Boys Will Be Boys (v.2)

chapter thirty - basketball court

*double-update* please read this chapter before the epilogue 

chapter thirty— basketball court 

I FELT OFF. The whole week had been weird, really, a mostly-sickly blur of colorful hats and crocodile grins. I could still feel the weight of Coach's hand on my shoulder. My eyes were still blinking back the flash of the daily newspaper. And my ears were still ringing. UCLA. I'd finally done it. I'd finally been signed to a school that was competitive enough to see my dreams through.

Well, it would give me a stage. I'd still have to perform, and I was doing my best to make sure I didn't let it all slip through my fingers and end up sitting behind a desk, hating myself.

I'd grown over the past year. More ways than one.

Coach had kindly let me round my height up, and my time in the gym had paid off too— I looked fucking good. I looked proper, like a good, proper, basketball recruit, though the rest of the kids who'd been picked up by UCLA were well past six foot, almost touching seven. The NBA didn't look for draft picks like me: short, but the game was changing and the intensity in the paint was slowly migrating to the points you could get outside the three-point line and the way you thought about the game. I had a lot to prove.

I was ready for all of it. I was set. I was going to go, go to California and push my way to the top. God, I hope so. I was gonna make it.

I'd never been particularly religious but I left a little liquor by the picture of Mother Mary in the living room the night before discussions. Mum had kinda sighed when she saw it but left it be because the holidays had been pretty draining and Mother Mary looked like she needed a pick-me-up.

"You look awful."

"Thanks," I rubbed at my nose, frowning at the feeling of a zit pressing up through the skin. It hurt a little so I pushed on it again like I could flush it out of my system.

"S'more?"

"Thanks."

The girl with the weird bangs, the one from Michael's club who sported a twin zit on her forehead, accepted my peace offering. She slapped the marshmallow on a slab of chocolate and sandwiched it between two graham crackers. Marco always burned his marshmallows to shit, grinning wide with charcoal-stained teeth, but Lukas had taught me how to roast them perfectly, slowly rotating them just over the flame.

'Cause I like you, you idiot.

My shins were maybe on fire. Campfire smoke smelled nice, smelled familiar, but the faint sizzle of my leg hairs made me scoot back. The log I was on rolled a bit, and the girl next to me scowled, readjusting. There was a bit of melted marshmallow stuck to her leggings, right next to a hole in the knee. I waited for her to notice it, but she just tucked a chunk of her fringe behind her ear and fiddled with the little stick she'd been using to poke at the logs.

"Here," I turned my own marshmallow towards her. It was the perfect color, golden brown all over and puffed out in a way that would've made Lukas proud.

Her lips pressed together into a thin line and she took it with a little bob of her head. I'd given her five marshmallows so far, not really sure what else to do since she didn't seem big on conversation. I speared another one and hung it over the flame, rotating it all slow and not taking my eyes off it for a second. I didn't like marshmallows much and the way they stuck to my teeth felt weird, but s'mores were a Schmitt family tradition in the summer and so they'd become mine.

"How many are you going to make?"

"Uh," I blinked, focusing on my marshmallow, "How many do you want?