back in my locker, not knowing what to do—no cause for me to shower up, but it would seem wrong to just split—when Bolden steps to me. He crouches in front of me like he does during time-outs, so at least for anyone checking us it just seems like a normal player-coach chat.
“I have to say, Derrick, I’m a little disappointed in you.”
My back stiffens and my jaw tightens. It’s sure as hell not my fault we got run at home by Brownsburg. What, the guy didn’t like the way I cheered or something?
“I know Murphy told you before the game that you had to help Rider along as much as you could. Hell, I told Murphy to tell you that.” Bolden shrugs. He shakes his head. “For a quarter, you did that. And then you went silent. Derrick, when you’re part of a team then you’re part of a team all the time. Not just when you’re out at center court in uniform.” Now he leans forward, a little rasp rising in his voice. “You’re part of a team when you’re healthy, when you’re hurt, when you’re awake, when you’re asleep. Always. So that means you’ve always got to be looking for a way to help your teammates.” He jabs his index finger about an inch from my chest. “Lift them up, so sometime when you’re down they’ll lift you. That’s what teammates do, Derrick.”
Then he stands and is gone.
Shit, I think, I could lift them a lot easier by being out there on the floor. But I figure I’ll get my crack soon enough.
After that, I’ve had about enough of the post-game locker room, so I hit it. Only there’s no quick escape. Immediately I get stopped by Eddie Whitfield, his phone pointed at me like a weapon. Whitfield’s the high school hoops guy for the Indianapolis Star, but he’s got an even more important column—a blog that always has the scoop on where any Indiana recruit is leaning. I’ve got to tread carefully.
“Rough one tonight, Derrick,” he says.
“Yeah, but we’ll bounce back,” I say. It’s a throwaway line, pure cliché, but saying it on the record makes me nervous. Last year, it was Moose who handled any player interviews. By seniority, it should fall to Stanford. But even Coach knows that people like Whitfield want to talk to me, so I’m in the crosshairs now.
“Any comment on sitting out a game?”
“Just can’t wait to get back,” I say.
“You feel like your absence made the difference tonight?”
“Aw, man, we could have run those guys, sure,” I say. It’s out before I think. But as soon as I say it, I know it’s a bad move. I look back to the locker room, and there’s Stanford. He’s ready to cut out, but he heard it, I know. He sneers at the two of us. I’m sure he probably thinks he’s the one that ought to be getting these interviews—not a junior who was suspended for the opener.
After that, Whitfield shifts into recruiting questions. I’m a little more comfortable with these, even though my answers are all dodges. I just tell him that I’m taking my time. No favorites. I want a place I can compete for a championship, I say, but that could happen almost anywhere these days. Once he shuts the phone off and thanks me for my time, I remind him that anything official is going to come through Coach or my parents. He nods real quick like he doesn’t really believe it. He’s overweight, probably from eating gym food for months at a time. His shirt is so wrinkled it looks like he pulled it out of the locker room laundry basket. That and his pasty complexion make him look tired and jaded. “It’s not going to stop me from asking you directly,” he says. He sounds a little disgusted by my refusal to answer him straight.
He waves at me to go on, like all of a sudden I’m the one holding him up. I see Jayson and Kid waiting for me at mid-court. Jayson looks a little bored, itching to leave, but Kid’s styling. He’s got on a red silk shirt that pops in the gym lights. It’s the kind of thing that gets a body noticed, and Kid knows it. He’s got that look in his eye like he could stand there all night letting women look him over.
Instead, what he gets is his nephew coming up for some sympathy. “Now I know how you feel,” I say—a reference to Kid’s playing days under Bolden, his senior year cut short by all his run-ins.
He pulls back and narrows his eyes. “Boy, you don’t know the half.”
“Well, tell me the whole story then,” I say.
Jayson puts his hands on his hips. “Can we go?” he snarls. It shuts down the conversation between me and Kid. It’ll be interesting to see who Jayson turns into as he gets older. I know he’s a good guy, but what used to be just a little mischief is turning into some serious attitude.
I don’t have time to sweat that though. I gaze toward the edge of the gym and see none other than Wes Oakes. He’s posing tough—got a Bulls hat cocked sideways and a baggy black jacket on, like he’s trying to pass for some old-school banger. The problem is that next to him is the real deal: JaQuentin Peggs. Not that I know for real that Peggs is in a crew, but I know enough. And it kills me that that’s where Wes is hanging instead of kicking it with me and my family like he used to. He catches me checking him. Just for a second the old Wes shines through. He smiles, big, and calls out, “’Sup, D?” Then he sags back into his sulk. But he steps away from JaQuentin and his boys a few paces and nods at me, motioning for me to come over. I know the ground Wes walks is forbidden for me, but I figure if I can hang with him away from JaQuentin, then that’s just what we need.
I nod to Kid and Jayson. “Go on. I’ll hoof it home later.”
They both know I’m going over to Wes. Jayson raises his eyebrows. “You know Mom’s not cool with that,” he says.
“She doesn’t have to know,” I say. That came out a little sharp, so I shrug at them. “Wes is my boy. I can’t just ditch him forever.”
Jayson doesn’t look convinced, but Kid understands. He nods at me and gives a half-smile. He might have lectured me about cutting dead weight, but Kid knows that you have to stay true to your people.
This isn’t at all what I had in mind. It’s like with hoops—sometimes you play out a whole game in your head, how things will break your way, how you’ll put the clamps on the other squad, how you’ll get a run-out early to get things rolling. Then that orange goes up and everything switches up on you. The other team’s changed offenses. Your first shot rattles out. You get a cheap foul. It all goes to pieces.
That’s about how it’s gone with Wes tonight. The idea was to get him away from JaQuentin, just let him ease back into being the same old Wes—easygoing, ready to chill, no stupid stuff. Instead, he dropped it on me that he skated on home detention because JaQuentin “had the hook up.” Then he told me we could head back to the block together. I figured that meant just me and Wes kicking it on foot like old times, but what that really meant was piling into JaQuentin’s black Tahoe, the last place on earth I want to be. I’m in back next to Wes, and there’s some thugged-out guy riding shotgun. That guy’s about as tatted as Kid Ink. He’s got his neck marked, some detailed designs on his forearms. Even his fingers sport tats—a 3 and a 7 on his right hand with a symbol I can’t make sense of between them.
And of course JaQuentin isn’t rolling straight back to Patton. No, he tells me he’s got to make a pit stop, and soon enough we’re cruising slow through the streets behind the Marott Apartments. Peggs keeps eyeing his phone like he’s waiting on a text. I give the death stare to Wes, but
