All’s Fair in Love and Pizza

MATEO

The afternoon crowd had dwindled to a few regulars, a couple in the corner checking out a map on an iPad, and a few football players from Great H. I didn’t advertise that I was once one of them. I didn’t have to. My bigmouth cousin usually did the honors.

“You know who this guy is?” Vanni paused in the middle of ringing up Sal’s special to hike his thumb in my direction. “Former award-winning QB for you guys. He took Great H to the championship three years in a row for the first time in like…forty-five years. And they won. Did you say extra cheese?”

“Uh…yes, sir.” The fresh-faced kid politely smiled the way I probably had when introduced to someone who’d been relevant while I was in fourth grade and my biggest worry had been beating my cousins’ scores at whatever video game we’d been obsessed with at the time.