The Church Boys ➸ Peterick/Brentrick

5: The Sandlot and The Hallelujah (While My Guitar Gently Weeps)

Patrick was up early in the morning, dressed pretty comfortably but still wearing sneakers as he made his way out at nine o'clock that morning. His brother was dressed similarly, walking with Patrick and Joe off to the public school nearby. Joe had made a comment about the area being so familiar that it must have slipped his mind, but both brothers shrugged. Patrick was given one of Joe's extra gloves by the time they got to the school, and several people were already there.

He recognized one of them as Pete, which was one of the more surprising things apparently to Joe as well. The soccer player had jogged up to the trio with a smile. "Hey, I'm Pete. Andy brought me," he said, "looks like we'll be able to have two teams, cool."

Joe just nodded. "I'm Joe, this is Patrick and his brother Aaron."

"I know Patrick. Sort of. He goes to my school," Pete said with a small grin. "It's cool to see you out here. I didn't know you played sports."

"I don't."

Pete shrugged, perking up when he was called over by another boy and jogging over. "Welcome to the game," Joe said with a small smirk. "If we pick teams, and I'm usually team captain, I'll pick you."

"Oh, thanks."

Joe chuckled, going to put his bag down as more people arrived. He'd told Patrick their names as they entered, and (in order) they were Ray, Bob, Spencer, and Ryan. With them there, it was official that they could have two separate teams now. Joe headed a team as promised, and he chose Patrick second (Andy was first- Spencer was heading the other team). Their team consisted of Joe, himself, Andy, Ray, Matt, Lynn (who was the only girl there, but nobody gave a shit), Tony, Kellin, Scott, and Mitch.

They wouldn't suck completely, that was the good thing.

Patrick started as catcher, but switched with Kellin to second base after three "innings" (they weren't keeping track, who were they kidding). Lynn was actually a halfway decent pitcher though, they discovered. The surprising thing was that Patrick had a good arm, and after he'd been hitting for awhile he wasn't awful either. Aaron was surprised, to say the least, especially when Patrick hit a ball that he couldn't catch.

It was shortly after the game that Pete had approached Patrick with a faint smile and a quick "hey" before he'd actually spoken. "That was a well played game, Stump. I'm impressed. Thought you were just another band kid."

"I mean, I am, but I can see why you'd think that." Patrick chuckled, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "I didn't know you did something other than soccer."

"I'm good at baseball, but doing both sports is too much of a hassle," he said with a shrug. "Hey, what's your number? We should hang out sometime, you seem pretty cool."

Patrick told him his number with a small smile, for the time being completely forgetting about the revenge plot with Joe, but that wasn't a big deal. Someone actually liked him! They really liked him! Sort of. Who knew. "Yeah, talk to you later, then?" Patrick said as he stepped away.

"Sure thing," Pete said with a wink as he went off to find Andy.

The brothers walked home together shortly after Patrick had his talk with Pete, and while the smaller was still thinking of it, Aaron was busy with a wide grin as he practically recounted the whole game to him. He hadn't thought that he'd be able to bond with his brother, but it seemed that he was proving to be wrong.

Besides, he'd made more friends than just Pete today. Mitch and Scott were fellow gaylords that went to his school, both in choir. They both tried to convince Patrick to join them, but with the excuse that he might actually pick up baseball even though that was highly doubtful, he politely declined. Still, though, they both had his phone number now. Andy Hurley was on the soccer team too, and he was a badass in every sense of the word. Lynn Gunn was too, though. Ray was just an extraordinarily nice human being with a fucking hell of an arm. He actually was on the baseball team at Joe's school.