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  “So do we let them win by not showing up?”

  Stephanie’s lips curled into an almost-smile. She didn’t say anything, but Stephanie Bergner hadn’t run away from conflict since I’d known her. I didn’t think she’d start now. Plus, I was finally a big man on campus. Why shouldn’t I get to enjoy the perks that came with that?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “All hail the conquering hero!” Sean announced as he walked into Erin’s house ahead of me. We had beaten St. Christopher’s 54–32. Not to brag, but I was on fire! I scored eight points, made two assists, had one block, and got three rebounds. The win ensured our team a place in the New England tournament.

  “It was a thing of beauty watching Bijan play tonight, Reggie. An unforgettable night.”

  “I don’t think he’s going to be in any State Farm commercials yet, but give him time!”

  Erin greeted Sean, Stephanie, and me at the front door. We’d made it a point to show up together. I had convinced Stephanie that there was strength in numbers, and that splitting a ride three ways from school would cut our Lyft fare considerably. The plan for the ride home was to drop Stephanie off at her house first; Sean would sleep over at my place. Stephanie hadn’t heard from Noah, nor had he offered her his chauffeur services. She seemed upset when she told us he hadn’t answered any of her calls, but I didn’t ask her about it. Their friendship was her business. I did, however, make sure she didn’t have a clipboard with her.

  “Hey, you made it!” Erin found us in the foyer. “Hi, Steph.” Not Stephanie, not Bergner, but Steph.

  “Hello, Erin,” Stephanie said, looking at her momentarily before averting her eyes and blushing a little.

  “Phones and car keys, please.” Erin held up an orange beach pail three-quarters filled with brightly colored phones and keys. We emptied the contents of our pockets and paid the fee.

  “Why no phones?” I asked.

  “No phones, no incriminating photographs of underage drinking. Makes for a more relaxed evening. Good game, by the way. Elle got lots of great shots for the yearbook.”

  Yearbook! Action shots! The stuff of high school legend!

  “Nice digs,” Sean said. Erin’s house was huge and full of New England old-money furniture, understated but expensive.

  “We’re all hanging out in the kitchen.” Erin led us through her expansive house.

  “Thank you for inviting us,” Stephanie said.

  “I’m glad you came,” Erin said.

  Drew, Marcus, and Todd sat at a round wooden table in the kitchen, Solo cups in hand. “There he is!” Marcus said, standing up to greet me.

  Sean immediately went to hug him. “I am here! It’s so good to see you.” Sean stuck his hand up in the air for a high five from Drew, but Drew didn’t go for it.

  “Hey,” I said as I slapped hands with Marcus.

  “Your boy is crazy. You know that, right?” Marcus asked as Sean sat down with my teammates.

  “What are we having, fellas?” Sean asked. He had glaze splatters on his khakis and a Deadpool sweatshirt on. He hadn’t exactly dressed up for our big night out.

  “Beer,” Drew said before taking a sip from his Solo cup.

  “Bread juice. Cool. I can wrap my head around that.”

  “It’s in there.” Todd pointed to the deluxe wood-paneled fridge.

  “I’ll come with you,” I said, leaving my teammates behind. Stephanie sat with Erin on the barstools surrounding the granite-countertop island in the center of the kitchen.

  “You guys want something?” Sean asked them. He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a craft Belgian. Erin had the fancy stuff!

  “No, thank you,” Stephanie answered as she watched Jessica and some of her field hockey teammates play Never Have I Ever. Jessica was laughing loudly and looked like she’d had a few drinks already. A shot glass with a lime rind inside it lay on its side in front of her.

  “I’ll have one,” I said. If I held a beer for a while, no one would ask me why I wasn’t drinking. Pretending to nurse a beer all night couldn’t hurt. Plus, Mom would be happy that I was socializing and not moping around the homestead.

  Sean passed me a bottle. Maybe I’d even drink some. Why not? I was at Erin Wheeler’s mansion after a big win. Shouldn’t I celebrate like everybody else?

