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Neither of which I could share with him.

No girls. All baseball.

Ben sat up and motioned for me to help him stretch. We spread and straightened our legs so our feet touched, leaned in, and pulled each other across the space between us. “Did your grandparents tell you I took the combine harvester out yesterday?” he asked.

I laughed. “Yeah, Nana mentioned it. How many rows of corn did you take down before you could stop it?”

“A few.” He stretched forward. “Your granddad showed me his antique lighters collection too. Makes mine look like crap.”

“When do you get yours back?”

He smirked. “Already got it back.”

Translation: stole it back.

Ben’s mom had taken his lighter away the week before we came to Fairfield, to “prevent him from causing any trouble with it.”

True, he had gotten caught multiple times smoking on the campus of our high school while skipping classes, but he would’ve found a way to smoke with or without his own lighter.

The lighter wasn’t the root of his problems.

He had the literal scars to prove it.

Maybe if Mrs. Talbot spent more time talking to her son instead of working herself to death, she would’ve noticed that.

Later, after a short intrasquad scrimmage, everyone trudged back to the sandlot to clean up the shit-tons of hay. Using a couple of infield rakes and our bare hands, we managed to move it to the edge of the woods. I had been around hay all my life, but it was clear the others hadn’t. They sneezed nonstop.

Once Coach gave us his second speech of the day about “growing up” and “taking the higher road,” we hauled our gear toward the parking lot.

“You heading home now?” Ben tossed his duffle into the back of my truck. “Or you wanna grab a quick burger at the diner?”

“I think I’m gonna go for a walk. Can you take the truck home?” I dropped my bag next to his and tossed him the keys.

“A walk?”

“Yeah. Just wanna see how much the town’s changed.”

Ben took a long drink of water. “Cornfields. Main Street. A tiny-ass creek. What’s there to see?”

I tugged my hat lower. “Let Nana know I’ll be home in time for dinner, okay?”

“Whatever.”

“And don’t take any more equipment out of the barn.”

“Yes, Mom.” He climbed in my truck and started it up while rolling the window down. “Brett’s got some decent ideas about how to get the Crowleys back later tonight.”

“What if Coach finds out?” I could think of a hundred things I’d rather do than run bleachers again.

But Ben ignored my question and started backing out of the parking spot. “Hey, let me know if you hear the voice of Shoeless Joe Jackson out there.”

I whispered loudly, “If you build it, he will come.”

“Go the distance, my friend.”

Ben wasn’t wrong when he said there wasn’t much to Fairfield. But it had a past, and whether I liked it or not, I was a part of it. Where he saw cornfields, I saw acres and acres of hiding spots and the mere minutes it took Mickey—that dog had a nose like no other—to find me.

Where he saw a run-down Wade’s Grocery near a shadowed alley, I saw the perfect brick wall for tossing a ball back when I had no one to play catch with. The same alley where I accidentally broke Granddad’s radio after it fell off my bike. Where moments later, Eliza appeared out of nowhere with a paper tiara on her head, crouched down, and fixed the radio in a matter of seconds.