"Are you looking for Noah?" Kyle knew exactly what I was thinking, so I nodded. "He went inside to look for new tape for his bat." He showed me his bat. "New tape to keep a better grip."
I looked at the doors then back at Zeke, trying to ask if I could go.
Zeke narrowed his eyes at me. "He won't be able to change my mind. You can go to him for now, but then come back so we can start working with you and how you can fool pitchers and other teams."
I sighed and gave a slow nod. Fine, fine. Zeke is the captain so it's not exactly easy for me to refute. I took off my helmet and put it under my arm, then made my way back inside, leaving the three behind.
Noah wasn't by the counter like I thought he would be. I looked around and found the tape they were talking about, but no Noah.
"You looking for baby Atkins?" A female said from behind. I nearly jumped out of my skin and quickly became on guard. I really hate when people speak from behind. Luckily it was just the older lady from behind the counter so we had some distance between. Her eyebrows shot up at my weird attitude, I'm sure. "He went to the snack bar for food."
Lunch already? I nodded my thanks and headed to the snack bar, finally spotting Noah, who was near the front of the line. I squeezed through the crowd to get to him.
He grinned right away. "Jake! Glad you came to find me. I'm sneaking in a cookie before Zeke sees. You want one?"
I started to nod, but then thought how I already pissed Zeke off once. No need to make it worse so I changed it to a head shake.
Noah gave me a look of suspicion. "Is Zeke waiting for us?" I pointed at me and he sighed. "Guess I won't get anything sweet for right now." We stepped out of line and headed to a more open space. "Did you come to get me since Zeke wants you?"
I nodded vigorously. Noah's deducting ability was on point.
"Why do you look even more worried than normal? Did I miss something?"
I kept nodding.
"Well are you going to tell me or just keep nodding?" He rolled his eyes.
I took a deep breath then spat out my summary. "Twins. Me. Trouble. Zeke. Mad. Hustle."
Noah's eyes lit up at the last word. "What? Hustle? Like try and put more effort in kind of hustle? Or my kind of hustle?" I pointed at him. "Fantastic. Let's go back to Zeke ASAP." He dragged me back through the arcade and back to the cages. He spot Zeke and the twins chatting near a bench. "There they are!"
I'm starting to think Noah is a real addict. Just the word 'hustle' and he's dragging me back to his oldest brother, regardless of the fact that I'm in trouble.
"Zeke. What's up?" Noah joined in, excited at the prospect of potentially scheming against others.
"I'm thinking we should have Jake sandbag."
Noah made a face. "Uh, I'm pretty sure that term is used only for bowlers? We don't have a handicap to take advantage of..."
"We do. Jake looks like he would have no good qualities." He answered blatantly. Ouch. He doesn't hold back at all. "So I'm thinking we should fool other teams into thinking he's a weakling. Have him work the count a bit and get the pitcher to waste some pitches."
Noah lit up once more, "We could have him do that! He can even foul the ball back even if it's not a strike, making the pitcher frustrated." He glanced at me. "We have to make sure the foul isn't a pop up for the catcher though."
Noah didn't have my back on this matter at all. I sighed in defeat and started to seriously listen to what they wanted me to do. Basically I want to make the pitcher tired and throw off his pace.