Page 69 of End Game

My best friend falls into step beside me. His arm slings around my shoulder again as he forces my pace to slow.

“Don’t leave the rest of us behind, Dee.”

We pause as the group catches up to us. We’ve amassed quite the crowd: six big football players, five soccer players, plus three more athletes. We’re a group of people who are elite at what we do, all different shapes and sizes and colors, each of us a little different from the next.

The pizza place is hopping for a Sunday night. It’s a casual eatery that smells like red sauce and warmth. I rub my hands together to ward off the chill. I’ve forgotten just how cold fall can be. In the southern California sunshine, summer lasts past Thanksgiving, and there’s a singular week of fall at the end of November before the brutality of winter begins.

It’s way too early for snow—it’s not forecast for the next two weeks, which is as far out as I like to rely on meteorologists—but it isn’t out of the realm of possibility for it to fall before Halloween, coming up in three weekends. I don’t miss snow as much as I thought I would. Now it’s just a hassle, a reality of life to deal with. I especially don’t like playing soccer in the snow. The cold has a way of permeating everything, settling in my bones.

Barrett guides me towards a table at the back of the restaurant. The big group gets split amongst three tables, all in the same vicinity: me and Barrett at a small table for two, next to Emma, Terri, Zoe, and Louisa with Amir and Greg, and Miles, Sam, Tucker, Mason, Wes, and Mackenzie in front of us.

This way I’m with all of my friends, but there’s still a little privacy for us to have a serious talk about whatever went down with his parents. I like his thoughtfulness in orchestrating this.

A harried waitress makes her way over to us. Barrett orders three pitchers of beer and an emergency breadsticks order while we peruse the rest of the menu. This isn’t the type of place that would offer a Thai chicken pizza (no peanuts) or a black bean tostada pizza, my two personal favorites. All of these pizzas are slathered with a healthy dose of their homemade red sauce and a heart attack inducing amount of cheese.

“What do you say we get two and split?” Barrett suggests. “I can’t decide what I want.”

I grin at him. “Neither can I. You get to choose.”

He laughs, and sure enough, when the waitress comes back with the beer, he places an order for a pepperoni and black olive pizza and a sausage and mushroom pie. As an afterthought, I tack on a side salad for us to split. I haven’t eaten enough vegetables today, and if he’s been on the road, he probably hasn’t, either.

With the menus returned to the waitress, he has no choice but to meet my gaze.

“Are we going to talk about it?”

He sighs. “Do we have to?”

“If you really don’t want to…”

“No, I just…” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “It’s not going to get any better. You know? It can only get worse.”

“What part?”

“I need to tell them I’m not applying to any MBA programs.” He folds his hands in front of him. “I’m not opposed to doing an MBA. I’ll do it, I don’t care. I just need some time off first.”

“That’s reasonable.”

“I’m not even saying I don’t want to work for my dad. I do. I want to work there,” he says.

“I believe you.”

“I just… I can’t do three more years of school, not right now.” Barrett blows out a breath. “It’s too much. Between school and football and y—”

“And what?”

He swallows. “And you.”

“Me?” What impact do I have on his decision not to go to business school?

“If your dad gets worse… I want to be there for you.” He meets my eyes. “However you need me, I want to be there with you.”

My stomach drops. “That could be years from now.” I don’t want it to happen anytime soon.

“I know,” he says quietly.

“Barrett—”

“You’re not going to convince me out of it,” he says stubbornly. “There are a lot of reasons. This is the least I can do.”