Out of Her League |Lesbian Story|

Chapter 7

It took a bit of persuasion to get April to play with us. Poor April. Once Felik and Grigor chose you, you didn't have much chance to refuse. Her mom didn't mind her taking sometimes for sport activity. In fact, she encouraged it because she didn't want April to spend all her free time working at the cafeteria. Besides Felik and Grigor had made the schedule easy for her to get her training, just five hours a week.

April, me, Olive and the two coaches went straight from the baseball field to the Matryoskha Restaurant.

We stepped out of their shiny Bentley and wondered why they brought us to this place. Felik greeted everyone as he swept us through the restaurant into the kitchen.

"Mitko!" he called out.

I recognized the guy at the stove -it was the chef I'd seen with our coaches the night I was kicked out of the Blue Belles team. He was fussing over pots of food on the enormous stove with eight gas burners hissing away.

Mitko was short and stocky, with his belly bulging hard against his apron. An incredibly friendly man who laughed when he saw us.

"This is Mitko, the owner of this place," said Felik. "Mitko, these gals are..."

Mitko held up his hand to stop Felik.

"The baseball team," he guessed. Then he leaned forward to whisper to us, like it was a big conspiracy, "I give Felik so much hope to coach you girls."

"Mitko's a great pitcher and catcher himself," Felik said to us.

Mitko laughed. "Used to be."

"Anyway, I would like you to meet April, Olive and Darci," our coach said. Mitko wiped the sauce off his hand and offered it to us to shake. But each of us stared at the hand as if we weren't sure what to do with it. None of us was used to being treated so respectfully. In the end, I had to take the lead and shook his hand. I nudged Olive and April, and they followed my example.

"Ah, our kapitan!" said Mikto, nodding as if they'd already discussed me.

"April here needs a few tips on pitching and catching," Felik told him. "And I think who else has the safest hands and reflexes like lightning like Mitko? He used to coach the Russian national baseball team, too."

"Years ago. Before I got old and fat," Mitko chuckled.

"I know it's all still in here," Felik said, tapping the chef's temple. Then he reached into the sports bag Grigor was carrying and whipped out a bat, gloves, and ball. Mitko's eyes lit up. He just couldn't resist it.

Two minutes later we were in the alley behind the restaurant. And we watched the three of them coaching April. Then Olive was asked to pitch while I took the bat. April would try to catch the ball.

"Leap for it! Good! Never watch the player, always eyes on the ball."

April leaped and lunged to capture it, hurling it back to us. She seemed quite excited. You could see she was loving this more and more.

"Don't be afraid when the ball is coming fast at you, you don't dodge or second guess, you catch it," said Mitko.

I sent a powerful shot, at a difficult high angle. The ball went towards a corner of the walls, and there was no way any catcher could get it, but April lurched forward, her foot kicked against the building wall and literally bounced off into the air to catch it.

"Wonderful!" roared Mitko. "Felik where you've been hiding these gems!? They're like ballerinas of baseball!"

So the next Thursday - the first official round of the season, the Rejects was ready.