Page 79 of End Game

But lavish presents aren’t the same as lavished love, and when I see Diana and her parents, I know she’s never wanted for love and affection from either of her parents. They care about her deeply and aren’t afraid of showing it. From the easy way they tease her on the way to the car and the way they dissect her game (that they watched! in person!) without criticism of that goal in the second half she definitely should have caught, they aren’t shy about showing how much their daughter means to them.

The drive to Double Chins is quick and easy, unlike the drive to the steakhouse last night. There are considerably fewer people in the streets. Women’s soccer isn’t as much of a crowd-pleaser as men’s football, and especially not with the team’s continued losing streak. Also, as the weekend winds down, parents are starting to hit the road—Stewart and Cecilia are going back to Amherst after dinner, I already know.

This place is the epitome of family style. When I come here with the guys, we get nine or ten dishes and split them amongst the six of us, so everyone gets a little bit of everything. That’s the best way to feed a crowd of always-hungry athletes.

Because it’s only five o’clock, the place isn’t packed yet, which means we have our choice of tables. The host seats us at a table in the very center of the room and leaves us to peruse the giant menus.

“So, what’s good here?” Stewart asks.

“I’ve never had a bad meal here.”

He grins at me. “So, I’m thinking cashew chicken, Kung pao beef, and a coconut curry.”

Diana groans. “That joke stopped being funny, like, twenty years ago.”

“Oh? You don’t want to eat with us?”

She rolls her eyes. We all know he would never deliberately order something she is allergic to. Her entire family is extremely conscious of her allergies and what isn’t safe—whereas my mother continuously offers me peaches, even though she knows I’m mildly allergic to them.

When the waiter comes over, a young guy of East Asian descent who speaks with a Southern drawl, Cecilia is in charge of ordering for the group. She gets enough food to feed us three times over. Then again, considering how much I am capable of eating and the game Diana just played in… maybe it’s barely enough.

Conversation is as easy as it was last night, as easy as it was during the game. Stewart and Cecilia are good people, and more than that, they’re good parents. They actually care about us and ask questions because they care about the answers. They want to know how we’re actually doing, and not just the trite responses about school being busy and midterms being overwhelming.

Our food gets delivered and we dig into the plethora of dishes covering the table. Diana pauses halfway through scooping gai-lan in oyster sauce onto her plate.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I just… I thought…” She sighs. “Never mind.”

“Dee.”

“I thought I saw this guy.”

My heart starts to pound. “This guy?”

“We went out once. It wasn’t great,” she says. The first glimmer of information about how her date was.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I tell her—which isn’t a lie.

“So yeah, I’m not really in the mood to see him.”

Stewart cranes his neck to look, totally obvious. “That white boy?”

Okay, now I have to look, too. I try to be a lot more casual about it, though.

By the host’s stand is a weedy, stringy looking white guy with long, unwashed hair and a patchy beard. He’s wearing a flannel and dark jeans with holes in the knees. I don’t know if the unkempt look is what he’s going for, or if his student housing lacks the amenities of a shower. With him are a middle-aged bottle blonde woman wearing pearls—fake pearls, I can tell from here—and a sweater set, and a tall, balding man in a boxy brown suit.

The guy goes still when his eyes land on Diana. I can practically see his heart in his eyes. It’s not hard; she’s fucking amazing. She’s a bonafide catch. He could do a whole hell of a lot worse than Diana Whitehall.

Not that I want him to catch her.

He mutters something to the people with him before he’s striding over. Diana shrinks in on herself, which makes my blood boil. This asshole is making her feel insecure? I’m going to kill him. I’m going to rip his face off and tear him limb from limb.

“Easy there,” Stewart mutters to me, and I release the death grip I have on my flimsy plastic chopsticks.

The guy approaches. “Hey, Diana,” he says, giving her a smarmy grin.

“Trey. Hi.”