Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Lucas
“Ilove the smell of mowed grass in the morning,” I say when Logan and I arrive at the stadium.
“I love the smell of my vanilla cozy,” Logan says, taking a long drink and then shivering enough that I give him a look.
“You are so soft.”
“It’s forty-eight degrees,” he says, tucking his face deeper into his hoodie.
I take my phone out, snap a quick picture, and send it to our family chat before Logan can stop me.
Lucas
Aw, Baby Logan is chilly.
Liesel
LOGAN! Are you seriously cuddled up in your hoodie in South Carolina? You are so soft!
Lucas
That’s what I said.
Liesel
In fairness, Lukie, you cry in movies. So you’re both soft.
Lucas
Whatever! Anyone who doesn’t cry watching Up has no soul. His wife! The house! The little Boy Scout who just wants a parent to show up for him!
Totally different than crying over cold.
Logan
Not crying.
Papa Fisch
Your mother hated being cold. You come by it naturally, Logan.
Liesel
Oh, Mom. She really was terrible at being Canadian.
Logan
Dude, she grew up in NORTHERN ALBERTA. If anyone earned the right to hate being cold, it was her.
Papa Fisch
It was forty below in *March* the first time I met her family. Edmonton is no joke.
Lucas
You all sound so soft right now. Except Lee. Lee, you’re tough.
Liesel
Thanks, bro. Stop crying over Pixar movies, and maybe you’ll be this tough one day, too.
Fun fact: while Logan and I are identical twins—mirror twins, actually—Liesel is our fraternal triplet.
She works in data analytics for the Chicago Firebirds, keeping our chaos somehow measurable.
Dad’s the top umpire in Major League Baseball, built like a John Cena body double, which means Logan and I can’t get too cocky about our appearance.
And Mom … she loved baseball so much, she joked she’d prove it by surviving Lou Gehrig’s disease long enough to see us drafted.
She did.
It was the last good day she had.
Man, I miss her. I swallow a lump of longing so cold, Edmonton in March has nothing on it.
A voice drifts from somewhere down the concourse, followed by the rattle of a bucket of baseballs.
I shake off thoughts of my mom and glance at the field. The precise lines of the lawn mower in the grass always make me feel calmer, as does the leather of new baseballs. Logan’s already cracking open the buckets of balls we’ll use today.
I start bouncing with anticipation. I love working with kids. Teaching the next generation to love baseball is like passing on the Olympic torch. Probably. I wouldn’t know. But it’s awesome.
We’ve got a solid routine planned for today—simple, structured, and fun, which is the hat trick of working with kids.
But my mind keeps wandering like I just saw a squirrel.
The squirrel is Scottie.
I can picture her walking down the stands to the field, her light blonde hair bouncing, eyes alert.
In my mind, there’s no coffee in sight, and she looks extra sour over it.
If I’ve learned anything in the last year, it’s that Scottie doesn’t actually have a favorite drink. She drinks vibes. And I could have sworn I was figuring out those vibes pretty darn well.
Logan huffs beside me, unaware of my internal struggle to focus. I stuff my hands in my hoodie pouch and crack my knuckles. The chill tries to bite through my hoodie, but I have Chicago in my veins—and Edmonton.
And the thought of the girl I can’t have haunting me like a ghost.
A sudden chorus of squeaky sneakers and shouted names cuts through my head, and a moment later, the kids descend, some of them shuffling behind their parents, others running far ahead.
A nine-year-old drags his duffel bag while his mom snaps and tells him to pick it up.
Two brothers argue over gloves in a way that makes Logan and me look at each other with a chuckle.
Logan tosses me my glove, and we both pick up a bucket of balls as a wave of frantic, baseball-loving energy crashes over us.
I’m smiling before I can help myself.
The kids wave or kiss their parents goodbye and then drop off their water bottles in the dugout. After a few minutes of tying cleats and rummaging through their bags for their hats, my phone chirps that it’s 9:00 a.m.—ready to start.
And that’s when I see her.
Scottie.
She’s wearing a sporty team puffer jacket and walking through a row in the stands. On her head is a toque, as Mom called it, complete with a pom-pom that is weirdly appealing.
Why does she have to show up looking like some Southern snow bunny when I’m not supposed to flirt?
I try to pull my thoughts back together, but it’s like trying to shove silly string back in a can. So I let the sticky, foamy strands stay out and just work around them, corralling the kids with my heart jackrabbiting faster than normal. She’ll be gone soon enough.
