“Yes.” I looked into the fireplace again. “You did say once the house and the season was done you’d be going there a lot. Right?”
“I did,” she said slowly. “Why?”
“I’ll come for my spring break, next month,” I replied. “If you call off your lawyer, I’ll come that full week and four other weekends as well.”
“I didn’t want to have to get the courts involved,” she said quickly. “But—”
“And I don’t want to spend the rest of high school worrying about court dates,” I replied. She got quiet, fast. “So this is what I’m offering. Spring break plus four weekends before graduation, but my choice of when they happen. Do we have a deal?”
Silence. This was not the way she wanted it, I knew. Too bad. She could have my company and my time, my certain number of weekends and my senior spring break. But she could not have my heart.
“I’ll call Jeffrey and tell him we’ve worked something out,” she said. “If you’ll send me those break dates and the other ones you have in mind.”
“I’ll do it today,” I replied. “And we’ll just follow up as it gets closer. All right?”
A pause. It was like a business deal, cold and methodical. So far from those spur-of-the-moment trips to the Poseidon, all those years ago. But nobody went to North Reddemane anymore. Apparently.
“All right,” she said finally. “And thank you.”
Now, I stood there with Dave, holding the ball. He was grinning, in defensive stance—or what counted as such for him—bent over slightly, jumping from side to side waving his hands in my face. “Just try to get past me,” he said, doing a weird wiggle move. “I dare you.”
I rolled my eyes, then bounced the ball once to the left before cutting right around him. He scrambled to catch up, doing several illegal reach-ins as I moved closer to the basket. “You’ve basically fouled out in the last five seconds,” I told him as he batted at the ball, me, the air around both of us. “You know that, right?”
“This is street ball!” he said. “No fouls!”
“Oh, okay. In that case . . .” I elbowed him in the gut, making him gasp, and moved under the basket. In those few seconds, the net clear above, I remembered all the things my dad had taught me as if they’d been imprinted: watch the hoop, elbows tight, touch light, light, light. I shot, the ball arcing up perfectly.
“Denied!” Dave said, leaping up and batting the ball away.
“Interference,” I called out, grabbing it back.
“Street ball!” he replied. And then, as if to prove this, he tackled me and we both went down onto the grass beside my deck, as the ball left my hands, rolling under the house.
For a moment we just lay there, his arms loosely around me, both of us breathing heavy. Finally, I said, “Okay, so with that, you left the realm of basketball entirely.”
“Full contact,” he said, his voice muffled by my hair. “No guts, no glory.”
“I’d hardly call this glory.”
“You didn’t make the shot, did you?”
I rolled over, so I was on my back, him panting beside me. “You are, like, the weirdest basketball player I have ever seen.”
“Thank you,” he said.
I laughed out loud.
“What? Was that supposed to be an insult?”
“How could it be anything else?”
He shrugged, brushing his hair out of his face. “I don’t know. I think my game is unique, if that’s what you’re saying.”
“That’s one word for it.”
We lay there for another moment. His arm was still next to mine, elbow to elbow, fingertips to fingertips. After a moment, he rolled over, and I did the same, so we were facing each other. “Want to make it best of two?” he asked.
“You didn’t score,” I pointed out.
