Page 102 of My Family

Ridgecrest takes the team trophy.

Aspire takes the trophy for second place.

Westlake, third, which seems cruel in their own gym, but they accept it.

Individual awards follow.

Best Fighter goes to Reed Hoffman, Aspire Academy, and we scream and jump. Jack even tries to jump with Reed, but Reed looks at him like prime prey, so Jack comes to jump with Liam instead.

Reed walks to the center, accepts the medal with a nod and a handshake that looks like it might leave bruises, and returns.

We're all so tired, but everybody is stupidly happy.

We look like warriors after a war we technically lost. We're sore and bruised, but we did our best, and we're together.

We walk out of the gym.

The afternoon light hits us, and I realize we're starving. We lived off bananas, sandwiches Griff got us from the vending machine, and protein bars.

The van doesn't take the highway.

I immediately notice something weird.

We should be turning east toward the hotel, toward the Holiday Inn with its missing L and its thin walls. But instead, the van swings west, and the late-afternoon light pours through the windshield at the wrong angle, painting everyone's faces in amber that makes even our bruises look warm.

Jack notices too. His head tilts, and he looks at me. Then Liam notices our reaction and frowns.

Griff has been watching us and speaks from the front passenger seat without turning around.

"We're making a stop."

That's all he says.

The van turns into a parking lot, and I see it: a neon sign in the shape of a pizza slice, glowing orange-red against the deepening sky.

The building is small, flat-roofed, the kind of pizza joint that exists in every town in America.

And God, the smell.

Even through the van's windows, it reaches us, making my mouth water immediately.

Garlic, tomato sauce, pizza crust.

My stomach growls.

We're too stunned to speak.

This is the silence of people who can't quite believe what they're being told.

"Out," Griff says, opening his door. "You have sixty seconds to stop looking at me like I grew a second head."

We keep looking at him the same way.

"Pizza?" Jack says. "That's… are you… is this… pizza?"

"Sixty seconds is generous," Griff amends. "Three seconds. Three… two…"

We pile out of the van with urgency.