I nodded and then waved when Tate, a guy from the team, stopped by with his parents a short distance away. He smiled at me and then looked at Elijah.
“Good run today, Bran,” he said and glanced at Elijah again. I worried that he thought this was my dad from overseas that I made up.
“This is my Uncle Eli,” I introduced.
“Nice to meet you,” Tate stretched his arm forward and shook Elijah’s hand. It was kind of cool that Tate seemed happy for me that I finally had someone attend one of the track meets.
“What are you doing for dinner? Another Lunchable?” Elijah asked as we walked toward the parking lot.
“Probably,” I admitted and laughed.
“I’d like to take you out for pizza,” Elijah offered.
“Yeah? Pizza?” My stomach dropped, and my heart began to pound at the invitation.
“Yes, unless you have something better to do.”
“I don’t. Would you mind if I go to the locker room and change?”
“That’s fine, Brandon. Go change, and how about I’ll meet you at Artie’s Pizza just up the street?”
“I love Artie’s! I’ll be right over,” I said and then took off in a sprint for the locker room.
I hurried to change back into the distressed jeans and a red t-shirt that I had worn to school today. Nervously, I drove to Artie’s Pizza and parked next to Elijah's black BMW SUV. I didn’t know why I was nervous. I was so excited to have someone to go out with after a track event. Elijah stood outside of the restaurant, waiting for me, and as I exited my car, he held his hand up and waved at me so I’d see him.
As I approached Elijah, I paid more attention to his clothes now than I had at the track. Usually when I’d see him, he was wearing dress pants with a crease, and a pressed button-down shirt. Today, though, he wore dark jeans, cigar brown Chukkas, and a navy polo-style shirt. He looked good, for his age. Whatever it was.
We were shown to our table, and while we looked out our menus, Elijah ordered two Cokes for us. After the waitress walked away, I decided to jab at him a little.
“You look good, man. Not so shrinky,” I said with a smile, making him laugh.
“Well, thank you. I’m glad my attire meets your approval. I wore navy since it’s your school colors,” he divulged.
I stared at him and couldn’t avoid the smile on my face. The waitress set the two glasses of Coke down with paper-wrapped straws and took our order.
“We’ll have a large pepperoni pizza and a side order of breadsticks, please,” Elijah ordered.
“You wore that shirt to support me and my school?” I asked after the waitress left again.
“I did,” he said with a smile and nodded.
I tapped the end of my straw on the table, pulled back the paper wrapper, and grabbed the clear straw with my teeth before putting it in my glass.
“I didn’t want you to have yet another track meet with no one there to support you, Brandon.”
I was speechless. It was a Friday night, with great weather in Beverly Hills, and he was spending it at a patient’s high school track meet and eating greasy pizza.
“I just can’t believe it, you know?”
“What’s that, Brandon?”
“That you wanted to come to the meet. You even wore a non-shrinky shirt in my school color. And my mom would be impressed with your shoes.”
Elijah laughed as he leaned back in his seat. When he stretched his arm across the other wooden chair, it gave me a glimpse of how large his biceps were, along with a tattoo of two oars crossed.
“That’s good to hear, Brandon, but I’m not really interested in your mother’s approval.” Elijah reached for his glass of Coke and sipped from it before continuing. “To be honest, your text this afternoon informing me that your mother wasn’t going to attend your track meet disgusted me. I was highly disappointed that after all the progress you’ve been making since we’d begun talking, she wasn’t willing to put you on her schedule.”
I nodded and agreed with him.
