It doesn’t matter if I’m at a PWI or an HBCU, all freshman girls are the same—desperate to find their place in college. Before my fall from grace, they were always at theverybottom of my to-do list. Shit, most of the time they weren’t even on it and now God was spinning the block with his get back.
Bryson’s eyes dance across the side of my face like he’s waiting on me to challenge him to a pickup game in the middle of a fucking bookstore. He doesn’t understand that yesterday didn’t matter and no matter how many ankles I break or threes I hit, the starting position is still his. Nothing I said was personal. It was just basketball.
I take my time, sliding my credit card back into my wallet while he stares back and forth between the two of us.
I want to hear what names Phat will call me outside the gym. The ones she called me inside were wild, but they were the type I expect to come out of her mouth because Bryson isn’t the type of dude to teach his “girl” any better.
I don’t think she’s breathing until she takes a breath so deep, her tiny breasts push against the ugly smock she has over her clothes. She has skin like Mom’s—smooth and brown. I can’t see it, but I know she’s blushing like immature little girls do.
Bryson smacks his lips as if he’s signaling me to hurry my ass on while she’s still there with an open mouth and pretty brown skin.
I grab the Dum-Dums off the counter. “I’ll chop it up with you later,Lourdes.”
CHAPTERFOUR
Ace
“Host families?” Bryson yelps from his seat in the back of the auditorium. “You must think we all poor.”
I lean back as Pops paces at the bottom of the stairway.
We don’t even have our own room in the HPE, so Pops holds team meetings in the cold, dark auditorium where my biology class is.
Goosebumps prickle my arms as my eyes shoot from Pops to Bryson—the fucking bozo. That’s what I call him. When he really pisses me off, he’s “Phat’s bitch” because he does everything she tells him to at practice and he thinks he’s going to fuck her. I saw it in his eyes when they danced across her breasts in the bookstore.
“You know what camaraderie is, son?” Pops places his foot on the bottom step and crosses his arms.
“Yeah, I know what that is,” Bryson replies. “You think I’m poorandstupid?”
“No. I don’t think you’re poor or stupid.”
“Then why you don’t think I know what camaraderie is? I made it to college, didn’t I?”
I’ve never played ball with a dude like Bryson. He’s always angry about something—the professor pronouncing his last name as “Sanchez” instead of “Sahnchez,” Phat leaving today’s practice early, Marquise taking the last chocolate chip cookie in the cafe. All stupid childish shit.
Pops narrows his eyes at him.
Maybe he finally realizes the difference between coaching grown men and boys.
“Come up here,” he says, waving his hand.
Bryson looks around.
“I’m talking to you, Sanchez. Come up here.”
He pushes up from his seat with caution and bounces down the steps where Pops is waiting to deliver his third Marshall-influenced anecdote of the week. The first one blared out when he realized none of the boys on the team had scholarships and half of them worked part-time jobs to make ends meet. The second one came this morning when LaQuan found out his brother Keenan got locked up back in Opelousas. I’m surprised he hasn’t run out of anecdotes over the past two weeks. I was just happy he wasn’t delivering them to me.
As soon as Bryson gets close enough, Pops wraps his arm around his shoulders. The dim light reflects off his face. His eyes get big, like he’s never been embraced by somebody other than his mom, or maybe Phat. They stand together and I hold in a laugh.
“Young men…” Pops starts.
That’s what he calls all of us—especially me. I’ve been a “young man” since I was two.
“Mr. Sanchez seems to think thatIthink he’s poor and stupid.”
He lets the words settle in the air as he shakes Bryson by the shoulders and pulls him closer underneath his armpit.
“I don’t think any of you are poor, uneducated, menaces to society…” His eyes drift to me and my chest burns. “Or dangerous.”
