My leg bounced frantically as I sat in the back of the church, attempting to aim all of my attention on the pastor up front. I clearly could have been doing better, and Evan kept sending sideways glances at my fidgeting legs.

The flight for Australia left tomorrow, and I couldn't be more excited. And nervous. My bags and boards were packed, so there was really nothing to distract me from the sermon other than my bubbling excitement. In all seriousness, Pastor Matt was speaking on the subject of dedicating all that you do for the honor of God, and it was pretty applicable for someone who was heading out to be a professional athlete. Realistically, he might have planned this lesson just for my sake before I headed out.

The closing prayer had just finished when my dad began pulling me along to say goodbye to everyone at church. The Kents, a couple that knew my mom through her work at the hospital, came over and offered their congratulations and best wishes. After a few more formal goodbyes from some of the other families, I snuck off to play with a few kids from church that I used to babysit. They were all congregated on the small playground outside, and I ran up to them with a smile, sundress swinging around my legs.

"Hey Connor, Evelyn, and Lindsey, how are you this week?"

Evelyn, the middle child and the chattiest of the three, spoke out excitedly, "Great! We got to go swimming yesterday and saw our friends in Sunday School this morning!"

Connor gave my arm a tug, begging for attention. "We heard you're leaving to be a surfer," he frowned, looking slightly unhappy about the news.

"Well, it's true but I'll be back before you know it. And then you guys can have a real surfer teach you how to surf when I come back!" I successfully cheered him up enough to get the three kids back on the monkey bars, and after a few trips down the slide Evan appeared outside the fence. He dangled the car keys from his fingertips, shooting me a look that told me it was time to make our exit.

I said my goodbyes quickly before heading to the passenger's seat of Evan's black jeep. My foot was already on the step up to the seat when I realized that it was already occupied. "What are you guys doing here?" I asked incredulously.

"We just couldn't resist spending our last day with our favorite little River," Noah cooed while kicking me into the back seat with Will.

"Our parents decided that we were having lunch together after church, and Evan offered us a ride back to your house," Will explained, "Hope that we don't kill your chances of going to some great party."

"Ah yes, the Sunday night homeschooler parties. Truly the biggest ragers around," I laughed.

"One of the reasons I am thankful that you're homeschooled," Evan called from the front as I rolled my eyes.

"Anyway, I guess I will suffer through a few more hours with you all. Even though I did have plans to get the traditional shaved ice with Alani."
Will shrugged as he got out of the car. "We're playing baseball at the park after we eat. Invite her and her boyfriend along, the more the merrier. Or the more that I can strike out, either way."

I shook my head, realizing that I should have known that baseball would be involved. After sending a quick text to Alani who immediately responded excitedly I sat down with the rest of the family to eat. Everyone ate quickly, and after listening to our parents talk about their work lives for a while we quickly excused ourselves from the table. I changed out of my sundress and into a short sleeved shirt and running shorts and grabbed my old glove before jumping back into the car with the boys. My softball years were long behind me, but having a glove had proved to be essential when your brother was obsessed with the sport.

The baseball diamond was located at the public high school that was a few short minutes away. It wasn't truly public, but the grounds crew loved all of the players and alumni and chose to turn a blind eye if they ever saw one of their own on it. The boys leapt out of the car as soon as the tires squealed into the parking spot, immediately beginning to chuck a ball back and forth.

I rolled my eyes as I grabbed my glove, deciding to wait out their endless warm-up routine by suntanning on the stands.

"Yo, Riv, you going to warm your arm up or what?" A shout came from the parking lot, making me sit up to glare at whoever interrupted my nap.

"Alani, you know that we're already too good for this. A warm up would simply make us unstoppable," I shouted at her as she dragged Daniel around to the field.

"Good point, you're right dude," Alani laughed as she glanced over to the other boys, "Let's get this show on the road, yeah?"

Will made some unintelligible comment about his curveball not being sufficiently warm, but joined us at the dugout anyway.

"Okay, so teams. Me, Will, and Alani and then River, Daniel, and Noah," Evan said and Alani began to complain about being separated from Daniel, "Alani, we all know that this will be better if you don't go after Daniel every time he messes up. This will be better for both of you."

We all laughed while Alani faked a pout. She was too competitive for her own good, and even she knew that Evan was probably saving her from unnecessary relationship stress. Noah proceeded to beat Will in rock, paper, scissors, and we proceeded to the field while Evan began his warm up swings.

They hit more than a few dingers off of Daniel, and we were forced into the bottom of the first inning looking at a big score differential. Noah ended up hitting a line drive straight back at Will, who tragically was able to catch it. After a few minutes of frustrated yelling he was able to vacate the batter's box and I stepped in.

"So, what do you want sis?" Evan whispered from his spot in the catcher's box.

"I'll be honest with you both," I spoke loudly, "I don't really like it outside. Or low. Or particularly inside, and I'll probably swing and miss if you throw me high heat."

"So you want it down the middle?" Will asked incredulously.

"Pretty please?" I sent him a playful wink.

Will laughed from the mound before telling me he would see what he could do. The first pitch was way outside, which Will claimed was due to his laughter from earlier. Evan groaned from behind the mound as he lunged to stop it, and proceeded to set up down the middle for the next pitch.

I swung as soon as I saw it and was relieved when I felt it fly off of the bat. Running towards first I realized that it was actually a weak grounder, but that didn't matter too much when there was no second basemen. Alani was attempting to catch up with it from centerfield, but she wasn't doing extremely well. Her legs seemed to work better in the water than on land.

After I hit third base I proceeded to skip home, jumping onto home plate with an excited whoop. A second later I was being held upside down as Evan dragged me back towards the dugout. "That was the weakest in the park home run I've seen in my life," he commented as he shook his head in disbelief.

"Thanks for the nice pitch, Sanders," I called back to Will.

"Always happy to boost the ego of a professional athlete. Sorry to say that my team has to be missing an infield in order to do that for you," he shrugged before turning back to Daniel in the box.

We ended up getting, unsurprisingly, destroyed by the other team. There just wasn't much that we could do against two college baseball players. And Alani of course, but she was only an asset for them when she was distracting Daniel during the game.

The couple left pretty quickly after the game ended, probably to spend as much time together before Alani inevitably left for another competition. We piled back into the car, making our way back to our house. The rest of the night was pretty quiet with both families sitting around on the beach outside of our house.

"Well, we should probably get going. Thank you all for a great day, and best of luck this week River. We'll be cheering for you," Rachel, Will and Noah's mom said.

I gave her a hug and told her that I would do my best to make them proud.

"Knock 'em dead kid, you got this," Noah pulled me in for a quick hug.

"Sure hope that you can surf better than you can play baseball," Will responded, following after Noah and hugging me briefly.

"Hope that you can play third better than you can pitch, or else I don't think that I'm the one who needs to be concerned about their athletic career. I hit dingers," I winked, waving as the family left.

hello and welcome to the portion of the program where I spend a whole chapter on a pickup baseball game :)))) just couldn't resist. thanks for reading, and please vote if you enjoyed it!