STEVE:.

LOL.

Dwayne turned the volume down on the television, pulled out a pen and paper, and began to write up the positions that the kids would need to play in order to be compet.i.tive. He felt excited for Alex and the other boys.

Pitching needed to be brought into the spotlight on the team. Dwayne knew that Ricky hadn't done near enough to develop pitchers. He knew he needed strength up the middle before anything, so he would put his best kids at second base, shortstop, pitcher, and catcher. The center fielder needed to be decent as well.

He figured he could stick the least talented t.u.r.ds at left and right field, and the heavy-set kids at first and third base. The rotation on the bench from this point forward, he decided, would come from the shallow end of the talent pool ... as it was supposed to.

A few of the parents from the team were going to be p.i.s.sed off. There was no question about that. Some of the kids were about to have their feelings hurt. That was a lesson they needed to learn. But Dwayne knew that at the end of the season, if they had championship trophies sitting beside their beds at night, pretty much all would be forgiven.

Dwayne finished writing out the player positions and set them on the dresser. He turned off the television, yanked his underwear off (having made the decision at that very instant to sleep nude for the rest of his life), and rolled over to spoon with Estelle. As he closed his eyes, he thought he heard the sound of an engine idling outside.

He jumped up and ran to the window, buck naked, where he saw what appeared to be an old van parked out front, staking out his house. The van had scraggly multicolored bedsheets duct-taped over the exterior, save for the front windows.

Dwayne could make out someone in the driver's seat wearing what looked like a ski suit from the early 1980s. He knew exactly who it was.

He grabbed a pillow to cover his b.a.l.l.s and sprinted out the door and across the yard to confront Dave the umpire. Dave slid open the van's side door and emerged through a sheet with pot smoke pouring out behind him like he was in some crazy low-budget horror film. He was gripping the same bat that he'd used to split Ricky Dale's skull. The hard-hitting power chords of Megadeth filled the air as Dave the umpire raised his bat in the air.

"You want a piece of me, lawn boy?" Dave yelled. "I know what the f.u.c.k you've been up to!"

Dwayne charged him, raising his pillow to block a blow from the bat like a nude suburban gladiator. He tackled Dave back into the van with the force of a linebacker, tearing sheets off as they flew back through them. Dwayne unleashed a torrent of body blows to Dave's torso while holding the pillow over his face to silence his screams.

All that could be seen from the exterior of the van was Dave's snowshoes kicking wildly at the air, while a bare a.s.s popped in and out of the moonlight as its owner beat the s.h.i.t out of Dave.

Finally, the kicking stopped. Dwayne managed to somehow refrain from killing Dave, but he did wrestle the bat from him. He held the bat underneath Dave's neck and leaned in closely to his face as he sat perched on his stomach.

"Do not f.u.c.k with me, Dave. I know what you did," he muttered coldly with just the right amount of snarl and psychotic eye twitch.

"Yeah, well I know what you did, too, Dwayne. The night Pete Rearden went missing, I watched you fertilize the baseball field with something that wasn't fertilizer. I think you were fertilizing it with Pete. So don't act like you're in charge here, bro."

Dwayne was confused. He didn't understand. He'd obviously forgotten to check his surroundings before he disposed of Pete's body. Dammit, he thought. How could I have been so stupid?

Dwayne knew he couldn't kill a guy in front of his house. Dave had already been parked for way too long. What Dwayne needed to do was to get Dave to leave. He would deal with him later.

He pushed the bat firmly down on Dave's trachea, put his lips up to Dave's ear, and spoke, "I'm gonna get off of you slowly now, Dave. Then I'm gonna back out through the side door. And then you're going to get up, get behind the wheel, put this s.h.i.tbox in gear, and get the f.u.c.k out of here. I could end you right now, but we're going to go on about our lives like nothing ever happened. We each have something on the other, so we each need to shut the f.u.c.k up. But, I swear to G.o.d, Dave, if I ever see you near my house again, I will rip your G.o.dd.a.m.n head off and hit a motherf.u.c.king home run with it. Am I clear?"

"Whatever it takes to get your sack out of my belly b.u.t.ton, man."

Dwayne backed slowly and deliberately out of the side of the van, and watched as Dave climbed up to the front, put the van in drive, and disappeared down the street.

He walked back inside, tossed the pillow back onto the couch, and climbed back into bed.

He would need to get this Dave thing under control soon, he thought to himself as he drifted off to sleep.

Dwayne awoke the next day at 6:30 a.m. sharp, without the need for an alarm clock. He rolled over and gave Estelle a kiss on the earlobe, and she offered back a sleepy smile. That was all he needed to see.

"Hey, baby," she whispered with one eye barely open. "I got you a surprise yesterday. It's in that box on the dresser."

Dwayne found the box and took a seat on the edge of the bed to open it. His eyes went wide. It was the coolest gift he'd ever received. He jumped up excitedly, like a kid with a new bike on Christmas morning. He held Estelle's present up to his body to see if it would fit.

"Go ahead," she said. "Try it on."

"Is this what I think it is, babe?"

"If you think it's an authentic Star Wars Jedi bathrobe, complete with the Jedi logo and hood, designed stich for st.i.tch to what Obi Wan Ken.o.bi wore in the original Star Wars trilogy, then yes, it's what you think it is."

Dwayne slipped the robe over his shoulders, tied the front, and pulled the large brown hood up over his head. He ran to the bathroom to check himself out in the mirror.

"Oh, babe," he called out from the bathroom. "This is AWESOME! This totally encompa.s.ses how I feel lately! I feel like a f.u.c.king Jedi knight!"

"You are a Jedi knight, sweetie," she offered back in a s.e.xy tone. "Now get in here and show me your lightsaber."

Estelle pulled the sheets off her body to reveal a Princess Leia metal bikini, just like Carrie Fisher had worn as a slave in Return of the Jedi.

"You ... are ... awesome," Dwayne said, stunned.

He leapt on top of her, slinging the robe across the room. She ripped his underwear off and jumped on top of him.

"Oh yeah," Estelle growled into his ear. "The force is strong with this one."

They were like college kids again. They couldn't keep their hands off each other. They had s.e.x twice in the bed, and then one more time in the shower.

When they'd finished, Estelle slipped on her yoga outfit and went to the kitchen to make coffee. Neither of them could speak. They could only smile.

Dwayne decided that there was absolutely no way he could go to work. He needed to play hooky. He needed to play golf. He grabbed his phone and hopped on the text chain with the guys.

DWAYNE:.

I'm skipping work today. Let's play some golf. Who's in?

TOMMY:.

I'm in. I'll move some appointments around. I don't feel like working either. What time?

DWAYNE:.

Let's roll before it gets too hot. In about an hour? 8:30?

TOMMY:.

Sounds good. Russ? Little Stevie?

STEVE:.

I can't, guys. I'm supposed to have conferences with some at-risk youth groups today. Mainly gang members. One of them actually tried to kill me last semester.

Several minutes pa.s.sed as Dwayne sipped his coffee and awaited further texts. Finally ...

STEVE:.

Screw those kids. I'm in, too.

DWAYNE:.

Attaboy, Stevie! There's hope for you yet! Anyone hear from Russ?

TOMMY:.

Not since last night when he was staring at a ma.s.sive shaved p.e.n.i.s on ecstasy.

RUSS:.