"Hustle, hustle, hustle!" Jo yelled from the sideline. The toe of her Tom's shoe was just at the white of the field boundary and her face was beginning to turn red from the exertion.
Twenty minutes into the game and Mac had a new appreciation for what it took to be a soccer mom. You had to yell louder, stomp harder and clap more determinedly than all the other women out there. It was a tough job. So far, Jo was taking the cake for most intense, and it was working. Ellie's team was up 1-to-nothing, and Ellie had the assist for the goal. Currently, she was chasing another girl on a fast break, catching up to her just as Mac turned his eyes from Jo and back to the action on the field.
Jo continued to yell as Ellie kicked the ball away from her opponent, turned it and headed back up the field, passing it along the way with another girl who was equally skilled. As the keeper came out towards Ellie's teammate, she passed the ball to Ellie, who shot it as hard as her foot would allow and watched the ball sail into the goal, pushing the net backwards with its sheer force.
"Yesss!" Jo hissed, turning to Mac with her hands held high, waiting for a high-five.
Mac indulged her, grinning at her exuberance, before giving a sharp whistle of his own. Jo yelled, Mac clapped and Ellie did her best to pretend she couldn't hear them. The game continued as such, though it ended with Ellie one goal short of a hat trick. Still, her team took home a victory; 4-to-2 with the promise that they were headed to the playoffs.
"Girrrl," Jo howled, arms wide open, as Ellie jogged off the field towards her mother. "You were awesome," she said, punctuating every word.
"Thanks, mom," Ellie said, leaning in to hug Jo. Over her mom's shoulder, she looked at Mac and said, "Thanks for coming to watch me play, Detective Taylor. I can't believe you stood over here with my crazy mother the whole time."
Mac chuckled and said, "Well, I am nearly deaf in one ear, but it was worth it."
Jo released Ellie and turned to smack Mac on the arm.
"Oh hush!" she exclaimed. "You loved it. I saw you over there clapping. And how about that whistle thing, Ellie? I'm going to have to get Mac to teach me that!"
Ellie rolled her eyes. "Please don't," she mockingly pleaded with Mac.
"Even if I could, I wouldn't," Mac reassured her. "That whistle is an old Taylor family tradition. My dad used to bring it out at all of my baseball games."
"Oh Mac, you're no fun; but thanks for that mental image of little Mac Taylor rounding third with his dad whistling him all the way home."
Mac smirked and turned back to Ellie. "You did a great job. You really did; I'm impressed. Can I take you and your mom out for a celebratory lunch?"
Ellie looked to Jo who offered a slight nod. "Sure!" Ellie said enthusiastically. "I have to go get my stuff and check in with coach, but then I'll be ready; and I could really use a milkshake, so you just think about where you want to take me."
She skipped off just as Jo was saying, "See what I told you – two goals and she's queen of the world. But thank you for offering to take us to lunch; that was sweet, Mac."
"What's a win without a free lunch?"
"Is that another Taylor family tradition? Because if it is, I think I would have liked the Taylor family very much," Jo explained, leading Mac toward where Ellie was changing out of her cleats.
"It is a Taylor family tradition," Mac explained. "Every time I won a baseball game, my dad would take mom and I to the diner. I don't think it actually had a name. If it did, we just called it the diner, anyway."
"That's a sweet memory, Mac. I was a cheerleader, so the football players, not my parents, took me out," she said with a wink.
Mac rolled his eyes but smiled widely at her with a small chuckle under his breath.
Ellie had slipped into her sneakers by the time Mac and Jo made it over to her. Jo pulled her up off the ground while Mac wordlessly picked up her bag to carry it for her. Jo put her arm around Ellie, giving Mac a smile of gratitude.
"So, how about Shake Shack?" Mac proposed.
"Ooooh, yes!" Jo and Ellie exclaimed simultaneously.
"Sounds like we have a winner," Mac laughed. "I don't know who takes after who – like mother like daughter, or like daughter like mother."
"I taught her everything she knows," Jo said matter-of-factly. Then, with a laugh, she added, "Well, everything related to eating good junk food, laying on the Southern charm and kicking butt at everything she does."
"Mommm," Ellie groaned good-naturedly. "Please."
Mac held up a hand and said, "Ellie, I gotta tell you – your mom is pretty tough. She kicks some serious butt, to use her words."
"Because Mac Taylor doesn't say butt," Jo interrupted with a giggle.
Mac smirked but continued, "She walks into that interrogation room with her Southern charm and softens up those New York criminals before whipping out Jo-the-former-FBI-agent-turned-CSI, and they all crumble. And on top of that, I must say that her penchant for juicy burgers and the like is unparalleled at the lab."
"Why thank you, thank you," Jo smiled, offering two little curtsies.
"Detective Taylor, not to be rude, but you might be just as weird as she is," Ellie said, one eyebrow raised.
Before Jo and Mac could get a word in to defend themselves, Ellie saw one of her teammates beckoning to her across the parking lot.
"Oh! Mom – Becca has new shoelaces for us all. She said they're really cool and tie-dyed. I'm gonna go get them from her," Ellie explained, already jogging away from where Jo and Mac had stopped at the edge of the asphalt.
"We'll wait here," Jo called after her, before turning to Mac. "I tell you, the girl moves a mile-a-minute."
"Just like her mom," Mac said.
Jo propped her sunglasses on her head and shielded her eyes to look at Mac. There were questions there, but Mac couldn't decipher them.
So he continued, "It's a good thing. And I meant what I said – you do kick butt."
Jo grinned. "Secretly you like saying that and you know it," she teased. "And admit it, you benefit from my love of good food."
"Guilty as charged," Mac conceded. "Shall we go get some?"