397 Morning Surprise (1/2)

I was slightly disappointed that we never got to look up what it takes to adopt a kid in the foster system. After our snacks, the twins both came home with friends in tow. Kyle was dropped off by Marie, but met with Dave and company at the door. Dave brought Garret, Alex, and Kelvin home to show off the mechanical backstop in the backyard.

Noah and I ended up watching them play with it in the backyard. Playing soon became a competition of who can throw the fastest.

"Oh yea! Still amazing!" Garret flexed his biceps after the machine flashed a '93' after his fifth try.

"Move away!" Kyle pushed him away. "Let me try again." Kyle kept repeating that, but couldn't get faster than '90'.

Dave was competing as well, but he wasn't trying to throw his hardest. I don't know if he was scared he would hurt himself before Monday's game or if he just knew he couldn't compete with Garret and Kyle.

"I wanna try!" Noah jumped up and tried to squeeze in.

I sat on the side with Kelvin and Alex. They weren't really interested in who could throw the fastest.

"No way. You're not even a pitcher." Kyle flicked Noah on the head.

"Are you saying only pitchers can throw fast?" Noah rubbed his forehead. "Because, I bet, that Zeke can throw faster than any of you."

"Yea? Where is Zeke?" Garret asked. "I want to see how fast he can throw."

"I'll go get him!" Noah ran inside to go find the oldest Atkins brother.

"Do you want to give it a shot, Jake?" Kelvin asked.

"Ha...ha..." I laughed weakly. "No...I'm good."

"You're the opposite of Noah." Garret laughed. "He was so eager to try and you...not so much."

I scrunched up my nose. "I know I throw slow...I don't need a machine to tell me so." There's also a chance that if I tried to throw my hardest, I could completely miss the backstop. That would be even more embarrassing.

"You've got to let loose sometimes, Jake." Dave said.

"Found him!" Noah burst back outside with Zeke right behind him.

Zeke was sweating and probably came from weightlifting. "Someone said only pitchers can throw fast?" He raised an eyebrow at Kyle.

Kyle tossed him a baseball. "Prove me otherwise. Garret threw a '93'."

Zeke smiled and made his way to what would be the imaginary mound. The three pitchers got out of the way and Noah came back to me. Zeke didn't do the whole set up and pitching motion. Instead, he threw it like normal. The ball hit the backstop with speed well over 90mph. The machine flashed a '99'.

"Whattt?! It must be broken." Kyle's jaw dropped. "No way can you throw 99mph."

Zeke smirked. "Alright. Now that you kiddos know that speed doesn't decide position, I'm going back to work." With a short wave, he went back inside the house.

"Too amazing." Garret said.

"Freakin fast." Noah mumbled. "I didn't think he would blow Garret out of the water like that."

"He can definitely throw someone out at home." Kelvin spoke up as well.

Kyle looked to Noah. "Want to follow that up?"

Noah shook his head. "No thanks. I rather have some dignity left."