I clap my hands once, loud enough to cut through the chatter. “All right, Future Flaps! Helmets on the bench, gloves on your hands, eyes up here.”
A few kids snap to attention immediately. A few more take their time. One kid is way too committed to picking his nose.
Logan steps in beside me, easy grin on his face. “If you’re holding a ball right now, put it back in the bucket. We’re not throwing until I say so. And if you’re picking your nose, get some hand sanitizer before you touch anything else,” he adds, looking at the kid digging for gold.
The kid freezes, slowly lowers his arm, and walks over to the dugout, where an industrial-sized hand sanitizer is waiting.
“Good boy,” Logan says approvingly.
I snort. “That’s not something we grew up hearing a lot.”
That gets a laugh, and the energy shifts—less nerves, more excitement. We split them into groups, and Logan herds his half toward the outfield while I take the pitchers toward the mound.
Logan’s already in his element over there—measured, precise, exactly what the kids need him to be.
Where I’m all noise and motion, he’s the guy that keeps that momentum moving forward.
The gravity to my fireworks, which is either a great partnership or a personality disorder, depending on whether or not you know we’re twins.
“Okay,” I say, crouching slightly so I’m eye level with the smallest kid in front.
Our kids range from nine to thirteen, and there’s a huge difference between the biggest and the smallest. “Rule number one today: We don’t worry about speed.
We worry about control. If you can hit the glove, you’re already ahead of the game. ”
A few heads nod seriously. One kid squints at me like I’ve just revealed a trade secret.
We start with grips—four-seam, two-seam—and I walk the line, adjusting fingers, tapping knuckles, offering encouragement.
The soundscape settles into something familiar and comforting: leather popping into gloves, kids calling out counts, Logan’s voice carrying instructions from the other side of the field.
That’s when I notice movement in the stands near us.
Scottie’s walking up the dugout stairs with purpose, iPad in hand, phone tucked under her arm.
She doesn’t hesitate or hover—just moves straight toward the handful of parents who stayed to watch the camp.
She settles in, nodding as she introduces herself, pointing briefly toward a schedule posted by the fence.
Huh.
Is she here … for work?
My spine stiffens with the urge to stand up straighter—inconvenient, considering I’m coaching kids two feet shorter than me.
Scottie turns then, scanning the field—not for me, I don’t think, but for logistics. For flow. For anything that might go wrong before it does.
Her eyes flick to mine for half a second … and then pass like I’m a stadium fixture that doesn’t need attention.
That’s right: nothing to see here.
Move on.
It’s both so much better than her eyes lingering for a half second and so much worse.
My spine pulls straighter as I turn back to the kids and clap again. “Where were we? Right, pitching from the stretch. Let’s see some smooth motion. Remember—easy power. Let the arm do the work.”
Behind me, Logan lets out an airy whistle through his teeth that sounds like a baby bird. It’s a signal only we know, a way to catch each other’s attention in a crowd. I turn to him.
“You good?” he asks.
“Never better,” I lie, tossing a ball into the air and catching it again.
The silly-string thoughts in my head are getting trampled now—by kids, drills, and the girl trying very hard not to notice me.
***
During our first water break, I can’t help myself anymore.
I hand off a ball to one of the kids and tell them to stretch with Logan, then jog toward where Scottie’s standing just off of third base. She’s not watching the kids so much as the edges—parents, timing, transitions. The stuff no one notices until it goes wrong.
“Hey,” I say, deliberately casual.
“Hey.”
Her smile is clipped. Professional. Which, to be fair, is how she talks to everyone all the time because she doesn’t let people in.
Even if she used to let me crowd the plate without brushing me back …
“How’s it going over here?” I ask, nodding toward the stands.
“Good,” she says. “One of the parents asked if this counts as PE credit.” She sniffs, not quite a laugh. “I said they’re homeschool kids, so that’s between her and the state. But her son will definitely get character-building credit.”
“More like I will,” I say. I’m about to ask what parent complaint brought her down to the camp today, but a voice interrupts before I can.
“Coach Fischer?” a kid says. “Can you get my glove?” He points to the top of the dugout, where he apparently tossed it. Kids are always tossing their gloves. He’s lucky it didn’t land on one of the bigger kids and earn him a wedgie when no one was looking.
“Looks like I’m needed. Unless you had something more important to talk about?”
She hesitates before shaking her head. “I’ll catch you during the next break.”
I wish it sounded more like a promise.