A Penny For Your Truth

Chapter 7 - Distraction (Jonah POV)

"Goodnight."

I hear her door close from inside my room. Standing still right now just isn't going to happen. I throw the couple of shirts, scattered randomly around my room, into the laundry bin. Since I was put straight to work as soon as I got home, I didn't get a chance to shower after baseball practice. Grabbing some clean clothes, I head over to the bathroom across the hallway.

Back in my room a few minutes later, I throw my towel over the back of the door and fall back into my chair. I need to answer a couple text messages. Caleb and I are in a group text with Xander, Logan, and Finn while they're gone for the summer. I pull up the picture that Finn uploaded with the guys after practice this afternoon.

Finn: Your missin out JJ!

Logan: Training is kicking our butts. Be glad you didn't have to do drills at 5:30 in the morning. So tired.

Finn: I don't know what your talking about. I live for waking up before the sun. (insert sarcasm)

Caleb: Fix your grammar Finn, it's giving me a headache.

Finn: Why do you always have to be mister grammar police?

Xander: It's fun to watch Caleb get irritated over the little things.

Xander: Thanks for the info Caleb, I appreciate it.

Xander: Wrong chat. That last text was not for you.

Logan: He's updating you on CeCe again?

Xander: Maybe. This is the first time none of us have been there. Besides Jonah, but he's always busy.

Me: I'm going to ignore that. What about Caleb? He's there too.

Xander: I wish you both were here. It's our last summer together.

Me: Family stuff, remember? Or I would have been there.

Caleb: And one responsible person needs to be here.

Me: I'm taking offence to that.

Xander: Alright, we have to go to sleep. Early morning again tomorrow.

Finn: We should sneak out to hide the breakfast cooler and let them think a bear took it.

Logan: So many bad ideas. Let's try to make it through the next month and a half without getting suspended. I need sleep. Xander, tell CeCe hi for me. I hope you three aren't dying of boredom without us.

Xander: I'm sure they're fine. Update me on practice tomorrow JJ.

Sending a thumbs up back, I closed that text group. I answered a separate text earlier from Xander while I was downstairs. He wanted to know how today's practice went, and how things were holding up here. I quickly replied that things were going good. I'll tell him later how things really went. I don't want to tell him how horribly baseball practice went today because he'll just worry about me. And if he thinks I'm preoccupied with practicing, or if I tell him about Dallas, he'll start worrying about his sister. As much as he teases, he knows I have been keeping an eye on Alecia and I don't want him to think it wont stay that way.

Before it gets too late, I type out a quick message to Alecia. It's been a couple days since I've talked to her. After sending a quick text asking how she's doing, I try to figure out what I'm supposed to do this week. My parents are working and Dallas doesn't know anybody. I need to be practicing. I may not care about baseball as much as Xander, and especially not like Logan does, but I don't know what I'd do without it right now. It gives me something to focus on. Something that I can control. There are too many unknowns in my life if I stop to think about it, on the baseball field is the only place where the unknowns fade into the background.