Strikeout Spark

Jordan's palms were sweating. Again.

"Dude, you good?" Marcus asked, slugging him in the shoulder. Marcus always called everyone dude, even Ms. Henderson, which had gotten him detention twice this semester.

"Yeah. Just... thinking about tryouts."

Jordan's mom had made him take this giant vitamin that morning — some immune system thing that tasted like chalk and regret — and now his stomach was doing backflips. Baseball tryouts in two hours. The team. The social hierarchy. Everything.

They walked past the Miller house and suddenly this golden retriever bolted from the bushes, barking like Jordan had personally offended its entire lineage. Jordan yelped and jumped backward, his backpack hitting the ground with an embarrassing thud.

Marcus cracked up. "Bro, that dog weighs like twenty pounds. You good?"

"I'm good," Jordan muttered, but his face was burning. Great. Now Marcus had something new to roast him about.

The sky chose that exact moment to crack open. Lightning forked across the clouds like something out of a movie, followed immediately by thunder that rattled Jordan's chest.

"Whoa," Marcus said, actually impressed. "That was sick."

Then the sky opened up. Sheets of rain.

They sprinted toward Jordan's house, laughing like idiots, both of them soaked through in seconds. When they stumbled through the front door, Jordan's mom took one look and handed them towels.

"Tryouts are cancelled anyway," she said. "Coach just posted it. Field's flooded."

Jordan's stomach did a different kind of flip. Relief, mixed with something else. Not having to face tryouts today. But also... this. Running through a storm with Marcus, who was supposed to be this untouchable popular guy but was now dripping wet on Jordan's couch, stealing the remote like he'd been there a hundred times.

"Your dog still scared of you?" Marcus asked, grinning.

"Shut up, man."

"Nah, for real though." Marcus's voice dropped. "I used to be scared of dogs too. When I was like, twelve. This chihuahua chased me for three blocks. I thought I was gonna die."

Jordan blinked. "No way."

"Deadass. Marcus Cole, terror of the seventh grade, taken down by a rat dog."

They both cracked up. The vitamin incident felt like years ago. The lightning outside flashed again, less scary now. Jordan realized his hands weren't sweating anymore.

Sometimes things got canceled. Sometimes you looked stupid in front of people. Sometimes storms happened.

And sometimes, just sometimes, that's exactly when things actually started.