head over heels | benny rodriguez

| chapter forty |

The day has finally arrived. August 7th.

Mila's visiting for the next two days, and god, you don't even understand how long I've been waiting for this. I mean, this girl knows practically anything and everything about all my friends in California, yet she's never been able to see any of them in the flesh.

Until now.

See, I hadn't told her—or anyone, even D for that matter—about the shit I overheard Benny gabbing about a few days ago. I just shut my mouth and went to practice for the past couple of mornings, not uttering a word about the matter, as I'd rather be on good terms with him while she's here. I can handle that later.

Anywho, I stopped by the lot early this morning to let the boys know I'd be taking part of the day off.

Stumbling across the dusty field at around eight, everyone had arrived except Bertram, who had developed a track record over the past several days for being extremely late, cause of digestive issues or something.

"Hey, team!" I hollered as I neared the group, tugging on my green baseball cap. Benny grinned at me, staring me up and down. What a creep!

"Hi, Elle." Smalls jeered, looking up at me from the dugout. I had felt a bit bad for abandoning him since Diane had been hearing all my relationship rants over the past few weeks, so I hung out at his house last night, in which we terribly failed at baking cookies and ended up setting off the smoke alarm. Safe to say he isn't mad at me though, as his big smile glistened, bouncing off the rising sun above us.

"What's good little lady," Squints joked, pushing his glasses up, "You ready for some ball, as per usual?"

"So about that..."

"Elle you've gotta be kiddin' me. I've let you off the hook one too many times, you keep missin' practice," Benny groaned, walking closer to me.

"Yeah yeah, you've missed more than alla' us combined!"

"First of all, Benny you should understand why I missed practice last week," His face immediately went red, as we both got flashbacks to that night, and we all know what happened that night. "Secondly, I'm sorry and it won't happen again, but I actually have a proper excuse this time."

"And what would that be?"

"My best friend is coming into town to visit for a couple of days, I told you guys about this a while back, remember?" I spoke.

The boys chuckled, in which Squints chimed in, "Bold of you to think any of us would rememba' that."

"Whatever," I rolled my eyes, brushing my hair from my eyes "She's getting a taxi to mine in half an hour, and she can't be coming back to an empty house,"

"She?" All of the younger boys said suspiciously in unison, making me practically gag at the smug looks they were giving me.

"Yep. Her name's Mila."

Ham began to snicker, "She hot?"

"Enough outta you guys, I gotta get home asap. I'll stop by in a couple of hours though if it's okay with you guys?"

They pondered the prompt for a second before one of the boys finally chimed in, "Yeah yeah, whatever. Just keep you're feminine-ness in the dugout."

"Fine," I groaned, "I'll be back, catch ya later!"

Spinning around, I subtly ruffled up Benny's hair, tossing the ball I had been juggling at Smalls, and soon sprinting out the gate.

-

Saying that we are practically the same person, to no surprise, Mila is just about as late as I am, maybe even more.

I waited an extra hour after her allotted arrival time, sprinting towards the door every time I heard a noise, yet only being greeted by the occasional old person or postman.