“Vinny! Vince. Why are you not eating? You no like my cooking anymore?”

Vince tore his eyes away from the widescreen TV, scanning his gaze over the thirty or so people crammed into his folks’ living room, all yelling at the screen and each other. He ducked as his cousins both threw their arms out in despair on the couch beside him, cussing at the play the Pioneers had just made.

“No, Nonna!” he cried when he finally located his grandma hovering by the door of the den. She was looking anxiously between Vince and the table in the center of the room that was heaped with food. Plates covered with thin slices of salami and cheese. Bowls of creamy pasta, meatballs and gravy, eggplant parmesan, olives and tomatoes. Baskets of bread slathered with butter. An entire cake stand piled high with warm struffoli honey balls covered with sprinkles.

Vince panicked, automatically placing a hand over his straining belly and looking pained at his grandma. “I love your cooking, Nonna,” he promised. “I’m just full, I swear.”

His siblings, uncles and cousins all roared at the game again, but Vince knew better than to let his attention slide from the frail-looking woman wringing her hands by the door. She wagged an arthritic finger at him. “You getting too skinny, Vinny,” she said – her favorite phrase since he was a child. She pulled at her scarf. It was eighty degrees outside and the woman was still wearing a cardigan and slippers. “You eat a little more for your nonna.”

“Nonna, I’ve put on weight since I’ve been back,” he insisted over the hubbub of the room.

His grandma clutched her hands together and looked mournfully at the feast she and Vince’s mom and aunts had prepared for Thanksgiving.

Vince had made a career from facing down two-hundred-and-fifty-pound human battering rams. Yet he couldn’t stand up to an eighty-seven-year-old nonna.

“I’ll get another plate.” He gave her a meek smile.

She clapped her hands once, completely oblivious to the football game going on around them. “Good boy.” She waved a finger in the air. “I go finish the tiramisu.”

She shuffled back to the kitchen, happy she’d done her job. Vince sighed as he leaned back with another helping of food that he’d at least have to pick at. He was a big guy, but he worked hard to make sure that was mostly muscle. If he was going to be back in Hidden Creek for a while, he needed to get a membership at that new gym that had opened since he’d last lived here. Lift or something. It had good reviews online at least.

“Why isn’t she making you eat more?” he grumbled at his cousins on either side of him. He really did love his nonna’s cooking, but ever since his head injury he was more susceptible to nausea and he didn’t want to overdo it.

Tony, to his right, chuckled and took a swig of beer. “Because we’re big enough for Nonna.” He slapped his round belly and grinned. “You’re the skinny one, Vinny!”

Maria, on Vince’s left, rolled her eyes and snatched a hunk of bread from his plate. “I wish I was the skinny one,” she said.

“Stop eating so much, then,” Tony teased her.

Maria threw the bread at him.

Vince leaned back as the siblings began shouting at each other. He was finally able to return his attention to the game, although he wasn’t sure he wanted to. The Tulsa Harriers were getting trounced. Vince winced for his team, wishing he could be there to support them from the sidelines at least.

The Pioneers were third and goal, and they had set up at the line of scrimmage like they were going to do a passing play. But there was movement behind the line from the tight end as he seemed to be getting in position to receive the handoff after the snap. Vince squeezed the neck of his bottle and shook his head.

“They’re going to run it in,” he said a little too loudly, as if his teammates could hear him through the screen. “Somebody needs to be ready if they get past the linebackers!”

They weren’t ready. The room groaned and shouted at the Harriers.

“See!” Lucy cried, jabbing her hands in Vince’s direction. “This is why y’all need to be playing for a Texan team! These Oklahoma boys are behaving like little bitches!”

“Lucy.” Vince scowled. “They’re my buddies. They’re trying their best.” He wished Hernandez had gotten them a bit tighter together for this game, though. They seemed to be all over the place. Where was their communication?

“What they need is a spanking from their mommas,” his dad grumbled, shaking his head. “How come Coach Hernandez puts up with these sissies, huh?”

