Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Hello!

It's a new year!!!! Omg! I know the last time I updated was last year... hehe (bad new years puns). I did finally finish this one though.

Sorry for the not super baseball fans. There is some baseball stuff in here. It's a bit of a filler, but it's needed to keep setting up the end of the book. I've realized that we're getting down to the last couple chapters. I think there's only going to be about three or four more *cue the gasping*

Anyway, please please please VOTE COMMENT AND FAN!!!!

Last chapter didn't get a lot of love and that made me sad :(

Let's make this a great one!

Love,
Elle
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"Miles, batting fifth. Playing first. Dylan, batting sixth. Playing second. Jason, batting seventh. Playing right field," Jackson read off the line up card. He took a slight pause after Jason's name, glancing up at me before continuing. "Walker, batting eighth. Playing shortstop, and Logan, you're batting ninth. Pitching."

I knew it. I knew that Coach was going to pull me after the last practice when I looked like I had never been on a baseball field in my life. I couldn't blame him for making the decision. Walker looked much better prepared and smoother. However, practice was never the problem for him. Game time, under pressure, is what did him in. Everyone knew that and today's game would be the test to see if he has moved passed it yet.

"I'm sorry Glors. I don't want to take your position" Walker said, patting my shoulder.

I did my best to put on a smile, but it probably looked more on the lines of a grimace.

"Please don't feel like you need to apologize, Walker. It's not my position, and you out performed me during practice this week. You deserve it. Anyways, our friendship is more important than a position." Guilt clenched at my chest, seeing one of my own teammates feeling like they don't have the right to a position because of me.

"It's definitely more important than a position," Walker agreed. He patted my shoulder again comfortingly.

Coach walked back to the dugout from home plate, where the coaches from each team and the umpire met for a pre-game conference. They exchanged lineups and went over the rules as always.

"We're home. Take the field," Rust called to our huddle by the on-deck circle.

"Hey, go out there and keep playing our ball. We got this. Mustangs on three," Jackson encouraged the circle.

Everyone put a closed hand in the middle of the circle.

"One, two, three."

"Mustangs," we all said in unsion.
With the final word, we all broke off and jogged out to our positions. Being on the bench, I followed Harrison and the rest of the bench players to the outfield to throw.

Harrison and I tossed a ball back and forth until balls in was called by Eli, behind the plate.

I trotted alongside the others sitting the bench. It had been awhile since I had been doing this myself.

Harrison and I took a place on the half fence of the dugout to watch the first inning.

Out of the corner of my eye, Harrison twitched uncomfortably. His lips rolled in and out of his mouth. There were words ready to spill out of his mouth, but being the awkward kid he is, they stayed locked in his throat.

I knew he deserved something from me. However, what to tell him was evading me.

"Please tell me," was blurted out next me.

I wasn't expecting him to come right out and ask for it. To be quite honest, I thought he would try to skirt around the topic until I brought it up.

I mirrored his action of rolling my lips inside my mouth. "Tell you what?" It was on instinct to push away the elephant in the room and play dumb in this case.

The dugout was at a low level of volume with the other guys on the bench yelling out encouraging words to the guys on the field. The first batter was still up and Logan was battling in the count with him.

Harrison didn't say anything for a moment, leaving us in a silence to watch the game.

"I know there's something bothering you. Stop leaving me in the dark and tell me." His approach was much more aggressive than I ever thought he would be.

I let out a long breath of air, peeking a glance over at my impatient teammate. Before beginning, I rested one elbow at the top of the fence and rested my chin on my open palm.

"Let me start with some advice," I prompted.

He nodded, encouraging me to continue. The corner of my mouth lifted into a humorless smile.

"Be careful with your feelings and make sure they're reciprocated with the same strength." My eyes couldn't help but wander to the person that inspired my words.

