“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to leave the hotel for lunch?” Summer asks. “Go try something new, see a little bit of the city?”
“This is where the competition is,” says Lukas, confused and looking to his teammates for clarity. “We don’t want to be late or miss something.”
“Okay,” his mom, Jen, throws up her hands in defeat. I can tell they’ve been through this before. “Let’s go to the hotel restaurant.”
“You’ll see,” says Lukas. “It’ll be much better this way. Less stress.”
“We’ve already given in,” Summer tells him, but there’s not a hint of anything but resigned amusement in her voice. “Let’s not beat a dead horse.”
We make our way through the crowd. It appears everyone here has the same plan as us, which Lukas declares is proof that it’s a very efficient plan.
I don’t point out, as we wait for a table, that going to the same place as everyone else is probably less efficient when it comes to the time it will take for us to get a table and eat. They already have enough to think about today without me adding to it.
As soon as we order, Lukas’s dad—I think Summer said his name is Neal—places his elbows on the table, looking at the boys over his clasped hands with a stern expression.
Sitting between Elliot and Sebastian, I sit up straighter in my chair. This is it. The official parent interrogation is beginning. My hands feel clammy. I’m going to have to explain that although their sons are great, I’m not dating them, just fooling around with them. Which is going to be very uncomfortable to say out loud to all their families.
“How do you boys feel the competition is going?” Neal asks. “I know you still have a lot of plays to make, and it’s early yet, but how are you feeling?”
“They aren’t plays, they’re events, and then that’s broken down even more into solves,” explains Lukas patiently, even though I am certain he’s explained this before, probably many times. “But I feel pretty good. The new hand warmers I brought are helping keep my turns smooth.”
“The real challenges will come after lunch,” Sebastian tells the table. “Statistically, the biggest things we have to worry about this afternoon will be not flipping the equator and making sure we finalize the last permutation before dropping our cubes.”
“Well, I hope you haven’t been neglecting your studies to practice,” Elliot’s mom, Mary, admonishes. “Make sure you have your priorities straight.”
Elliot nods. “We always block out all of Saturday to study, Mom.”
“What about you, Rebecca?” Felix’s mom turns to focus on me suddenly. “I imagine your program also means you have a lot of work to do outside of class time.”
I feel like a deer staring down an oncoming truck. Why did she have to put me on the spot? I’d just started to feel comfortable. Like we were going to keep the focus on their sons and the national competition, the whole reason we’re here.
I should have known my luck wouldn’t hold. It never does.
“My studies are very important to me.” Why is my stupid, traitorous brain choosing this moment to replay last weekend, when Sebastian splayed me out on the dining table among our books and papers and made me come my brains out? I can feel my face turning scarlet, and can only hope everyone just assumes I’m nervous to have all the attention on me. “I even brought some work with me just in case I had extra time while we’re here.”
And now I’m imagining dumping it all on the bed upstairs so the guys can lay me out on top of it again for a repeatperformance. I think they would agree that practice makes perfect. And my guys love to practice.
“You should have brought it down with you this morning,” Elliot tells me.
“I didn’t know if there would be much downtime at a competition of this level,” I explain, aware that every eye at this table is on me. “Besides, it would feel wrong to be doing homework during the competition when I’m here to support you.”
“A lot of families do other things during or between events,” Sebastian points out. “There’s no reason you couldn’t do homework. We wouldn’t mind.”
I blink at his use of the wordfamilies. It sounds like he’s including me in that group, but I’m sure he’s not. It’s just that most of the audience is the families of the competitors. It’s easier to say that than to say, “the people in the audience.” Right?
“When the boys were younger,” says Andrea, leaning in so I can see her, “they used to spread out on the hotel hallway floors to do their homework.”
“Not me,” contradicts Elliot, scrunching his nose. “There’s no telling how filthy the floors are with so many people walking around in their shoes.”
“No, you never would.” His mom laughs. “Not even if we brought a blanket from home.”
“You used to stand to read and if you had to write anything down, you’d use the wall,” says his dad with a chuckle.
“Fewer people touch the wall than touch the floor,” Elliot insists.
“What else do kids do to amuse themselves at these events?” I ask, happy for the chance to deflect the conversation from myself lest I do something mortifying like mention how we amused ourselves in the room last night.
Besides, I kind of like the idea of hearing stories about the guys when they were younger. And I’ll likely never meet their parents again, so it’s not like I’ll have another chance to ask.
