One for the Team

13| before

The screen of my phone keeps lighting up with notifications. I can't bring myself to open any of them. I know what they're about anyway – the party that's happening tonight at some guy's house.

Archie's doing his homework on my desk, or trying to at least, and I'm playing video games in bed when someone calls me. I look at my phone for what feels like the hundredth time. It's Levi. I pause the game and pick up.

"Hi."

"Hi," he says. I wait for more. I didn't get a chance to talk to him during the game, at least not about anything that mattered. Coach Hawk forced Milo and Roman to apologize to him in front of everyone and then put them on the bench for the entire game. Levi played as setter. We lost. It wasn't because of him.

"I never got to ask about your history quiz. How was it?" he asks me. I'm smiling, "I'm not sure."

Archie's singing one of the rap songs he likes. He made a case of memorizing the lyrics of all his favorites. I throw a pillow at the back of his head.

"Nice vocals," Levi says on the other side.

"That would be my brother."

"I didn't even know you had a brother. How old is he?"

"Twelve."

"What's his name?"

"Archie."

"Well, say hi to him for me," he says, and I do.

"He says hi too," I lie. Archie's too busy with the song's bridge to say anything back. "How are you?"

"Good," Levi says. "How are you?"

"Good," I say. I want to say sorry about this morning. I spent the whole ride back thinking about what I would say, but nothing comes out now.

There's silence for a while and then he asks, "Did you know?"

"What?" I start biting my nails.

"That they were planning on leaving me at the gas station?"

I think I'm going to lie to him.

"Yeah," I say instead. "They were talking about it in the parking lot before we left. I didn't know they were actually gonna do it. I told them not to."

"Your authority is such a turn on," Levi says. I think he's smiling. I hope he is.

"How did you get that ride?" I ask, even though this shouldn't matter.

"I'm a pretty boy. What can I say?" he says, and it makes me laugh.

"Careful, your ego is turning me on." I'm pretty sure Ace said this to me a few days ago, but I don't really care for intellectual property right now. I just want to make Levi laugh.

On the other side of the call, he does.

"Anyway, you played really well today," he says. "That save halfway through the second set, when you just threw yourself in the air, and then rolled over, that was... wow."

"Thank you," I say. "You did pretty well too."

"I'm not a setter," he says. "You know that."

"Still, you did pretty well."

"I was really nervous."

"You didn't look nervous."

"Well, I'm very good at pretending."

"Do you pretend a lot?"

"All the time," he says. "Don't you?"

"What do you have to pretend about?" I ask him instead. I think he's the most genuine person I know. I think most of us spend our days pretending, but not him.