Chapter 44 TONY'S PIZZA
POV: TEDDY
The pizza was exactly what he said it would be.
Cheap and good, served by a guy named Anthony who was definitely not Tony and who definitely wasn’t going to card anyone who looked like they could play varsity at anything. The booth was vinyl, cracked in one corner, and the table had that worn-down feel of a surface that had soaked up years of other people’s celebrations, arguments, and ordinary nights.
Teddy ate three slices in the first ten minutes and felt some of the tension drain out of his muscles.
Around him, the team was doing what teams did after practice—volume louder than necessary, every story a little bigger than it had been when it actually happened, bodies finally allowed to exist in the same space without competing. Marcus was explaining something complicated about his older brother, waving his hands so close to Joel that Joel kept ducking. Dre was busy building a tower out of sugar packets for reasons no one had asked about. Someone had the jukebox going in the back, but nobody was really listening and everybody could hear it anyway.
It was good.
Teddy was having a good time.
He really was.
He laughed at the end of Marcus’s story about his brother, chipped in with something about Myers’s coaching style that got a reaction from the table, reached for his fourth slice, and enjoyed the moment.
But underneath, something felt just a bit off.
He didn’t think about it.
Dre’s sugar packet tower fell over. Everyone reacted. Teddy reacted. The jukebox switched songs. Anthony came by to ask if they needed anything. Dre asked for more sugar packets without missing a beat. Anthony looked at the mess on the table and walked away without answering.
“Blake didn’t come,” Joel said, not really talking to anyone. Just saying it.
“Blake doesn’t really come anywhere,” Marcus said. “Good player. Hard to read.”
“Keeps to himself,” Joel agreed.
Teddy took a bite of his fourth slice.
“Yeah,” he said.
He kept his face steady and steered the conversation somewhere else by asking Marcus about the formation they’d been running in the second set. Marcus had opinions, and the conversation moved on.
But that feeling stayed. The frequency was still off.
He checked his phone under the table while Marcus talked.
No messages.
He hadn’t expected any. He’d invited James, James said no, and that was it. No follow-up needed.
He put his phone away and took another bite of pizza.
The thing about James Blake was the way he moved like someone trying very carefully not to be noticed. Teddy had watched players his whole life—the way they filled space, the way their bodies said things their voices didn’t. James took up exactly the right amount of space, no more, no less. Not shy. Not timid. Precise.
That was interesting.
He didn’t try to figure out why.
He was having a good time with his team at Tony’s Pizza. He was not thinking about it.
He ordered a fifth slice.
Outside afterward, the group split up at the corner of the block. Guys headed in different directions back to campus. The goodbyes were quick and easy, no expectations.
Teddy walked alone for a bit, the campus lights glowing two blocks ahead in the dark.
He stopped at the corner and looked back at Tony’s window. The warm light. The shapes of other customers inside who weren’t his team.
He thought about the invitation—not with regret exactly. More like the feeling of a door you knocked on that didn’t open. Standing there, trying to decide whether to knock again or just walk away.
The thing about James was he’d said maybe next time.
Maybe wasn’t no.
Teddy turned back toward campus.
He wasn’t going to do the pizza thing again. Too much noise, too many people, too easy to hide behind the team vibe and not actually talk to anyone.
He needed something smaller. Something where maybe was harder to say no to than a table full of guys being loud in a pizzeria.
He didn’t know what that was yet.
He just knew he was going to try again. And that trying mattered in a way he wasn’t ready to name. Because to name it, he’d need words he didn’t have. Just because he didn’t have the words didn’t mean it wasn’t real. It just meant he was still learning how to be in the same room as it without flinching.
One step at a time.
He walked back to campus.
The library’s upper floors were lit as he passed. He glanced up without really knowing why.
Then he went inside.