. That’s it.” I flipped my hat around after I stepped off the last rung.

“And soon, it’ll only be the hardware store.” Reed reached the floor with a loud thump.

Psh. “Whatever.”

He took a couple of steps closer to me and patted the top of my hat. “You’ve shrunk a bit, Crowley.”

“And you’re stealing too much of my air, Fulton.” I rammed my heel into his left foot before spinning around and hurrying away, smiling as he swore under his breath.

Point: me.

Chapter Six

Reed

“Baseball is a game of inches.”

—Branch Rickey

My shins were on fire.

Coach should’ve let me keep my shoulder warm by throwing with Ben. Instead, I ran bleachers with the rest of the guys at the A Field in the scorching sun.

“Pick it up, Fulton!” Coach Monaco yelled. “Even pitchers need to be in shape.”

I was a thousand times more in shape than most of these guys.

“Who put a stick up his ass?” Ben asked between breaths as we ran back down a set of metal stairs.

I groaned as I reached the bottom. “I never thought I’d say I missed the hills from our high school, but fuck, I do now.”

“It’s not our fault we were pranked by those Crowleys. If you could even call it a prank. Amateurs.” Ben panted and cursed under his breath. “They obviously don’t know who they’re messing with.”

Ha. True.

Ben and I also bonded over our love of pranks. After his dad left, everyone treated him differently, so he spent his time creating elaborate setups. The same went for me. When one of Ben’s traps strung me upside down in a tree, I knew he and I would hit it off. Only, while I was fine keeping the mischief purely funny, he recently started moving toward vandalism, tagging the back walls of buildings or schools.

Hope he didn’t plan to go that far here.

As for the Crowleys’ idiotic prank, all that hay would take forever to clean up. It went almost to the roof of the dugouts in the sandlot and poked through the rusted chain-link fence in each.

Where the hell did they get it all?

It was almost as much as what I helped Granddad move into the loft of the barn years ago before Thanksgiving.

Finally, Coach blew his whistle twice. None of us made it to the field. We all dropped on the warm metal. Two of our guys rolled over and puked, but my arms and legs spread out around me like a body at a crime scene.

“You were up late last night.” Ben’s chest heaved. “What were you doing?”

“Nothing.” I sat up slowly. “Just watching some pitching videos on YouTube.”

And spending far too long scrolling through Eliza’s Instagram, and then maybe falling down a rabbit hole of her and Lauryn’s TikTok videos.