She Stole More Than Just a Base

Chapter 33 Alaska's POV

"Alaska!" I woke to the oh so lovely sound of my mother screaming my name, causing me to groan and roll off my bed.

"Yeah mom?" I called.

"Why do you smell like drugs? What have you been doing? Have you turned into an addict?" she smothered me with questions.

"No Mom," I told her, "I was just hanging out with a friend."

"Bullshit," she retorted. "I don't want you around that 'friend' anymore."

"Mom!" I argued. "He's one of my best friends!"

"When I say I don't want you around him, I mean I don't you around him. I don't want you to be dragged down just like I was," she said sternly.

"Fine!" I said, but really, do you really think I was going to stay away from the boy I like? Nope, not a chance.

She mumbled something about "kids these days" and walked out to her car and drove off to work.

I took a quick shower and got ready to head to the sandlot. I walked out my door and saw Bertram sitting on the steps of my porch. I smiled and greeted, "Hey Weeks."

"Hey Yorky," he smiled back.

"Yorky?" I questioned, grabbing his hand and walking to the sandlot to play some ball.

"Yeah, you're from New York, aren't you?" he said quizzically.

"Yeah," I answered and laughed at the silly sounding nickname. We arrived at the sandlot and everyone was sitting in the dugout, chattering amongst themselves while they were waiting for us.

"Hey Yorky," Chrissy exclaimed and the others addressed me as 'Yorkster' or 'Yorkers' and 'Yorky' too.

"Who made up this silly name?" I laughed and Tina pointed to Chrissy.

"Chrissy did because we were all waiting for you because you were sleeping still and we decided that Alaska was too long. So, since we had spare time we made up a nickname for you until Bertram volunteered to go pick you up," Tina explained.

"Yeah, so I did," Chrissy smiled.

I smiled back. "Thanks," I said, really letting myself speak as I would back in New York, accent naturally thick.

They all stifled their chuckles and I just grinned. "So are we gonna play some ball?" I asked.

"Yep!" Chrissy and Tina answered, overlapping each other's words.

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We took the field and played ball all day, despite the scorching weather. We barely took any breaks all day and really just enjoyed the summer as much as we could.

By the end of the day, we were sweating so much our shirts stuck to our backs like wallpaper. Although we were all very uncomfortable, we were grinning at the fun we had.

"Man, today was a gas!" Bertram exclaimed happily, wrapping his arm lazily around my shoulders, causing me to smile.

"Yeah yeah, it was," Yeah-Yeah agreed, but I could hear envy in his voice. Everyone else agreed confusedly because we could barely understand Bertram's new slang.

We chattered for a bit and Benny pulled Tina aside.

•••

Benny's POV

I pulled Tina aside when I noticed everyone was busy talking. I also noticed that she and Bertram had a thing now. It was kinda weird to see since he's so tall and she's so short.