  ***

  After an hour, Sean was three beers in and dancing with some field hockey girls. Maybe that would have been a good time to start drinking in earnest. I had nursed my one beer, but it tasted like wheat backwash. I didn’t see why people liked it so much.

  “No, you’re funny!” Sean cooed to one of them.

  “Nooo . . . you are,” she said, bopping him lightly on the nose.

  That girl probably wouldn’t even say hi to him in the hallway on Monday, let alone laugh at one of his jokes with her friends around. She bopped his nose again and Sean pulled her closer. I tore my attention away and stared at one of Erin’s parents’ many pieces of art instead. Sean was always at ease with himself, whereas I couldn’t quite figure out how to get out of my own way. He wouldn’t have even been invited to the party if it weren’t for me, but here he was, having a great time, while I pretended to like my lukewarm beer.

  I looked around for Stephanie and found her in conversation with a few juniors. She didn’t seem to be in any distress. The music was blaring, and I swayed back and forth, hoping no one would notice I had no rhythm.

  “I didn’t know you could dance,” Elle said beside me. I immediately remembered why I’d come to this party. I straightened up and smiled at her.

  “I can’t,” I promised. “This is about the extent of my dancing.”

  “Your new friends don’t seem to mind,” she said, nodding in the direction of the girls grinding with Sean.

  “Those are Sean’s friends. I’m more particular about my dance partners.” I stepped closer to Elle.

  “I didn’t know you could flirt either.”

  “That’s the alcohol. It convinces me that I can.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know you, um . . . I thought you weren’t supposed to drink?”

  “Well, yeah, my mom would freak out, but I figure when in Rome, right?”

  “Sorry, I thought, um, because you’re . . . Never mind,” she said.

  I suddenly understood what she meant. I looked at the beer in my hands but didn’t say anything about it. “So where are Erin’s parents?”

  Elle paused and blinked the way Stephanie usually did when something didn’t compute or when she was caught off guard. Excuse me, the way Steph did.

  “They’re at a destination wedding this weekend,” Elle said, both of us happy to change the subject from my drinking. “Though they aren’t exactly home a lot. Erin’s been my friend for years and I’ve only seen them a handful of times. She’s not really close with them.”

  “Is she really close with anyone?” I asked, though I had a feeling I knew one person outside of the New Crew Erin was close with.

  “She’s guarded, but she lets people in if she trusts them. Not the people who suck up to her, but people she cares about and who care about her. We have that in common.”

  “Trust is important,” I said, bouncing my shoulders up and down. She shook her head, unimpressed by my deep shoulder-action moves. “Do you think I’m trustworthy?” I really, really hoped she did.

  “I haven’t decided yet,” she said. It wasn’t a playful response. It was a vulnerable one, which meant she was interested enough to be honest.

  “This feels like a great moment between Powell and Majidi, but I may be a little tipsy, Reggie.”

  “Woo! I’m feeling goooooood! Fired up and ready to party, Kevin!”

  “Can I prove to you that I am? I can give you references. My mom thinks I’m fairly trustworthy. Aside from that time I lied about drawing in crayon on her bedroom wall. But
to be fair, that was a while ago.”

  “How old were you? Three? Four?”

  “It was last year, but I’m learning and growing every day.”

  “She’s laughing, Reggie! This friendship could turn into romance after all! It is a thing of beauty watching these two open up to each other!”

  “I don’t care. Where’s the tequila?”

  “So what comics are you reading?” I asked her.

  We talked about Daytripper, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, and Blacksad. We talked about her overachieving older siblings at university, whom she felt she had to live up to. I told her I had always wanted an older brother. We talked about what we hoped to study in college. She knew her parents wanted her to study law, but she wanted to pursue filmmaking and be a cinematographer. I told her about wanting to give sports broadcasting a try and how I hadn’t told my mom because she’d hate it.

  We talked about our favorite foods, the worst movie either of us had seen, which deceased musicians we wished we had seen in concert, if we could choose a superpower what we would choose and why. She chose flight so she could travel the world. I chose superspeed so I could be in two places at once if I needed to be. If there was any good thing that came out of subbing in for that varsity game, it was that Elle and I talked.

