Page 32 of Mom Ball

“All right.” Jeffrey sits down last and slaps a few papers on the table. “Looks like we’re all here. Let’s get this show on the road.”

“How many kids did we end up with?” Morgan asks.

“Twenty.”

She nods at each guy, then raises one brow.

“My team is blessed with a lot of assistant coaches this year.” Jeffrey turns the papers toward her. “So I took the liberty of marking off the coaches’ kids since they’re frozen.”

Morgan’s eyes bug. “You can’t do that.”

“Rules are rules.” He taps the paper. “See here, I froze Andrew for you.”

“So you get six kids automatically, and I get one. What kind of draft is this?”

Bubba pulls the same small book from his shirt pocket as before. “According to section B, item eighty in the rule book, any parent willing to give up their time is guaranteed to coach their own kid.”

“But y’all get six? Why can’t I get six travel-ball boys?”

“Now let’s don’t go mixing tea with lemonade. Travel ball has nothing to do with park-ball drafting.” Jeffrey leans toward Morgan. “If you had assistant coaches, we’d freeze their kids for you too.”

Morgan grabs my arm and pulls me closer to her. My chair screeches on the floor. “I have Brooke.”

“Wait—”

She pinches my arm to shut me up. I obey because my arm is throbbing and she kind of scares me.

“Fine. Bubba, mark the Marshall kid off too.”

Bubba pulls a pen out of his pocket and puts a check next to Timothy’s name. I puff my cheeks and pray I don’t throw up. This is getting way out of hand.

“See, we got half the kids squared away. The rest shouldn’t take long.” Jeffrey shakes his arm and stares at a large gold wristwatch. “I may even make the second half of that cornhole tournament in Moonshine County.”

I let out the breath I’ve been holding and slump down in my chair. Morgan owes me big time for this. Way more than her usual almost-expired free snacks from the Pig.

* * *

Nate

I tap my thumb against my knee and stare at the wall in the doctor’s office.

Now that Mom is safely squared away in her home—in my backyard—I can focus on my shoulder. Though I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. Therapy will be rough after a few weeks of nothing more than yard work and soft tosses to a second grader.

“Nathaniel Miller,” a nasally voice calls.

I turn to a young woman, who I assume is a new intern because I’ve never seen her here before. I try to ignore the twitch my shoulder gives when I push my hands off my knees to stand.

When I walk toward her, she smiles. “Nate the Great, right?”

Her eyes are starstruck and she’s still calling me “great.” Yeah, she’s for sure new around here.

“If you say so.”

She’s wearing a lanyard with the name “Shelby” on the tag. She’s also wearing scrubs.

Brooke works in scrubs. I bet she’d be hot in some Braves scrubs. Maybe I could score her a pair?

I shake that thought before it gets out of hand and follow Shelby to a larger room with medical tables with all kinds of torture devices.

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