Caught Looking

The baseball dugout smelled like sunscreen and nervous sweat. I sat on the bench, thumbs flying across my iPhone screen, posting the third photo of my cleats that hour. #gametime #blessed.

"You gonna watch the game or just watch your screen?" Marcus asked, bumping my shoulder with his. We'd been best friends since tee-ball, back when the biggest worry was whether they'd have snack packs after the game.

"I'm building my brand," I said, not looking up. "You wouldn't get it."

Marcus didn't respond. That's how things had been lately — me trying way too hard to be someone I thought people wanted to see, and him just... being Marcus. Cool, chill, authentic Marcus, who'd post maybe once a month and somehow still have more followers than me.

The sky went dark. Like, seriously dark — someone had flipped a switch on the world. The umpire called timeout. Parents started scrambling for cover. The first crack of lightning hit somewhere beyond the outfield fence, purple veins spiderwebbing across the sky.

Everyone was running. Parents were screaming. Coach was herding us toward the locker room. But I stood there, iPhone raised, trying to capture it. The perfect shot. The one that would finally get me noticed.

"Alex!" Marcus grabbed my arm. "What are you DOING?"

"I almost got it—"

Another lightning strike, closer this time. The hair on my arms stood up. Something in the air tasted like metal and ozone and oh crap I'm about to die.

Marcus pulled me toward the dugout just as the sky opened up. Rain like I'd never seen — thick, heavy sheets that soaked us in seconds. We huddled under the tiny overhang, shoulder to shoulder, both of us shivering.

He was laughing. Actually laughing. "You idiot," he said, but he said it fondly. "You were gonna get yourself struck by lightning for a photo."

I looked at my iPhone, water dripping down the screen. Some of the photos were blurred. One was kinda cool but not worth almost dying for. Then I looked at Marcus — hair plastered to his forehead, uniform soaked through, grinning like he'd just hit a home run.

"Yeah," I said. "I guess I'm an idiot."

"You're not an idiot," he said. "You're just caught looking." It was a baseball reference — when a batter doesn't swing at a third strike because they're too busy watching the ball. "Too busy watching life through a screen instead of, you know, living it."

The rain kept coming. The game was definitely called. My iPhone was probably fried. But Marcus was right there, exactly where he'd always been.

"Hey," I said. "Wanna hit the batting cages tomorrow? Just us? No phones."

He grinned. "Finally."