“Hey! Hey waitress! HEY! WE NEED MORE BREADSTICKS OVER HERE!” yelled De’Aaron Fox drunkenly as the other patrons of the San Antonio-area Olive Garden glared at him. “In case you didn’t hear, I just scored a CAREER HIGH!” When their waitress didn’t immediately address his request, he threw the empty breadstick basket at her.
De’Aaron’s teammates whooped and high-fived each other when the basket missed its mark and hit an elderly woman in the back of the head, and there was more hollering when a tray holding ten baskets of freshly-baked, steaming breadsticks arrived at the table. “It’s been too long since I had an authentic Italian feast at the OG!” said Zach Randolph as he messily slurped his way through his fifth bowl of fettuccine Alfredo, using two breadsticks as improvised shoveling devices to get more of the pasta into his mouth faster. “I wish I had one of those unlimited pasta passes!”
“All thanks to Vince!” De’Aaron said. “Kosta’s all like, ‘hey we should get gyros to celebrate your career high bro’ but Vince shut his bald ass up and suggested this place instead.”
Kosta smiled apologetically. “Well, we all know where I’m taking us to eat when I drop forty next game.” This absurd prediction was met with another round of raucous laughter, laughter which redoubled in intensity when Kosta overturned the half-full salad bowl in front of him and placed it on his head, then stood up on his chair and started doing an awkward, uncoordinated dance while singing about gyros in a fake opera voice.
De’Aaron noticed that one of his teammates was not sharing in the revelry. “Yo Garrett, they screw up your pasta or what? You barely ate anything and you’re sitting there looking pissed off.”
“When I scored 34 points a week ago, nobody took me out for a dinner with all my teammates,” Garrett Temple replied angrily to De’Aaron, who had suddenly become interested in his phone. “But you go out and score 26, which, last time I checked, is a smaller number than 34, and everybody wants to go out and celebrate.”
“Dude, you were the one who kept referring to himself as “The King” and then you sent a picture of your junk to all of us via text message,” Vince replied as the rest of his teammates, sensing some drama was unfolding, halted the conversations they had been having between themselves to listen in.
“Yeah, you made it pretty clear that you thought you were above us,” Zach added, his face and shirt splattered with Alfredo sauce. “You should be glad that we’re still including you in team functions at all.”
De’Aaron abruptly looked up from his lap and brought his phone out from underneath the table. “Yeah. You sent us all a pic of your spam javelin, which was a really immature thing to do and definitely not something I would ever do myself.” He spent a few seconds carefully deleting some images from his phone before continuing. “And, to be fair, I’m a rookie so it makes sense that my teammates are excited for me. You’re, like, old and stuff.”
“I’m not old!” Garrett exclaimed. “Vince is old. Zach is old. I’m not old. And all that stuff I did in the locker room was in jest. I really do value you guys as teammates even if you don’t value me as a teammate.”
“Wow, so dramatic,” Zach said, rolling his eyes. “Can I have your pasta if you’re not gonna eat it? I think our waitress is ignoring us and I finished mine, like, three minutes ago.”
This request prompted some crude remarks about Zach’s weight, and soon, the mood at the table had returned to inebriated joviality. When Garrett pulled on his coat and walked toward the exit, leaving behind his meal nearly untouched, Zach pulled the food to him, but there was otherwise no change in the demeanor of the group.
“SPURS SUCK!” De’Aaron yelled, prompting more annoyed looks from the nearby diners. “WE’RE THE REAL KINGS HERE!” The remaining Kings teammates slapped the table and hollered their agreement, and when an improvised jousting contest broke out using breadsticks, plates, and chairs as swords, shields, and horses, the thought that there was a teammate not participating in the excitement never crossed De’Aaron’s mind.