  I was trying to come up with something that would make her laugh again, but then Drew rushed into the living room, chasing after Erin. “I want to talk some more,” he pleaded. He was a little loud and a little drunk. Erin did an about-face and furiously whispered something to him, but he didn’t back off.

  “Hey, Erin,” Elle called, and waved her over. “Can you come here real quick? I need to ask you something.” Erin sighed with relief as she walked over to us. Drew followed, but Erin kept her back to him, excluding him from the conversation.

  “Hey, you two,” Erin said casually, with maybe a small catch in her voice. “Having fun?”

  “So that’s it? Just like that, you’re done?” Drew leaned over her shoulder. Erin’s face became red, but she didn’t turn around to answer him.

  “I have been done, Drew. We both said what we needed to say.”

  He put his hands on the top of his head the way he did when he was called for a foul. We briefly made eye contact, but he looked away. He skulked out of the living room.

  “Coast is clear,” Elle said. “Are you okay, Erin?”

  “Fine. I thought I’d made it obvious to him last week, but guys can’t take no for an answer,” Erin said.

  “Not all—”

  “Don’t finish that sentence,” Elle said to me.

  “Sorry,” I said. I looked over Erin’s shoulder and saw Stephanie staring at us.

  “I should have called it off a while ago,” Erin was explaining to Elle. “I feel bad. He likes me more than I like him, and it isn’t working.”

  “You did the right thing,” Elle replied. “You shouldn’t keep a relationship going just because everyone expects you to.”

  “Yeah, but . . .” Erin began, but then she looked at me and stopped.

  “Ooooh, and there is a delay of game.”

  “I’m going to let you two talk,” I said. I smiled at Elle.

  “Could you . . . I know this is going to sound dumb, but could you maybe check on him?” Erin asked me. “Or have one of the guys check on him? Make sure he isn’t drinking too much?”

  She wanted me to babysit Drew? “I don’t think I’m the best candidate,” I said, but Elle looked at me and I caved. “Okay, I’ll take care of it. Maybe we can catch up later?”

  “I’d like that,” Elle said.

  I meandered down the stairs to check out the basement. I was annoyed that Drew had killed my moment with Elle with his own crappy love life. A few kids congratulated me as I went by.

  The basement rec room was a throwback to the sixties: shag carpeting, modern furniture, a small bar jutting out from the wall, and a Ping-Pong table. Drew sat by himself on a brown leather couch under a framed vintage travel poster of Tahiti. His not-so-sunny disposition really didn’t go with the decor. This must have been Mr. Wheeler’s man cave.

  “What is Majidi doing, Kevin?”

  “I think he’s entering the danger zone, Reggie.”

  I took a seat on the other end of the couch, making sure there was plenty of space between us.

  “You come to rub it in my face?” Drew asked, looking straight ahead instead of at me.

  “No. Needed to find a place to sit. The field hockey girls took over the living room, so I thought I’d come down here,” I lied.

  “She sent you down here, didn’t she?” Drew asked. He didn’t have a drink in hand, which I took as a good sign. I didn’t answer, but he nodded and leaned back into the couch. “Figures. She cares about me, but not enough to make it work.”

  I didn’t know which clichéd phrase about love I could use to comfort him. “Plenty of fish in the sea” was too trite. “There’s always another bus at the station” was dumb, because women aren’t buses. Truthfully, I didn’t know that I wanted to comfort him.

  “Sean says there’s an ass for every saddle. It’s kind of crude, but he has a point.” I rolled the corner of the label off my beer bottle with my thumb, reminding myself that I was doing this for Elle. I was being nice to Drew Young for Elle.

  Drew chuckled. Evidently he hadn’t heard that one before.

  “Where is your right-hand man, anyway?”

  “Dancing with the field hockey team. He has no trouble finding saddles,” I said, a little bitter. “You’re not going to operate any heavy machinery anytime soon, are you?”

