Adam held up his hand. “I haven’t played professionally in fifteen years. I know ain’t no way that man is trying to recruit me. What is this about, Dad?”
“He doesn’t want you to play. He wants you to coach… to be his assistant coach to be exact. He’ll be retiring soon, and he knows having someone like you on staff will keep his program competitive in the NCAA.”
Adam stood up abruptly, pacing behind his chair to work off the excess energy that had him ready to punch something.
“I cannot believe you did this.”
“I know right?” His father’s smile widened, further indicating the man was still shit at reading his own son. “Old Grady still got it. I even negotiated a helluva salary for you too. Just wait ’til you hear the details.”
“You really are unbelievable, old man. And not in a good way. How many times do I have to tell you I don’t want anything to do with basketball. If it’s not my weekly pickup game with my boys or me showing some of my students some moves, I’m out.”
His father slammed the remote on the coffee table on the end of the love seat, causing the case to flip off and the batteries to slip out.
“You are so damn ungrateful. Here I am trying to fix the mess you’ve made of your career, getting you out of this ho-hum job with this district, and you can’t even find the decency to say thank you.”
“Dad, I’m not saying thank you because I neither asked nor wanted you to involve yourself in my professional life. Stop meddling, I don’t want this. Why can’t you understand that?”
“’Cause it don’t make no sense.”
Adam laughed out loud because his father’s response was typical Grady Henderson. Inside, however, heat burned through his chest from the inside out and all Adam wanted to do to ease the ache was explode all over his father.
He contemplated doing just that, but he saw the pleading look on his mother’s face. Her soft brown eyes were like baking soda on a grease fire, smothering the flames that were trying to consume him only seconds ago.
Exploding on his father might not be the answer. He’d grant his mother that. He wasn’t going to walk away like he usually did, though, not with his father overstepping to this magnitude.
“I chose the career I wanted. It’s education. Not basketball. Tell Coach you made a mistake. I’m not interested.”
Grady grabbed his crutch, pulling himself up from the sofa as he laid hard eyes on Adam. Adam was no stranger to this look. It was disappointment mixed with a healthy dose of scolding that would’ve caused Adam to buckle under Grady’s will. The familiar imaginary pressure on his shoulders that seemed to press him down into the ground leveled its weight on Adam once again.
“You never would’ve talked to me like this before you started messing with that gal.”
Adam clenched his fists as he tasted the bitterness of pent-up anger and disrespect on his tongue.
“If you’re referring to Janae, like most things when it concerns me, you’re so far off base it’s not funny. My finally standing up to you has nothing to do with Janae. It started when I fired you as my manager, and continued when I finally left the NBA for good and followed my passion and not yours.”
Adam walked back the way he’d come, not stopping once to look at his parents as he did. He was done explaining himself to his father. For the first time in his life, he’d said what he’d meant and not hidden behind niceties to do it.
As he got into his car and gripped his steering wheel, he let out a loud breath and said, “That felt damn good.”
“Ma! For the umpteenth time, if you don’t stand still, I’m never gonna get this dress to fit right.”
Janae chuckled as she remembered telling James the very same thing every time she took him shopping for back-to-school clothes as a young boy.
“My how the tables have turned.”
James stared at her with amusement dancing in his eyes. “You always tell me you’re not gonna have me looking less than in the streets reflecting bad on you. Well”—he stepped back, crossing his arms as he locked eyes with her—“I’m not gonna have you making me lookbad either. This fashion show you and Dr. Henderson planned as part of the program fundraising events is gonna be everything. I mean, he got real-life professional ballers to come model for us. I refuse to let you look less than standing next to them. No, ma’am. Not when all the nosy folks in town are buying tickets just to get a glimpse of the announced celebs.”
He gave her a once-over, carefully inspecting the garment before he brought his eyes back up to hers.
“This gown has gotta be the perfect closing for this fashion show.”
She could see something had changed in his countenance, something that alarmed her.
“James, you’ve made dozens of costumes for yourself and your classmates over the last couple of years. Why are you so pressed about this dress?”
The intense way he looked at her made her step down off the block she was standing on and walk directly in front of him.
“James?”
