Miguel’s hand presses a little more firmly against my back, like a secret question. You okay?
I am not okay.
“I think some of the guys are grabbing food,” I say, brain running the options. Stay in the safety of my team’s noise or go sit at a table with my dad, my boyfriend and my stepmom.
I already know which choice I’m going to make. Dr. Kaur would call it exposure therapy. I call it masochism.
“I can text Coach,” I say. “He won’t mind if I skip tonight. I just have to be back at the hotel for curfew because we have the bus ride home in the morning.”
Dad nods, just once. “Good,” he says. “There’s a place near the hotel that looks decent.”
Miguel meets my eyes for a beat. There’s a question there but he doesn’t ask.
“Okay,” I say. “Yeah. Okay.”
The restaurant Mompicked is one of those slightly nicer chain places—dimmed lights, fake wood paneling, and too many TV screens in the bar area. Public enough that nobody can really raise their voice without making a scene.
Probably part of why Dad agreed to this.
We cram into a booth near the back. Parents on one side, me and Miguel on the other. My knee bumps his under the table, and he leaves it there.
Menus open, all of us pretending to care about chicken versus salmon.
Mom mercifully fills the first ten minutes with commentary. How long the drive was. How she made Dad stop at a roadside fruit stand because “California strawberries are fine, but you should try Oregon’s,mijo.”
Miguel adds color commentary, doing an impression of her cussing at traffic that makes her swat him and Dad crack a reluctant smile.
I cling to the normal like a lifeline.
The server comes and takes drink orders. Miguel and I stick to soda, Coach’s voice in my head,no alcohol on the road.Mom gets wine and Dad orders a beer, which feels like foreshadowing.
When the server leaves, the bubble of safe small talk starts to thin.
Dad taps his fingers against his glass. It’s a lawyerly rhythm, one I know like the back of my hand. “You really did play welltonight,” he says finally, looking at me. “Scoring, facilitating. Your defense has improved.”
“Thanks,” I say. “Coach says a guy from the NBA was here. Asked about me.”
Dad’s brows lift. “Is that something you’d consider?” he asks. “Professional ball?”
“Maybe,” I say, my stomach knotted. “I… don’t know yet. It would be a lot. New city, new everything. But… yeah. It’s kind of insane anyone even noticed me.”
“Not insane,” Dad says. “You’ve worked hard.”
His eyes soften for a second, and I flash back to being sixteen, him in the driveway rebounding for me while I shot free throws under the porch light. Before I told him anything. Before I asked him to see the whole picture.
It’s all here in this booth. Miguel’s leg pressed to mine. Mom’s ring catching the light. Dad, in the middle.
He clears his throat. “I, ah… appreciate you texting me the other night,” he says, shifting gears. “About needing more time before we… talk in more depth.”
I feel Miguel’s hand slide over my knee under the table, his thumb drawing one slow circle. I breathe around it.
“Yeah,” I say. “We just wanted to… Go into it prepared.”
A faint smile twitches at the corner of his mouth. “That is very you,” he says. “Preparing for a conversation like it’s a midterm.”
“It’s either that or a panic attack,” I say lightly. “Could go either way.”
His face tightens briefly at the word panic. I don’t apologize for it.
