Page 49 of ClickBack

Von takes off the hat and runs a hand over his hair. I want to apologize, which irritates me because I have done nothing that requires one. I also want him to tell me it didn’t bother him, which would make him responsible for fixing a feeling he didn’t cause.

So I stay quiet while he puts the hat back on.

“You good?” I ask.

He looks at me. “I just won a championship.”

“I saw that.”

“Then act like it.”

There is a little edge in the answer. I take it. He has earned a night without having to manage my reaction to what somebody asked him.

Mom touches his cheek. He catches her hand and kisses her fingers before somebody calls for him from the locker room. His face brightens again, and I am grateful for the interruption.

“Go,” she tells him. “We’ll be here.”

He disappears through the door into music and shouting.

I check my phone. Cam has sent a reminder not to answer questions about next season, a message I could reasonably have used several minutes earlier. Beneath it is one from Giselle, sent during the fourth quarter.

Giselle: Zion says number twelve stopped rushing. He’d like credit.

I laugh. Mom turns toward me.

“What?”

“Giselle.”

“Who’s Giselle?”

Graves looks away, which tells her more than I would have chosen to share.

“Somebody I met.”

“I assumed you’d met her.”

“Saturday.”

Mom considers that, then looks at my phone. “Well. Tell her I said hello.”

“You don’t know her.”

“That’s generally when people say hello.”

Graves coughs. I look at him. He is examining a perfectly ordinary section of wall with considerable interest.

I open Giselle’s message again. There are several things I could tell her about tonight. I want to start with Mom’s picture, the way Von laughed, the fact that Zion has correctly identified what changed in the second half. I type the beginning of an answer just as the locker-room door opens.

Von is back, goggles down now, pointing at me.

“Jay. Get in here.”

Mom puts a hand between my shoulders. “Go celebrate with him.”

I lock the phone and put it in my pocket.

Inside, my brother gives me a bottle, pulls me close enough to hear him over the music, and says, “Don’t get traded here without talking to me.”