“Not by much!”
My favorite part of the song comes on and I start pop locking my joints like I’m in a 1980s hip-hop video.
“Damn, you’re like the energizer bunny,” Pearl comments.
“Did your parents tell you about MTV when they were young?” I ask them, slightly out of breath. “It was like the only place they could see their favorite artists perform when they were kids. Isn’t that nuts?”
“My parents didn’t watch cable,” Pearl says.
“Rush?” He doesn’t answer at first. “Isn’t that wild?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he finally replies, totally ignoring me now and paying more attention to the texts coming in on his phone.
“Who’s that?” I ask him.
“Kayla.”
“Ooh, that’s the pretty girl from California in the school of business, right?”
“Yeah.”
“She sending you dirty texts?”
“Nah, Bird, she’s not like that.”
“I bet.” I give him the side eye.
All girls are likethatwhen it comes to Rush. I once saw a girl wait forty-five minutes to say hello and hand him a greeting card on Valentine’s Day. It was the cutest yet saddest thing I’ve ever seen. Rush prefers words over cards. He thinks greeting cards are a waste of money.
After the song ends, I plop down next to him totally exhausted yet oddly invigorated.
“Whew!”
“Gross, you’re sweating.”
He pushes my head off of his shoulder.
“It’s the heat of my ancestors calling to me.”
“It’s because you were jumping around like your pants were on fire.”
“It’s called dancing.”
“If that’s what you want to call that. You’ve got like fifteen more minutes and then we need to leave. I’ve got curfew and so do you last time I checked.”
“Alright,paw-paw.” Then I stand again. “But just one more dance.”
***
On game day, I complete all of my usual rituals. I brush my teeth for exactly four minutes. I wear my lucky pair of sunshine yellow panties. I lay naked on my bed for exactly ten minutes and meditate with four crystals in the center of my chest. And finally, I make my pre-game phone call between me and Rush.
The call is even more important today because I know I won’t get to see his scowling face in the stands. When he calls, he only has to say a few words. I know what they mean. We’ve been saying them to each other since we met freshman year.
“World domination greetings, Mia.”
“World domination greetings, Rush.”
“Talk to you after you beat their asses?”
