Strikeout in the Kitchen

Marcus pulled his baseball cap lower, trying to disappear into the kitchen island. The entire baseball team was in his backyard, and somehow he was stuck chopping vegetables for the post-game spread his mom insisted on hosting.

"You missed a spot, honey," his mom said, sliding a bowl of spinach toward him. "And don't give me that look – maybe some of that baseball team toughness will rub off on you through osmosis."

Marcus rolled his eyes but kept chopping. His brother Jake was out there being the team captain, the golden child, while Marcus was the designated kitchen assistant. The universe had a twisted sense of humor.

Their family cat, Mittens, wound around his ankles, meowing pitifully.

"Nice try, I'm not falling for that again," Marcus said, stepping over the cat. Last time Mittens had convinced him to share his lunch, he'd spent third period defending his decision to bring tuna wraps to school. His friends still hadn't let him live it down.

The TV in the corner blared – some cable sports channel Jake always had on. Marcus reached for the remote, but his elbow caught the bowl of spinach. Time slowed as green leaves scattered across the floor like something out of a disaster movie.

Mittens pounced.

"Oh my GOD, Marcus!" His friend Tyler appeared in the doorway, three baseball players behind him. "Did you just... sacrifice spinach to the cat?"

Marcus's face burned. "It slipped."

"Dude, that's kind of impressive," said Chase, the team's pitcher. "I've never seen Mittens move that fast. She's like, sixteen years old."

"Fifteen," Marcus mumbled, scrambling to clean up the mess.

"Yo, stop," Tyler said, dropping to help him. "Jake's out there telling everyone he's gonna be drafted next year. Let him wait for his chips."

Chase and the others joined in, and suddenly the kitchen floor was covered in teenage boys picking spinach leaves off the linoleum while Mittens looked on with the smug satisfaction of a job well done.

"You know," Chase said, dumping a handful of greens into the trash, "Jake said you were chill, but I didn't think he meant 'cat-wrangling, spinach-spilling chill.'"

Marcus shrugged, but something in his chest loosened. "I'm full of surprises."

"Clearly." Tyler grinned. "Hey, you wanna come play FIFA after this? Jake's too busy being awesome."

Marcus looked at the scattered spinach, the cat now grooming herself by the fridge, the chaos of boys in his kitchen. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I do."

Sometimes being the designated kitchen assistant wasn't the worst thing in the world. Sometimes it was exactly where you needed to be to find your people.