The Games You Play : A Hood Love Story

Loren (27)

November 15th

"You ready?" Kenya tightened up my bow on my head. Today was the first basketball game. I've been going to practice for the last 2 weeks but I couldn't do too much because of my wounds. I had to take it slow but after a lot of practice, I feel better now. Layla and Kenya came to my house early to make sure I knew all the moves I needed to.

"Yeah. I'm happy to be back up and moving finally." I had straightened my hair and put it in a half up & half down. We were wearing our white and red uniforms. But right now i had on a school t-shirt, joggers, and Nike slides.

"So what you gon say when you see him?" Layla asked me. We just looked at her and rolled our eyes. "Bitch we was all thinking it." Even though I had been going to cheer practice, I still hadn't been going to school. So I haven't seen Jay since the hospital.

"Bitch ion know." I responded. "Honestly I'm probably not gon say nothing. "

"You miss him, Lo?" Kenya smiled at me through the mirror.

"Every day." I chuckled. "But I still just don't know what I should do."

"I really think y'all should talk." Kenya responded.

"When the time is right, we will." I said. "Come on tho, we're gonna be late." We packed our cheer bags and went downstairs. We grabbed apples from the fridge. It was hella weird leaving for a function without my brother but he's already at the gym. Today's his debut at a new school and I'm so excited for him. Him and Jayvin have worked everything out which makes me happy. The only person Jayvin needed to talk to was me.

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Loren

I'm so out of shape. It's finally the 4th quarter and I am exhausted. With my injury, of course, I couldn't move as much so being in a basketball game for the first time in a while was wearing me out! Not to mention we're playing our rivals from across town and they're winning by one point with 10 seconds left and its our ball.

We decided not to cheer because we wanted the boys to focus. By boys, I mean Jayvin. Jayvin's the man when it comes to basketball, he's this city's hero. He's taken them to state twice. There were college basketball scouts from Duke, University of Kentucky, and North Carolina here to see him tonight.

My brother passed the ball to Jayvin, he dribbled all the way to the three point line. I could tell he was trying to figure out what to do next. He shot it. It was so quiet in the gym you could hear a pin drop.

* swish *

Nothing but net. What else would you expect from a top 5 basketball star? Jayvin Stokes saves the day again. And I was happy there were scouts here to see it.

The building went crazy. All the fans were screaming, our pom poms were in the air shaking. After every home win, the cheerleaders make a tunnel for the boys to run into. As I stood there holding up my arms, my brother ran past me and gave me a little stroke on my chin. After 13 players came through the tunnel, we were still waiting on the star of the night. Jayvin ran through and stopped at me.

"Hey beautiful." His voice gave me butterflies just like it did the first day I met him.

"Hey." I whispered. I blushed immediately, so I looked at the floor. He stroked my chin, making me look at him. I've never known a person's eyes to speak, but his looked at me with guilt and said he was sorry. "Go shower, superstar." He looked at me and smiled. It's almost as if he expected me to reject him.

"Can you stay with me tonight?" He asked. "Please?"

"Mhmm." I responded and nodded my head. I didn't even think twice.