actions speak louder than words {karlnap}

chapter 15

(Nick POV)

Ahh.

The sweet sounds of basketball practice.

Squeaking sneakers, balls bouncing on the floor, shouts for passes, whistles blowing, the rattle of the net. The sounds that play in both my dreams and my nightmares. 

Andy passes me the ball. I catch it and start to dribble it down the court before Tony starts to guard me. I try to fake him out, but he's used to my tricks. He doesn't flinch. I curse under my breath. He smirks. 

He starts to say something -- probably a slur -- before he obviously remembers my threat, and he frowns. So I give him a smile and shoot for it, despite the fact we're at half court. 

It goes in smoothly. 

He gapes at it. When he turns to glare at me, I give him a smirk and a wink. "Pretty good for a gay guy," I say. He makes a strangled noise of anger as I walk away. 

I take my position near our basket. Coach Luke tosses the ball into the air; Tony gets it. 

I run towards Knox and try to intercept the pass from Tony, but he catches it and starts towards our net. "Come on, boys!" Coach Luke shouts. 

Knox takes a shot at the net, but Jonas springs into action and nabs it. He starts to sprint towards the net. "Let's go!" I shout, running after him. 

Jonas passes it to Mark who passes it to me, and I shoot. But I shoot too high, and it bounces off the backboard, directly into Matt's hands. 

"Shit," I hiss, and chase after him. 

"Two minutes!" Coach Luke calls. 

Matt makes it to our side, and positions for a shot. He jumps, releasing the ball at the perfect time and angle. It flies from his hands in a perfect arc, going right for the basket. No shot it doesn't get in.

Until Mark springs into the air out of nowhere, catching the ball just before it goes in the net. It shocks all of us so much that he makes it halfway down the court before we snap out of it. Coach Luke is just laughing at us on the sidelines. 

I dash after him, keeping others off of him as he goes. "Dude, how did you jump that high?" I ask. 

I mean, it's probably not that hard, considering he's, like, 6 foot 6 or something ridiculous like that. He's probably been training his jump for years, but holy shit. 

He laughs as he does a perfect layover. Coach's whistle blows at the ball hits the floor. "I've been playing volleyball for years," he says as we walk over to the middle of the court. "I did a lot of high jumping then. I decided to finally take people's advice and join basketball in grade seven."

"That's a great jump," I say.

He laughs again. "Thanks!" 

"Of course. Mark, right?"

He nods. "But my friends call me Ranboo."

~~

Turns out Ranboo lives near me, so we walk home together. 

"You're a junior?" I ask. 

He nods. "Yup. So are my two other friends."

"Ugh, grade 11 sucked," I groan. "Okay, it was awesome. The classes sucked."

He grins. "How so?"

"Well, my talent is math, so I had a lot of math in my schedule. What's your talent?"

He shrugs. "Just volleyball and basketball."

I nod. "Ah."

"Yeah."