Page 100 of The Understatement of the Year

She ruffled his hair. “Tell your coach that he has to keep to the twenty hour rule, even during the post-season.”

“I will fire off that memo first thing,” he said, his dimple showing. “But before I do, I came to drag your son off to Capri’s for a couple of hours.”

“I don’t think so,” I said quickly.

Rikker crossed the room and took the remote out of my hand. He muted the TV and crossed his arms. “I know you feel like crap every night. But getting out of here might do you some good.”

“Maybe another time.”

He put my remote in his back pocket. “It will be quiet there tonight. Sunday night and all. Seems perfect to me.”

I lunged, but he anticipated me, weaving to the side well before I could get to him. And I wasn’t willing to tackle my boyfriend in front of my mother.

“You should go, Mikey,” she said gently. “Johnny is right.”

Great. Now the Mom-guilt was kicking in. “Naw. You go ahead, Rik.”

His face got serious, and he sat down on my desk chair. “Come on, G. I'll make a deal with you.Yougo to Capri's, and I’ll stay away tonight. God knows I see enough of that place.”

Way to make me feel like a total asshole. And I could feel my mother watching us, wondering why he would offer to do that. “That's not cool, Rik.” I mumbled. “It’s your celebration.”

“And yours.”

I shook my head.

“Your friends are going to wonder why you’re ducking them. I mean, they’re playing for the Eastern cup next week. Show your face.”

Ugh. I couldn’t even look up at my mom. She just stood there, silent, listening to Rikker and I have this disagreement. Walking into Capri’s with Rikker at my side wasn’t something I wanted to do. But I couldn’t ask him to stay away from the we-just-clinched-the-conference party, either. I was a jackass. But I wasn’tthatbig of a jackass.

“We'll both go,” I said finally.

Rikker’s smile lit up his whole face. “Get your jacket.”

I’m not proud of the way that I broke into the cold sweats as Rikker pushed the door open and stepped inside. Daft Punk was playing on the sound system, but the beat was drowned out by one of the Capri brothers’ voices calling “pie number thirty-seven!” over the intercom.

I don’t know what I was expecting, exactly. But the room did not go absolutely silent when Rikker and I walked into that place together. Nobody turned to point and stare. The ground did not drop out from under my feet and swallow me up.

Rikker was on to me, of course. He knew me too well. So, after we passed the pizza counter, he paused in the doorway to our usual room to talk to Orson. Without a glance in my direction, he let me pass by, working my way toward the three or four tables the hockey team had commandeered.

“Hey!” Hartley crowed. “Does anybody recognize this guy? He looks vaguely familiar.”

“He needs a glass,” someone said.

There was an open seat at Bridger McCaulley’s table, and so I slid in next to his eight-year-old sister, Lucy. “Hi there,” I said to her.

“Hi Graham. I thought you were hurt.” Her freckled face tilted up toward mine, her eyes scanning me for injuries.

“My head was injured, and it’s not done healing,” I told her. “Still hurts.”

“Looks the same, though,” she said, setting down the crust of her pizza.

“Good to know,” I told her, and Bridger laughed.

Someone poured me a beer, and I relaxed a little bit. How many times had I sat here like this, listening to the evening’s latest smack talk? A hundred? Two hundred? I’d missed this. I sipped my beer, soaking up the sound of my teammates’ arguments and laughter.

Bridger and Lucy went home, but Bella took the empty seat instead. “Hi, Sweetie,” she said, teasing a straw wrapper around her finger. “You look a little better than the last time I saw you.”

I fiddled with my beer glass. “That’s because the last time you saw me was not so recently.”