Vince gritted his teeth and let them shoot shit around him. He couldn’t lie, though. The season had only just started, yet the Harriers were having a worse time of it than last year already. He felt guilty that he was only adding to their problems by getting himself benched – and not even for a real injury! So, he’d bumped his head? Big deal. He hadn’t blown a knee or a shoulder.

But he was under strict instructions to rest and not play for the next few months. It was the longest Vince had gone in his whole life without playing football. The guilt he was letting his team down was gnawing at him, even more than missing the sport itself. He should just get on with it.

He winced as one of the guys got plowed into by one of the Pioneers, though. The doctors had been very clear.

One more concussion like this, and he might suffer permanent brain damage.

Vince’s stomach turned, and he handed Maria his plate of food. She accepted it without taking her eyes off the TV, shouting about the defense trying to block the Harriers’ kick and spearing a meatball aggressively with Vince’s fork. He was going to get gravy flicked on him, he could tell.

“Vinny,” his mom called from across the room from her comfortable chair, waving at him over the heads of several family members. She was a plump, dark-haired woman with fluffy curls and sparkly eyes, especially when she had gossip. “Vinny, did you hear about Sharyn Ratliff? She got divorced!”

“Oh, no,” Vince said in sympathy. Even though he’d been home a couple of weeks now, his mom kept finding new tidbits to share with him. Like she’d been storing it all up for the past couple of years and was now drip-feeding it to him.

Sharyn had been his date to senior prom, mostly because she’d been the captain of the Honeybee Cheerleaders while he’d been captain of the Bears. Her asshole boyfriend had dumped and cheated on her a week before, so Vince had immediately asked her to go with him to skyrocket her cred again. She and Vince had never really dated, but they’d had a blast at prom and had kept in touch on Facebook. She’d been quiet about her divorce on there, evidently.

His mom shook her head impatiently. “No, I mean she’s single again! You should ask her out.”

“Mom,” Vince groaned, pointedly turning his attention back to the TV. “I’m not looking to date while in town. I’ll be leaving again soon.”

She wagged her finger at him, looking a lot like Nonna. “Just give it a try maybe, huh? It’s time you started thinking about settling down.”

“I’m only twenty-eight,” Vince complained.

“Exactly,” little Caterina piped up from her busy afternoon of taking selfies and building her Instagram story for her few thousand followers. “That’s ancient. Get a girlfriend already.”

Vince rolled his eyes, but luckily the Harriers had some luck for a change, scoring a touchdown and making his family erupt in noisy cheers and high fives.

He picked his beer bottle off the floor and tried to hunch his shoulders and make himself smaller. He’d had girlfriends over the years. He had. It was just hard to date and play the game with dedication. Vince hoped Caterina wouldn’t do anything stupid like say he was single and looking on her story. He didn’t want that pressure.

It was insane, but he kind of wished he could get up and walk away from the game, from this room filled to the brim with noisy people and all the food he was still expected to eat. Not that he didn’t love his family or want to watch the game, but…right now, it just felt like he didn’t fit in with any of them.

He’d been living out of town for so many years he didn’t know any of the local gossip anymore. So he just had to nod when his dad told him about the new garage that had opened up. Or when his sister Rosa scandalously filled him in on the crazy fires that had been cropping up this year. Or when his brother Cosmo got enraged about the shit that had happened with the hospital where he worked. Vince didn’t feel like he knew Hidden Creek at all anymore. He’d even lost track of how the local school football teams – the Bears and the Penguins – were doing.

To be fair, the Penguins were probably still struggling. They’d never been much of a team, although in the year Vince had played for them at college they’d tried so damn hard. He had a soft spot for them, even after all these years.

The one good thing about being back home – aside from seeing his family, who he loved dearly despite their exuberance – was that Vince had been able to reconnect with Coach Hoffman again. The old guy had been like another dad to Vince, nurturing him and pushing him to go for his Tulsa scholarship while he made up his English credits. Vince had been filled with so many doubts that year, but Bernie Hoffman never gave up on him.

Damn, he’d even convinced the faculty to name the new stadium after him, which was nuts. Vince didn’t really think he was worthy of that honor, but it was nice they were making a fuss and all. They were even building a statue of him to put out front, on account him being the only player they’d had to go onto the NFL. He’d be a jerk not to acknowledge that was real decent of them.