  “Don’t have a car and no one would lend one to me, so you can tell Erin not to worry,” Drew said, rubbing the top of his head.

  “I don’t have a car either. Sucks,” I said. “I mean, not that I am owed a car or anything, but most kids at Granger who can drive have cars.”

  “Most kids at Granger have lots of things,” Drew said, waving his arms at our surroundings. I half expected the vintage jukebox in the corner of the room to start playing music on cue.

  I heard thuds coming from the stairway. Marcus appeared, holding a tall stack of red Solo cups. “Hey! Where have you been, all-star?” he asked me as Todd followed him, holding a six-pack of Fat Tire beer.

  I felt Drew sit up straight on the couch.

  “Drew and I were talking about the game,” I lied. “We want to make sure we’re ready for the tournament.”

  Drew looked at me in confusion. Hey, I wasn’t one to kick a guy when he was down. My mom raised me better than that.

  “You were on point tonight, man,” Todd told me as he set up the cups on his side of the Ping-Pong table.

  “We were all on point,” I said.

  “Even Will,” Drew chimed in. His focus turned from me to Marcus, who was pouring beer into the cups. “Mostly because Coach finally sat his ass on the bench.” We all laughed, but I knew Drew wouldn’t have said that if Will were in the room.

  “I think we can win the tourney,” Todd said, picking up the Ping-Pong ball from the table and bouncing it once before catching it again.

  “Yeah, but I’ll be glad when the season is over,” Marcus agreed. “I’d like to take a break and enjoy more of my senior year.”

  “College ball will be awesome,” I promised Marcus. “Where are you going next year? I heard UConn was sweating you pretty hard.”

  “They were. I’m waiting to hear back from my first choice, though,” Marcus responded. “MIT.”

  “But that’s a D-Three school!” Why would he want to play for a Division III school when he could play Division I–level ball?

  “You’re starting to sound like Coach,” Marcus replied. “MIT has an amazing civil and environmental engineering program. That’s what I want to do, be a civil engineer.”

  Todd threw the Ping-Pong ball
at one of Marcus’s cups and missed.

  “I never knew that!” I said a bit too eagerly.

  “You never asked.” Marcus was right. Apart from talking about basketball, I’d never really gotten to know him. In fact, I hadn’t really gotten to know any of my teammates, or had much time to. “How about you, Beej? You want to play ball in college?”

  “I don’t know that I’m good enough.”

  “If you practice this summer with Coach and Drew, you’ll be good enough,” Marcus said as he aimed for one of Todd’s brews. “I guarantee it.” Drew and I sized each other up. Spend the summer one-on-one? “It’d be good for the both of you. Drew could help you get your game up, and maybe you could help Drew loosen up a little.” Marcus shook his shoulders in Drew’s direction as he released the ball in a beautiful arc. It plunked in Todd’s cup.

  “You’d only have to spend one summer of your only God-given young life with Coach,” Todd said, fingering the ball out of the cup before downing his drink.

  “He’s tough. But I feel sorry for him sometimes,” Marcus said. “He doesn’t have any kind of life outside the team.”

  “I don’t feel sorry for him when he’s barking at us to do suicides,” Todd said, turning his empty cup upside down.

  “Yeah, but making you do suicides is all he’s got,” Marcus said. “He only teaches middle school civics because he has to teach something full-time in order to coach. He’s got no family, no social life. Plus, can you imagine what it must be like to be demoted from coaching college ball to high school? Even if the high school is Granger? It’s a total downgrade.”

  “Doesn’t he have a daughter?” I asked. The guys didn’t say anything. “He has a photo of her on his desk.”

  “She passed away,” Drew said.

  “I didn’t know that,” Todd said.

  “Coach doesn’t like to talk about her.”

  ***

  So beer pong wasn’t my game. I played with the guys for an hour, until I had to relieve myself. I wobbled over to the too-long bathroom line. There was only one bathroom open to us guests. What were my options? Pee my pants or step outside and find a tree to autograph.