Addie’s steps slow as she glances around the room, obviously seeing what I’m seeing too.
“Hey, Coach.” One of the guys lifts his chin at her and goes back to his menu like this is completely normal.
Her shoulders bunch at the secondHey, Coachfrom deeper in the room.
By the third greeting, she stops and spins in a circle.
There are twelve tables in this room of the teahouse.
Eleven of them are occupied by her players. If it’s not one of her players and their significant other, it’s two players together.
Practically the entire team is here.
“What’s going on?” she asks the room at large while the hostess fiddles with the menus.
“We’re here having tea,” Luca Rossi says. His partner gives Addie a pained but supportive smile.
“Tea is delicious,” Brooks Elliott adds from another table.
“Good for your superstitions,” his wife pipes up.
“We should have tea in the Gatorade coolers, Coach,” Diego Estevez says. He’s sitting with Rory McBride.
The young guy whose name Paisley wore on her jersey.
The young guy who better never, ever, ever, ever look at my niece wrong.
Addie spins in a slow circle again, staring at all of her players.
Half the tables have the team’s roster of pitchers, who aren’t really her players, since they don’t bat.
They all grin at her.
“Enjoy your tea, Coach.” Francisco Lopez lifts a teacup toward her in a mock toast while his girlfriend whispers for him to behave himself.
“And your table is here.” Our hostess points to the lone empty table with forced cheer. “Have you had tea with us before?”
“Yes,” Addie says.
“Not here, but I’ve been to tea,” I say.
Our hostess’s forced cheer doesn’t waver. “Wonderful.”
I pull out Addie’s seat.
“Did they pay you to do this?” Addie whispers to our server as she takes her spot on the floral cushioned dining chair.
“There was an arrangement with management,” the server whispers back. “I have no idea how much money was involved.”
“Look at her wrong and you’ll have broken laces for a year,” Robinson Simmons says on a cough.
Relatively impressive to get that much out on a cough.
His date’s clearly impressed too. She giggles and leans in and tells him to say it again.
Addie looks back at him. “Gentlemen, it’s your one day off.”
“We wanted tea,” Francisco says.