Miles was waiting for Logan to get back on the mound to throw the next pitch, so he had his glove in his right hand. His right foot kicked at the dirt in front of him. He picked his head up from looking down, almost sensing my eyes on him. Our eyes locked for a split second. Hurt was laced in his irises as he watched me intently for a moment. Then the emotionless wall came back up. Not a smile or frown graced his face. A second long interaction felt almost eternal.

"What do you mean he doesn't like you back as much as you like him?" Harrison rushed out. His eyebrows furrowed, and his bridge of his nose crinkled. He looked around before leaning closer and whispering. "Miles likes you alot."

"How do you know-," I couldn't even finish my question before Harrison cut me off.

"Do I look blind to you?" he countered. "It's obvious that you guys are crazy for each other. Come on Gloria. Just because I'm thirteen doesn't mean I'm oblivious or stupid."

The stunned look could not be wiped off my face, especially after that little announcement.

"You know that everyone pretty much knows, right?"

"What?" I squeaked, looking around at our benchmates as well.

"We have eyes, except for Danny. He's clueless about everything and has absolutely no idea. Everyone else sees how Miles looks at you like you're his whole world. All the time. For the love of God, whenever you walk into a room or practice, his whole face lights up like a light bulb." Harrison said all these things like they were the most obvious things in the world.

"Are you sure you're only thirteen? You're like the Yoda of love." I was greatly taken aback by Harrison's maturity with this topic.

Harrison rolled his eyes, but a small smile stretched across his face. He only shrugged his shoulders in reply though.

We stood in yet another silence, letting the situation settle on us.

"What should I do?" I asked.

"Talk to him, you must," Harrison replied.

I couldn't help but chuckle at his response. "You're such a dork." I smacked his shoulder, playfully.

"Well, since I am only thirteen, I don't have much to offer you since I have zero experience in the department of love and relationships."

A round of cheering erupted from our dugout as the final out was called for the inning. No runners had reached base, so we were off to a solid defensive start.

The people sitting the bench made their way out of the dugout to join the huddle and give high fives.

Harrison and I followed them out. I lowered my head close to his ear and whispered my own words of advice, "relationships are stupid and girls have cooties, so you're not missing much."

I gave him a small push to join the circle before stepping beside him to join myself.

Rust had joined the circle as well, which wasn't something he usually did. Normally, we talked amongst ourselves before we went to go hit or go play defense. Since this was the semis game, everyone was a bit on edge.

"Hey guys, that was a great way to start the game out in the field, and I need you guys to really push to score first. Find it right now. Here we go. Hits on three," Coach encouraged.

We said the chant before making our way into the dugout. Harrison and I resumed our position at the dugout fence. Dylan came to join us, standing next to me. A wide grin was stretched across his face as always.

"How'd I look?" he asked, poking me in the side.

"Since you didn't get a ball to you, you looked great," I teased, poking him back.

He threw me false look of shock before returning to his usual smile. Dylan pushed his sandy brown hair out of his eyes and glanced at me again.

"How you holding up?" he pressed.

I couldn't help but let out a laugh. "That seems to be the question of the day, but I'm doing fine."

"Just making sure. Friends check on friends."

I grinned at his explanation. Dylan was such a softy, internally and externally, unlike a lot of the other guys that keep that part of them closed off. For the most part, I've been able to pry the teddy bears out of all of them though.

"Thank you."

He only nodded his head before stepping away from the fence and going to find his helmet and batting gloves.

Harrison had moved away to grab some water and I was left alone by the fence.

Nathan was leading off for the game with Tyler right behind him. When Anthony or Colton are in the lineup instead of Nathan and Tyler, they were in the one and two holes. All four of them were ridiculously fast and dangerous baserunner, especially Nathan and Anthony who had the most stolen bases on the team. Anthony was notorious for making teams look dumb and causing the ball to be thrown around, many times resulting in errors.

Nathan and Tyler took cuts while the other team finished with warming up their defense.

The pitcher throwing was tossing a decent pace and accuracy but nothing we haven't seen before.

"Hey little thing," Danny said, bumping into my side. His dark hair hung over his forehead and light eyes had their usual teasing glint.

