Page 21 of His Reckless Freshman

“Thank you.” I clear my throat and shift in my seat, checking the time on my phone. Only eighteen minutes of this torture to go. Thank fuck for that. I don’t want to say anything else that might look bad.

“What’s the hardest thing about being good at something that not enough people care about yet?”

“What?” It takes me a second to absorb the question.

“Look, I know compared to all the other teams in your division, you’re not top of the charts, but you are a college athlete. Your skill in basketball is better than most of the school. If you guys played a friendly game with any other team, you’d kick their butts.” She giggles. “So… that makes you good, okay?”

All I can do is gaze at her face for a second.

“Which makes my question totally relevant.” Then she asks it again.

Licking my bottom lip, I blink up at the ceiling for a second and try not to think too hard about my answer. “It doesn’t matter if people are in the stands or not. I mean, sure, it’d be great to get more people there, but that wouldn’t change how hard we train or how committed we are. We do the work because we love the game. Because we made it onto a college team, and we don’t take that lightly. It’s a privilege, and not one we’ll take for granted.” I watch her pen fly across the paper and suddenly wonder why she’s not typing this out. Shuffling in my seat, I adjust my pant leg and wonder how much more she wants. She hasn’t looked up yet, so I throw in one more thought. “Quality shouldn’t be contingent on whether anyone’s watching. We should want to give something our best effort because we can.”

She finally looks up, her dimples popping into place as she softly whispers, “A man of integrity. I like it.”

I clear my throat and look back down at the table. Tapping my phone screen to wake it up, I notice that we’re getting close to thirty minutes. But I can see she’s got a bunch more questions and this isn’t so bad, so I bite my lips together and wait for the next one.

“Okay, so…” She wiggles in her chair and looks kind of excited by this one. “Let’s imagine that the team goes all the way and you win the entire championship thingy.”

“March Madness,” I murmur.

“Oh yeah, I saw that.” She shuffles her pages around, then underlines something in her notes. “So, you’ve just won that… What’s the first thing you’d do after the final buzzer?”

I laugh because I can’t help it. The sound pops out of me, all free and unrehearsed. “Well, once I’d gotten out of the huge pileup my team would no doubt create, I’d probably call my sister Kelly.”

“Really?” Jolie’s eyes light with curiosity.

“Yeah, I have three older sisters, and Kelly is the eldest. She helped raise me. Mom went back to work pretty quickly after I was born, so Kelly was the one who looked after me. As soon as she got her driver’s license, she was the one who took me to practices. She’d sit on the bleachers doing her homework, and she’d come to every game. Even when she went to college, she’d still drive back to see me. It wasn’t far, but now that I’m in college, it really hits me what a sacrifice that must have been for her.”

“Wow, that’s amazing.” Jolie’s eyes light with a warmth that’s hard to look away from. “So, you’re close to your sisters?”

“Kind of.” I tip my head. “I’m the youngest by quite a gap. The surprise baby thing… I wasn’t part of the plan, so I ended up having four mothers.” I let out a scoffing laugh.

“Aw, I bet they adored you.”

“Yeah, a little too much.” I give her a side-eye that makes her laugh. “But Kelly and I still talk once a week. I’ll call her after games, give her an update. So yeah, she’d want to know if we won the championship.”

“She’d probably be at the game.” Jolie’s voice is all sweet and excited, like this is actually going to happen. I don’t have the heart to tell her she’s dreaming. “I always wanted a sibling.” Her voice is soft and wistful.

“They’re not all they’re cut out to be,” I say, trying to make her feel better, but she can tell that I’m joking.

“I do have a cousin who I’m close to. She’s kind of like an older sister to me. She goes to Nolan U as well, which has been super helpful. I’ve sent her way too many SOS and 911 texts already, and we’re only a month in.”

The self-deprecating look on her face right now is kind of cute.

“Freshman year can be hard.”

She bulges her eyes like I’m stating the obvious, and I’m just settling in for her next question when her alarm starts to go.

“No way.” She starts digging around in her bag. Finally pulling out her device, she turns off the alarm and starts apologizing. “We went over time. I didn’t mean to, sorry about that. And now I have to go, because I have a date.” Her cheeks flare with color, and it makes me wonder if this is her first date ever or something. There’s a nervous energy about her that’s kind of entertaining.

I wonder who she’s going out with.

I hope he’s nice.

She’s way too sweet, and even though I don’t know her, it’s obvious she’s innocent. I don’t want her getting hurt. Of course, I wouldn’t want any girl in her position getting hurt. She kind of reminds me of a young deer in the forest, all twitchy and vulnerable.

Packing up her papers with frantic movements, she gathers them into a messy pile. “I’m so bummed out. I have a few more questions to ask you, but time just flew. You’re really great to talk to and…” Her words trail off as she pauses to give me a hopeful smile. “Would you mind…? Or maybe I could just email them.” She flicks her hand in the air, but then her expression bunches. “Unless you’d be willing to…”