“Meh and Angie ah have dis conversation plenty times driving ‘round LA,” he adds. “Especially toward de end before she came back to Houston fi good.”
I breathe in, trying to suck in her metallic scent from the leather, but it’s not there anymore. Pops made sure it would never come back after she left him to come home. He was the one that made me detail the fucking truck to get her smell out of every piece of fabric as soon as Gus got back from dropping her off at the airport.
“Did she ever find her answer?” I ask.
He chuckles, whipping through lanes of traffic and taking the exit to campus. “Nah, Junior, she nah find it.”
“So that’s it? Nobody knows, huh? Not even her?”
“She ah tell me she wasn’t looking fi an answa because she know yuh find it just like yuh find home again. It all takes time. Most important ting fi understand is dat not everyting in life is happeningtoyou. It’s just happening—death, disappointment, scandals, crooked sports agents. Dese tings would happen wit or witout yuh. De test is how yuh handle that happening, because all we can control is ourselves.”
He turns down one of the back streets leading to campus and pulls into the same staff lot he parked in on my first day of practice. “Now, meh question to you is, do yuh fold wit yuh likkle lady or do yuh keep being solid until she ah learns how fi be a lady without your hand holding? Meh know some good men dat folded, but meh know some great men dat’s built fi dem things.”
After he parks the car, I try to mold my brain into something solid enough to withstand another day on a campus where people will pick at my old wound with their soul crushing stares and sharp whispers. It’ll be even worse than before because I’m the alien that took one of their own even though they didn’t cherish her when they had her. Niggas that didn’t understand how curious she was about love and life or how afraid she was of experiencing the endings of both were suddenly outraged that she’d givenmethe time of day. They didn’t even know how beautiful she was with my name on her lips and how easy it was to talk to God again when I looked in her eyes.
They didn’t know what it felt like to find home again after being lost for so long.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE
Ace
“Sanchez, what thefuckare you doing?” Pops yells. “Get your goddamn head in the game!”
Bryson turns to him from the court and tosses his arms up with his face screwed.
“Boy, you better fix your damn face!”
It’s the first game of the season and we’re still playing like a high school JV team and Pops says it’s my fault. I can’t keep my dick in my pants. I can’t respect his boundaries and his friendships. I can’t lead a team even though I’ve led hundreds. I can’t stay off of gossip blogs. I’m impulsive and unstable and he should’ve sent me to that therapist like Mom said.
“Will you ever roll over one day and say ‘geez, my Pops gave me a life most folks dream of. The least I can do is make him proud?’”He asked from behind his desk before the game.“Or do you just wanna eternally fuck me over for the rest of our time here on Earth together? They said Blake needs stitches. You better be glad he didn’t call the goddamn cops on you and all we got is another fucking write-up on TMZ. I thank God Marshall ain’t here to see this all play out with his babygirl. What the fuck were you thinking?”
“You good?” LaQuan asks from the chair beside mine on the sideline.
Thanks to his failing grade in english and my smutty rep, we’re riding the bench together.
I shake my head, holding onto the vomit in my throat. “I’m good.”
“Your head saying one thing, but your mouth saying something else. I know it ain’t my business but... but how your gal holding up?”
It’s quiet enough in the gym that I can hear the wavering in his stuttering. People would rather see fifty dudes cross in a probate on the yard rather than watch Southern blow us out on our own turf just like Pops said would happen. Marshall was probably shaking his head from up in the sky at the mess I made—another losing team in his gym and some nigga he didn’t know calling his daughtermine.
“She not.” I swallow. “She not holding up at all.”
The funny thing about men is that we don’t have to announce to each other who’s ours. The moment he saw Phat leaving Splashtown with her hand tangled in mine, it was stamped.
“I don’t think I’d be holding up if I was her either. Niggas be real bold behind a screen.”
“Yeah, I know all about that.”
“Bet you do. I saw those tweets about you—even way back when shit first went down with that white girl. It’s like the whole basketball world stopped. I don’t know if I could’ve got up and came to some fuck ass game with the whole world in my business again.” The referee’s whistle weaves through his words and he shakes his head at Bryson’s second turnover. “Useless ass freshman.”
“I never miss a game—no matter what. That shit ain’t in my blood.”
If I missed, I would’ve let all of Black and feminist Twitter win with their finger pointing, harassing, and accusations. Mom told me to never let them see me sweat, so I didn’t, and I wish Phat wouldn’t either.
“I don’t think shawty would let you miss a game. I heard her getting on Bry’s head from the stands. I know you don’t want smoke with her. She take ballrealserious.”
I laugh, and it feels good. “Nah, you got it twisted, homie. She don’t want smoke withme. Baby think she know better than me but I keep her ass in check.”
