pinky promise - jamie tartt

‟ LEARN SOMETHING NEW „

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Tate thought for sure that she was going to get fired for cursing out the team's star player. 

But when she entered her office the following morning, someone had left flowers on her desk. Lilies, along with a note in unfamiliar handwriting.

I have a favor to ask. Please come to today's press conference with me. And don't worry about yesterday, Tater Tot. Everyone has their limits. - Ted

As she finished reading the short note, she chuckled at the drawing of a smiley face with Ted's signature mustache. Rolling her eyes, Tate slipped her phone from her pocket and pulled up her short text thread with the head coach.

Message sent to Ted Lasso:

Thanks for the flowers, but you could have just sent me a text, you know. And of course I'll go.

Tate set down her phone after hitting send, examining the flowers with a grin. They were lilies, which meant that Ted had remembered what she said the day they met. Ted's wife was lucky to be married to man as thoughtful as him.

New Message from Ted Lasso:

Now what's the fun in that?

After liking his message, Tate slid out from her text thread with the coach. Things were different with Lasso around, indeed.

「☺ ☺ ☺」

Tate wished that she hadn't allowed Ted to convince her to watch the train wreck of a press conference in person.

From the moment it began, it was downhill, and when Trent Crimm stood to ask Ted a question, Tate visibly winced. From her spot in the back of the room, behind all the reporters, she couldn't see the smug grin on Crimm's face, but she could hear it in his voice.

"Could you explain the offside rule?"

And from Ted's brief hesitation, Tate knew that no, he could not.

"Well, uh," The coach rambled on about some old American policy about recognizing pornography in media. "I can't define it, but you'll know it when you see it."

Tatum Greene adored Ted Lasso, but she really wished that he wouldn't talk about porn policy during official press conferences to dodge giving questions straight answers. She gave him a thumbs up, anyway, when he looked to her for support.

But then the conference went from bad to worse when a reporter for The Sun stood to ask a question. And when the reporter stated his question was for Mrs. Mannion, Tate's skin began to crawl.

"It's Welton, now," Rebecca was sure to correct the reporter, her smile not wavering. The power that woman held over the room was nearly a tangible thing, but it also was incredibly precarious.

"Right," The reporter from The Sun breezed over the importance of her name change. "Do you have any comment on the young woman Rupert has been spotted with?"

Fuck, he went for the jugular with that question. Tate watched the brief panic cross Rebecca's face, her reaction gone in a blink of an eye.

"We are divorced. I can hardly be expected to care about his newest actress-model model-actress." Rebecca's smile stayed plastered across her face, but with a quick glance in Ted's direction, Tate knew that he was worried for the way the question would effect his new friend.

"Yeah, except she isn't new," The reporter seemed almost gleeful to surprise her with the information. Tate's heart was hammering in her chest as she slipped her phone from her pocket and typed Rupert's name into the search bar. Instantly, dozens of pictures of his newest mistress—barely older than herself. "She's claiming that she's been with Rupert for five years now, so, while you were married."