Page 77 of Definitely Not a Thing

“Ay,” Arthur called as I stepped out of the enclosure. “You’ll never guess what I seen last night!”

I sighed. “What?”

“Guess!”

“No,” I refused, shaking my head as I went back to what I’d been doing before his interruption.

“That weird dude from upstairs?—”

“I can think of five people that describes.”

“The one used to deal with that pretty girl from next door to you.”

I lowered the ball, eyes narrowed.

He had my attention now.

“What about him?” I asked.

“I seen him making a haul down to the garbage cans. All kinda mumbling, cussing under his breath. Boy he wasmadder than a motherfucker,” Arthur cackled. “Big ass box – dropped it halfway across the yard, spilled all his shit out.”

“Eventually you’re going to get to the point, right?”

“It was full ofCrossovershit – boy you must’ve really hurt that nigga feelings, I’m telling you!”

“He doesn’t evenknowme,” I defended, even as my mind drifted back to last night… making a point of kissing on Amelia in the elevator.

Okay.

Fine.

Maybe Iwasantagonizing him.

But to put all that shit in a box in the trash instead of selling it was…

Damn.

He wasreallymad.

Oh well.

Sucks for him.

I… should probably stop fucking with him before he crashed out though.

Ameliadidsay he’d been a fan, and that first interaction in the elevator… he’d mentioned being excited to see me back on the court.

I was guessing that was no longer the case.

Hopefully throwing my shit away was the closure he needed, and there wouldn’t be any more knocking at Amelia’s door, cause I was going tohaveto beat his ass at that point.

Which wasexactlythe kinda problem I didn’t need – especially considering the way the last messy ex situation had turned out for me.

Which… damn… it begged the question of… did I needanysituation at all, going into training camp? This time needed to be focused, needed to be distraction-free.

Pissed-off exes were known for pulling attention.

On theotherhand though… pretending I didn’t like Amelia at this point would just be silly.