Augie’s House of Wings was filling up, the mostly young crowd drawn by the weekly all-you-can-eat special.

A group of Orioles had walked to the restaurant after practice. They sat at a table in the back, studying Mickey with a combination of awe and alarm.

In front of the big catcher were two plates. One held a steaming heap of buffalo wings glistening with Augie’s secret sauce, a spicy, iridescent orange glaze. The other plate held at least fifty chicken bones, gnawed clean as if by a wild animal.

When he finished devouring each wing, Mickey dropped it on the plate—where it landed with a distinctive ping—while he simultaneously reached for another.

The time between the final slurp of a devoured wing and a meaty new one reaching his lips was estimated to be two seconds by the rest of the Orioles.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Sammy said, shaking his head. “The kid’s just a wing-eating machine.”

“Do you even, like, taste anything before it slides down your throat?” Gabe asked.

Mickey stopped chewing long enough to grunt.

“I think that means yes,” Gabe said. He looked at Mickey again. “Nod if that meant yes.”

Mickey nodded happily and burped.

Katelyn shook her head in dismay as she watched him.

“I want you to know something,” she said. “And I mean this from the bottom of my heart, okay? You are one disgusting human being.”

Mickey smiled broadly, his greasy lips shining.

Katelyn sighed and looked at the others. “I don’t know why I bother. The boy has no shame. You call him disgusting and he practically wants to hug you. Which”—she glared at Mickey—“you can forget about doing, nerd. Unless you want a kick in the you-know-whats.”

“Ooooh!” the other Orioles murmured. “In the you-know-whats!”

Mickey smiled again and flashed Katelyn the peace sign with two orange-stained fingers.

“Wonder what the world record is for eating wings?” Sammy said as Mickey continued to chew.

Hunter piped up. “I got that. It’s three hundred and sixty-three wings in a half hour.”

The others turned to stare at him.

“What?” he said. “I looked it up when I knew we were coming here. A woman, Molly Schuyler. She ate three hundred and sixty-three wings at Wing Bowl Twenty-two. She weighs only one hundred and twenty-five pounds, I think. But don’t quote me.”

“Thank you, Mr. Wikipedia,” Sammy said. “That was very enlightening.”

“You’re welcome,” Hunter said.

Gabe nodded in Mickey’s direction. “Give this guy a few years and he’ll challenge that lady. You watch. My man M-Dog’s a beast!”

“Okay, enough about the stupid wings,” Sammy said, looking at Mickey. “What we want to know is: are you gonna kick Zoom’s butt or what?”

Mickey considered the question for a moment and shrugged. He sucked the meat off another wing and tossed it on the small mountain of bones, then took a big gulp from a water glass.

“Thing is, Zoom’s right,” he said finally. “I should eat more salad. I was mad the other day, when he first said it, sure. But the kid had a point. Just look at me.”

He patted his ample belly and sighed contentedly. “But if all I ate was salad, I’d miss all this fun at Augie’s. Besides, Katelyn says she likes me just the way I am. She says I’m hot.”

“Oh, puh-leeze!” Katelyn said, turning red. “You could only wish, nerd.”

“There’s no use denying it, Katelyn,” Mickey said, deadpan. “It’s written all over your face each time you look at me. You think I’m smokin’. Might as well admit it.”

At this, Katelyn lunged across the table, nearly knocking over their drinks, and got right in Mickey’s face.

“ZIP IT, NERD!” she roared. “NOW YOU’RE BEING TOTALLY DELUSIONAL!”

Mickey grinned as the rest of the Orioles cracked up. But he quickly grew pensive again—well, as pensive as a kid could be with gobs of orange sauce smeared all over his shirt.

Earlier that day he had told a few of the Orioles about Zoom’s salad-line put-down after the Red Sox game. Soon Mickey regretted opening his mouth, because his friends had spent the rest of practice shooting dirty looks at their new pitcher, who seemed puzzled by this treatment.

Sure, Zoom’s a ginormous jerk, Mickey thought. But this is between him and me. It’s not fair for me to drag my friends into it. If it’ll help Zoom’s pitching and get us a shot at the Huntington team, I can take a few more zingers about the size of my gut.

On the other hand, Mickey no longer had to wonder if he was the only Oriole who couldn’t stand Zoom. No, it was clear from the way his friends were talking that they felt the same way about the new kid.

That wasn’t good—having players take sides and turn on a teammate. That could break any team apart—even one as close as the Orioles.

“So let me get this straight,” Sammy was saying now, a note of exasperation in his voice. “You’re just going to let Zoom get away with it? Dissing you like that? Practically calling you a porker? And in front of what’s-her-name?”

“Abby,” Mickey said.

“Whatever,” Sammy said. “That’s just not right.”

After mentioning Abby’s name, Mickey suppressed a smile. The two had continued to talk for another fifteen minutes after Zoom and his boys left the snowball stand the other night. Mickey had to admit he was beginning to like her more and more.

Mickey still didn’t know—and couldn’t guess—what Zoom had said that had made her laugh so hysterically. Zoom didn’t seem like a funny guy, since he was stone-faced whenever he was around the Orioles.

It didn’t matter now, though, because Abby’s delight had been replaced by outrage at Zoom’s dig. Over and over again she had told Mickey to “just ignore the big idiot.” And she had talked earnestly about how mean kids could be to one another, especially on social media, where anyone could post something nasty and remain anonymous.

“If someone ever wrote something on Facebook about me being ugly, I think I’d just die,” Abby had said at one point.

Yeah, Mickey had thought, looking into those dark eyes. Like that would ever happen.

The other thing Mickey liked about Abby was that she seemed to know more about baseball than most guys her age—and maybe even more than Katelyn, who was a walking encyclopedia about the game.

Not that he planned to spend a lot of time talking about, say, the nuances of the hit-and-run play with Abby. But it was kind of cool to think that she might appreciate it if he did.

“You have to teach Zoom a lesson. Period,” Sammy was saying now. “Otherwise, he’ll just keep doggin’ you.”

“Yeah,” Hunter said. “Look, you’re bigger than him…”

“And stronger than him…” Gabe said.

“And definitely dumber than him,” Katelyn said. “Way, way dumber. If he hits you in the head, it’ll feel like cotton, since there’s nothing up there.”

She flashed an angelic smile and went back to eating her wings.

Mickey grinned. He turned to the others and nodded in Katelyn’s direction.

“Don’t let her fool you,” he said. “She’s crazy about me. Just has a funny way of showing it sometimes.”

Katelyn picked up a bone and fired it at his head. He ducked and the bone hit the wall behind him.

“Security!” he cried, standing and waving his hands. “Disturbance at table fifteen! This young lady needs to be escorted from the premises, please!”

Everyone laughed. But a moment later, Mickey grew serious.

“Let’s not talk about Zoom anymore,” he said, pushing the plate of wings away. “It’s killing my appetite.”

The truth was, Mickey wasn’t sure what to do about Zoom right now.

Confront him and demand an apology? Pretend the whole thing never happened?

Maybe, he thought, Zoom was actually feeling sorry for what he’d said the other day at the snowball stand.

Maybe he regretted that ridiculous grandstanding strategy of intentionally walking a Red Sox batter just to show off his pickoff move—which could have been disastrous for the Orioles if it had led to a loss.

Maybe one day he’d see the light—the term Mickey’s dad always used—and stop being such a jerk.

Yeah, right.

Well, Mickey thought, a guy can dream.

He sighed and looked at the uneaten wings, only now they were making his stomach queasy.

Why did it feel like his problems with Zoom were just beginning?