I rolled my eyes and grinned.

"Bummed about not playing today?" he asked, putting an arm around my shoulders. I leaned on his arm, closing my eyes.

"Yeah, a little," I replied.

As obnoxious as he could be, Danny was a steady rock to lean on, quite literally.

A crack of the bat popped my eyelids open. Nathan was racing to first and rounded the bag to check for the chance to keep moving. His ball had gone up the middle and skipped once to the centerfielder. The dugout erupted with cheers.

"Atta boy, Nate!" Danny whooped, banging on the fence with his hand that wasn't over my shoulders.

"Don't get down on yourself. It's just a position and you'll get it back, real quick. I know it."

"Thanks Danny."

"You're welcome, kid." He paused before continuing. "By the way, what's up with Miles? He seems distracted."

The conversation with Harrison only a few moments ago came to mind. He was absolutely clueless, but in this case, I liked that he didn't know anything about the situation. He was looking out for me because he cared.

I just shrugged, not bothering to answer and outwardly lie.

More cheering and calls of encouragement sounded from our dugout as Tyler laid down a perfect bunt. He sped down the line, but was thrown out by less than a half a step. Nathan was however, moved to second, scoring position.

"Danny, you're on deck," a sharp voice cut through the cheers.

Miles.

"I know. I'm just talking to your roommate," Danny said gently, noticing the irritation in Miles's voice.

"Your at-bat is more important than her. She's not even playing," he snapped.

His words were like a slap to the face. Danny's arm had moved from my shoulders, and I turned my head to look at him.

"Chill dude. I'm going." Danny's eyebrows were furrowed by his friend's jab at me.

Danny grabbed his helmet from the ledge next to him and pulled his bat from the rack with the other hand. He gave me one last encouraging smile while stepping out of the dugout. His eyes dragged to Miles for a second and shot him a hard look before moving to the on-deck circle to take a few swings.

"Can you stop flirting with everyone and putting all the attention on yourself?" Miles barked from behind me.

I whipped around to stand two feet away from the green eye boy that broke my heart in two. His jab this time snapped something inside me.

"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" I retorted.

Our words were laced with poison, but we kept our voices low to not attract attention from the other guys. Luckily, they were too engaged in the game, and we were on the less populated side of the dugout.

"I see you practically throwing yourself at them. I don't want you anymore, so you're looking for approval from everyone else."

My chest heaved at each insult and accusation thrown at me. The knots in my stomach were growing bigger and bigger as he kept talking.

"You needed to fuck up at practice to get some attention too, huh? Get a grip, Gloria."

Anything that was currently in my stomach was making its way up. "You're wrong," I whispered.

Miles laughed humorlessly. "Now, you've got to be fucking kidding me?"

"I was just talking to them. Sorry they're my teammates. I'm not looking for the attention, and I would never jeopardize my playing time for people to notice me." I got most of my reply without my voice cracking. My eyes were beginning to well up from the hurt that was building in my stomach. "You're wrong." I took a step toward him, my pointer finger poking him in the chest.

I craned my head to look up at him. However, that didn't stop the one traitor tear from trickling out of my eye.

Miles locked eyes with me for a moment before following the trail of the single tear and glancing at my lips for half a moment.

"Go clean yourself up," Miles suddenly instructed.

"I wouldn't want to attract more attention," I threw his words back at him. I swiped away the tear.

Miles didn't move as I stepped back and practically ran to the small bathroom that was in the dugout. I shut the door behind me and locked the handle.

"Don't you dare cry," I whispered fiercely to myself. I turned on the water of the sink and splashed cold water on my face. "Pull it together." I looked in the mirror at the sorry excuse of myself.

Faint red circles were forming around my eyes and blotches were appearing on my face. My red hair was messy and the blue silk ribbon was undone, hanging limply on my shoulder.

I dabbed cold water on my face until the redness dissipated. Running my fingers through my hair, I retyed my ponytail and the blue ribbon.

