“What?” I say to her.
“Addie’s been with the team for five and a half years. She’s spent most off-seasons up in Shipwreck for conditioning training with at least a half dozen guys on the team.”
“And?”
“And she doesn’t date.”
“And?”
“And you paid over a hundred grand for a date with her.”
Paisley leans forward and looks around me. “He didn’t like how the old dude at the next table was looking at her. The old dude who was super creepy and bidding more and more too.”
Tillie Jean looks between us. “Have youmetAddie?”
“Just because a womancanhandle her own business doesn’t mean her squad should leave her hanging when things get crazy,” Paisley replies.
“She ate.” Ares smirks like he’s enjoying the shocked looks from all of us at the man who never speaks keeping up with the lingo. Then he rubs my head. “Good job.”
Addie’s talking to Diego Estevez behind home plate now.
And she keeps glancing toward the stands.
Toward us.
Unlike Tillie Jean, who’s still frowning at me, Addie seems happy.
Possibly amused.
Two other coaches join her, and they both look my way.
“Oooh, they’re talking about you,” Kami says. “What do you think they’re saying?”
“Is that Duncan guy looking at you wrong?” Felicity says in one of her grumpy-guy puppet voices. Don’t have to look at her to know she’s not moving her lips. It’s freaky and cool at the same time.
But it’s better when she’s surrounded by people who don’t know she’s a ventriloquist and she makes pets and inanimate objects talk than it is when she’s mocking me.
“Don’t worry, fellow coaches. I know how to punch a guy in the nuts!” she says back in a cheerful feminine voice.
“Not sure a nut-punch will be enough for someone who tried to buy your pussy at auction,” the grumpy voice says.
“You haven’t felt the strength of my nut-punch!” the happy lady voice says.
I look back at her.
Nick’s cracking up.
Kami’s trying to keep a straight face as she says, “All in good fun, Duncan.”
Felicity’s grinning proudly.
So is Ares.
“I can’t decide if you scare me or if you’re the coolest person I’ve ever met,” Paisley says to her.
“That’s the same thing Ares’s pet monkey said the first time he met Felicity too,” Nick says, which actually makes Ares crack a real laugh with the rest of us.
He’s a harder nut to crack than Addie is.