Vince pulled his cell phone out of his pants and fiddled with it, rereading the emails he’d swapped with Assistant Dean Galloway.

Koby Duvall. Jeeze. That was a name he hadn’t heard in ages. Of all the people they’d gotten to make this statue of him, they’d picked Duvall. When Galloway had told him a few weeks ago, Vince had thought maybe Duvall would want to speak to him or something. But so far there had been no word from him.

That was fair enough, though. Duvall had always been one of those cool art kids, even back at school when people thought Vince was cool because he was homecoming king and all that crap. But Duvall just always seemed to have his shit together. He never gave a fuck what other people thought.

Of course he’d never really spoken to Vince then, so why should he now? Vince wasn’t smart enough to keep up with a guy like that. Maybe they’d get a chance to meet soon, though. Galloway seemed to think Duvall wanted to do a couple of live modeling sessions when the statue was closer to being finished. It might be nice, even if Duvall wasn’t interested in being buddies. Vince just wanted to tell him for once that he thought his art was cool.

“Bunch up, you pussies,” a voice rang out over the din.

Vince immediately looked up as Drew Morton perched on the side of the sofa. He and Vince had been friends since the start of middle school, although they hadn’t really seen each other much over the last few years. He’d always joined in with a lot of Vince’s family gatherings, so nobody really batted an eye at him being there.

His blond, straw-like hair stood out among the sea of dark Italians, but neither of Vince’s cousins had apparently heard Drew’s request to move. They were too engrossed in the game.

Drew rolled his small eyes impatiently. “Vince, tell your cousin to move her actual pussy over.”

“My pussy don’t move for no man,” Maria said with sass, not taking her eyes from the screen as she crunched on a bag of chips she’d claimed for her own.

Drew leered at her from the arm of the sofa. He was a pretty big guy, although these days he ran more to fat than muscle, and Vince felt Maria stiffen beside him. Before Vince realized what was happening, Drew reached his hand between her knees. “My cock could tame that pussy.” He smirked.

“Drew!” Vince protested as Maria slapped him off in utter disgust. Vince hated when he got creepy like that. “Just sit your ass on the floor and watch some damn football.”

“No, I’ll move,” Maria snapped. Vince felt embarrassed as she pushed herself off the sofa and stormed to the other side of the noisy room.

Drew chuckled and slapped Vince’s thigh. “I guess you girls are on your period and all testy, huh?” he yelled at her.

“That’s so misogynistic,” little Caterina huffed.

The throng suddenly became remarkably still and quiet. Vince looked over to see his nonna standing, glaring at him and Drew, armed with a cream-splattered whisk.

“Sorry, Nonna,” Vince said sheepishly. Several other grandkids also said sorry out of habit before she stalked back into the kitchen.

“Vince,” his mom chastised.

Drew didn’t seem to care he’d disrupted the room and gotten Vince in trouble. He delved into a bowl of popcorn, already engrossed in the game. Vince elbowed him. “Behave,” he growled.

Drew just grinned and rolled his eyes. “So, what I miss? My shift was boring as hell by the way. Thanks for asking.” Instead of rising to the bait, Vince filled him in on the game so far, only wincing slightly when Drew teased him about the Harriers’ poor performance. Gradually, he began to relax again.

Even though he felt like an outsider, he was still happy to be back home. His life was kind of upside down right now – he didn’t really fit with his teammates or his family or this town – he didn’t feel like he fit anywhere right now. But maybe a break from his usual grind would do him good.

Maybe he could even learn to belong in Hidden Creek again. He’d been happy here as a kid, after all. Nine years probably hadn’t changed it that much.

Thinking back reminded him of Duvall once more. Vince wondered what he looked like now. In his mind, Duvall was still a skinny goth, making out with guys and girls behind the bleachers and spending all his time with charcoal under his fingernails, fighting for some cause or another. Would a decade have changed that much about him?

Vince figured he’d find out soon enough if they ever got around to scheduling these modeling sessions. For now, he tried his best to enjoy his first Thanksgiving in years watching football, not playing it.