The game's far from over and you need to support your team. Get out there and help them.

I exited the bathroom and found a place on the fence with the other guys, well away from the one who caused my tears.

Eli had been after Tyler and hit a ground ball to the second baseman, so he was thrown out at first, but Nate moved to third.

Danny was up and had a count of 2-1. A hitter's count and hopefully something he'll be able to work with. Miles was on deck, taking practice cuts as Danny battled in the box.

"Come on, Danny!" I chimed in with the cheering.

The least I could do was cheer everyone on.

The next pitch came in belt height on the outside corner, and Danny couldn't lay off. He drove his hands and hips to the ball. The ball sprang off the bat and went soaring to the outfield. The right fielder went back and back and back. There was a lot of loft under the ball and everyone watched in awe as it went closer and closer to the outfield wall.

The right fielder was now standing at the warning track, which is the line of dirt that ran along the outfield wall. A sigh of
disappointment left everyone's lips as the right fielder caught the ball right against the back wall.

"What a shot, Dan!" Walker encouraged as our fourth batter came trotting back to the dugout with a look of discouragment.

"You'll get him next time," I said passing him going out to the outfield.

Harrison and I again threw together to loosen up our arms. I threw half-heartedly to Harrison, re-playing the most recent confortation I had had with Miles.

I sincerely he didn't mean the verbal assaults he had snapped at me. I was far from trying to gain the attention from my teammates, especially about something that most of them don't know about, or at least I think most of them don't know about. Who knows anymore though? Apparently more people than I thought knew about the little relationship going on behind door 226.

The only attention I wanted was from the person who was accusing me of being a seeker of every one else's attention.

"Balls in," was once again called from the infield, sending Harrison and I into the dugout.

...

The score was tied at 3-3 in the fifth inning.

Miles and I had avoided each other for the last four innings. Not even looking in the other person's direction. Childish, but it helped avoid another conflict.

We were currently batting and had made it through the lineup again so Walker was up to bat.

"Here we go, Walker!" I shouted, clapping in encouragment.

All the other guys followed suit, not letting the dugout go silent. The next pitch was the one Walker was looking for, so he took a cut and made contact. The ball skipped through the gap of the shortstop and third baseman. Too far out of the reach for either of them.

We cheered loudly and watched as Walker sprinted to first, preparing to round the bag. His right foot hit the corner of the bag, but didn't set correctly, his whole ankle turning. Walker was on the ground in a flash, but crawled back to the bag before clutching his ankle between his hands.

The dugout went silent as time was called and Rust hurried over from the third base coaching box.

Since Gabe had been sitting this game, he had been assigned to be the first base coach. He was crouched next to Walker, who was rocking back and forth on the ground.

My hand was clapped over my mouth as my eyes were practically bugging out of my head. "Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God," I mumbled over and over again, watching the scene on the field unfold.

A couple of the guys rushed out there as well. I stood for a moment unsure of what to do. Yes, it was probably only a turned ankle, but seeing one of your teammates go down sends panic down your spine.

Finally, some of my motherly instincts, as Ellie calls it, kicked in. I turned around to locate the first aid kit. I flipped open the lid and dug through the supplies to locate empty plastic bags and the medical tape.

For the last two years, I had been taking a sports medicine class offered by my school. I knew what to do about possible sprained ankles, but never had they been personal ones like this. I dealt with athletes from school that I knew, but they were simply acquaintances.

By this time, Nathan and Colton had each of Walker's arms wrapped around their shoulders, supporting him so he didn't have to put pressure on his right foot.

I frantically scurried to the ice cooler and scooped ice into the bag, tying the end up after it was full. Next, I found a few towels out of the extra equipment bag and raced to Walker, who was being sat on the bench.

"Oh God," I continued my chant. Not stopping what I was doing, I cleared the portion of the bench next to Walker and stacked the towels into a nest. "You need to elevate it," I instructed. My hands fluttered around nervously as Walker adjusted slowly so he was leaning