Page 76 of Definitely Not a Thing

Mouthrunning.

“You talking about me not having a woman to lay up under like you not out here avoiding yours,” he quipped.

“I’m not avoidingher.”

“So youdohave somebody up there – I knew it!” he hooted.

Hollered.

All that shit, like it wasn’t barely six in the morning.

Tuning him out, I went back to what I was doing – whichwasn’tavoiding Amelia, who as far as I knew, was still snoozing away in my bed after several rounds of pretending our relationship was something it wasn’t.

Lazy, comfortable, relationship-type fucking, that clearly I’d done very well, since she hadn’t rushed off. I… liked that.

I was looking forward to – or rather, hoping it was what I would find – her still being there when I got back upstairs.

My avoidance was firmly tuned on the impending start of the basketball season.

Was Iactuallyready?

Enough to be part of the team, of course.

Enough to step back into my place on the starting roster?

That… was a little less certain.

And it was hard to even figure out on my own – I hadn’t been in a team practice, had been avoiding highlights of the games I missed. Two things that were changing very, very soon.

I didn’t want to end up disappointed.

Didn’t want to disappoint anyone, actually, myself included.

So… I kept at exactly what I’d been doing.

Drills.

Conditioning.

Shooting.

“You think you can get me some courtside seats?” Arthur asked, from suddenly way closer than he’d been when I first tuned him out.

Maybe too successfully, since he’d left the stoop to hobble his way on the court, causing me to way overshoot, landing my ball in the trash enclosure.

“Right up next to Sierra Ward’s ol’ pretty chocolate self,” Arthur kept talking. “You think that boy doing right by her? Cause if he not, I?—”

“Could you not?!” I asked, shaking my head as I jogged over to the enclosure.

Luckily trash had just been picked up a day or so ago, so it wasn’t too overrun with nastiness. I spotted the ball amongst a pile of boxes somebody had tossed into the area withoutbreaking them down, maybe calling themselves leaving them for someone who needed them.

As I bent to grab the ball, a little flash of orange caught my attention. Curious, I flipped open the top of one of the boxes to see I was right – there was Brawlers’ basketball stuff in the box – a boxfull, in fact.

Including a jersey.

A Calvin Cross jersey.

“Well damn, what they say fuck me for?!” I asked out loud, chuckling as I flipped the lid back closed. I was still shaking my head as I left the enclosure, ball tucked under my arm, mind running with possibilities for what the hellthatwas about.