Page 306 of A Taste of Vanilla

No caption.

Just shovel.

Family is complicated.

I, however, have forgiven no one.

Especially not the Baltimore Vipers.

I hate sports.

This is not a secret; this is a personal value.

Unfortunately, the Vipers have become regulars at Saints & Sinners.

This is Halston’s fault.

And possibly capitalism’s.

The problem began before Victory Twists, but those didn’t help. A Vipers pitcher reposted a pastry Halston made for the bar, then a shortstop did. Then some man with forearms the size of my cash register described my bar as “the perfect place with an owner who looks mad but makes great whiskey drinks.”

Now they come in after home games.

Which, I didn’t actually know… is quite frequent. I thought they only had one game a week.

They’re loud.

I know every player’s drink order, which isn’t evidence ofemotional investment, as Halston likes to point out. It’s evidence of professional competence.

For example, Andre DeLuca drinks bourbon with one ice cube and always orders two Sweet Heat Victory Twists because he says one is “lonely.” I think this is stupid, but I give it to him anyway because he tips in cash and once stopped a drunk guy from trying to climb onto my bar.

Miles Thompson drinks club soda with lime during the season and tequila when he’s injured. He is currently drinking club soda because his hamstring is apparently “vibing better.”

I hate knowing that.

I also know their closer, Darius Bell, prefers rye neat but switches to ginger ale when his mother visits because she checks his breath. I have met his mother. She’s terrifying and calls me “sweetheart” like a threat.

I like her.

None of this means I care.

It’s late on a Friday, and Saints & Sinners is packed.

Warm bodies, loud voices, glasses clinking, chairs scraping, and Vipers players taking up too much space because professional athletes do not understand that square footage is a finite resource.

Bitter Bloom sold out early because Halston made some ridiculous game-night pastry shaped like a tiny baseball bat with cream filling.

I told her it was grotesque.

It sold out in forty-two minutes.

Now she’s behind my bar, helping me because “teamwork makes the dream work,” which is the kind of sentence that should carry a fine. Punishable by death.

“You’re scowling,” she says, sliding a beer across the bar to the catcher.

“I own a bar full of baseball players.”

“You own a profitable bar full of baseball players.”