He laughs hard until Boris, the assistant coach, cuts his eyes at us.
“Yeah...” He nods, looking down. “I figured you’d be on nigga’s heads after what happened at Splashtown. My brother used to always tell me if I fucked with a man’s home, I best be ready to throw down, and for what it’s worth, I never touched her that night.”
Both of our eyes brush Bryson on the court, guarding with his arms slack.
His healing black eye wasn’t just for him. It was for every dude on the team—for the ones that thought they had a chance because of Bryson’s fan fiction about her, the ones whose fingers brushed against her at the party, and the ones that had her on their radar just because they knew I had her.
LaQuan snorts. “I’m sure you know he ain’t taking this whole thing well.”
I frown, shaking my head, thinking about Gus’ pep-talk before he dropped me off and Bryson’s reminder of how long he’d been in Phat’s life. By the time I made it to the gym, the team was in their uniforms and on the court, so I didn’t have time to absorb his new feelings after theLA Timesmessy exposé.
“I wouldn’t either if I was holding onto something so precious for so long. He still a useless freshman but y’all boys take it easy on him—let him breathe,” I reply.
“You doing the same?”
“I’m trying—trying to be less impulsive, more stable, less fucked up. Trying to control myself and not the world. I guess it takes time though.”
“I hear that, fam.”
I choke on a hiccup full of 1942. “Fam?”
“Yeah,fam. You the one that told me that every nigga need a family. My brother say I can’t keep letting you ride dolo out here.”
“You got to be kidding me! Another foul?” Pops screams, forcing us to tear our eyes off each other.
He squats, staring at our team on the court in distress. The ref shrugs while blowing his whistle.
“Sanchez!” Pops shouts, waving his hand. “Go sit down!”
The hiccup full of tequila comes back up while Pops shakes Bryson by the shoulders.
Bryson has the worst case of performance anxiety I ever seen, and anxiety doesn’t have a place on Pops’ team because he hates losing in basketball and in life. He spent millions of dollars on holistic treatments when Mom’s chemo didn’t work and fought Shaq in the locker room during halftime because his head wasn’t in the game during their fourth championship run. He’ll do anything to win.
He turns to the bench. “Williams! Get over here!”
He’ll even have my drunk ass sub into our first game of the season.
LaQuan pushes his hand toward mine, waiting for me to grab it. “Go get this dub for us real quick. That hangover gon' be worth it, Kid.”
Kid.
He’s not the rest of the team, but he’s somebody that matters—somebody that’s not pressing me over my impulsive ways but taking me for the mess that I am.
I lock fingers with him, gurgling up that hiccup I kept holding on to. “I got you, brodie.”
My shoulder bumps Bryson’s on his lonely trek to my seat next to LaQuan. He looks empty. His eyes brush against the stands and I know who he’s looking for.
I reach out, nudging his shoulder. “Pick your head up.”
He glances up at me, squinting his eyes, and then collapsing in the chair.
When I get to Pops, he’s swiping his sweaty head like he’s in that game with Shaq again and I try to hold on to Gus’ reassurance that he’s human even if I can’t see it myself.
“I’m putting you in,” he says, looking out onto the court at Southern’s huddle. “Just do your best.”
My best?
I play my best when I chug a head full of all the shit Pops swears will send me to an early grave—all the expensive tequila, reporter’s voices, and the stress from wishing that Mom would just fucking come back and Pops knows that.
