Boys Will Be Boys (v.2)

chapter twenty-three - comfortable

chapter twenty-three — comfortable

DJ LOST THE TIP-OFF. It wasn't an uncommon occurrence, but unfamiliar enough to shake up the first half. Even shaken up our team was still winning, but the margin wasn't terribly large. It wasn't that the guy he had been up against was a giant— they were both roughly six foot three— but DJ's head just wasn't in the game. It was like none of us had realized how important Lukas was to him, to our defense too. Coach tried subbing back and forth between Perry and Ahmed, but neither of them could fill the dynamics the on-court team needed.

We needed Lukas.

"Kieran, switch!"

I darted down into the paint to take over the guy Marco had been guarding. He was teetering somewhere around 30 scored points, 3 called fouls, and 4 uncalled fouls for his team. He was a shooting guard, but Marco had been covering him because they were both fast enough to get on each other's nerves. I wasn't as fast as Marco but I knew how to defend, even down in the paint where the odds were against me.

Marco shoved past the pick set up in front of him, a big, burly player with the reflexes of a rock. The other team, some random school from the middle of nowhere, relied on picks heavily to free up their shooting guard since he seemed to be the only one capable of making consistent shots and points. Unfortunately for them, he also had a temper, which resulted in him being fouled out at every game we'd played against them prior.

"Fuck off," He snarled not-too-quietly, catching the bounce-pass his teammate had fumbled in his general direction. His face was scrunched up like he needed to take a massive shit, braces glinting dangerously in the sour lights of the gym.

Coach had told us that, a year ago, the kid had been suspended for five games for biting another player. Biting itself was bad, but when his braces had somehow gotten stuck in the flesh of the other player's arm the already-bad situation had developed into an alarmingly-worse situation.

"Bite me," I answered back, copying the way his feet shuffled. He didn't seem to appreciate my sense of humor, but Roger did, judging by the way he coughed loudly, one arm still pushed up against the guy he was guarding.

I had one hand above my head in case he tried to take a quick shot, one hand below my waist waiting for the moment he would eventually fumble. They all eventually fumbled. It took some players longer than others, the players who'd practiced their dribbling for summers on end. It kind of sucked seeing their faces when I stole the ball from under their nose.

It kind of didn't suck too, though: the look on their faces when I'd score a point off the ball they'd lost.

Now. I swiped at the ball, grinning with my hand grabbed at the plastic, and pulled it into my space. He'd grown careless, flicked his gaze around too much, and let the ball bounce a little too freely. There wasn't a lot of space between the ground and someone's waist when they were low to the ground and dribbling, but when they lapsed there was always just enough.

Lukas would've loved this.

"Kieran, here!"

I dribbled out of the paint, lobbing the ball in a high arc towards the other side of the court. It was a little risky, chucking the ball in a general direction where everyone could make out where it was going to land. Marco didn't mind risky though. He liked it. Preferred it actually.

Lukas would've called me crazy for the pass, then punched me in the shoulder and called me a genius.

I'm not a genius, I would've said.

Liar, he would've scoffed.

The scoreboard added two points to our count, Marco's layup an almost-perfectly textbook play.