Chapter Twelve #2
Griffin shrugs. “Antoine’s better than Sam. If Sam wanted to win badly enough… Are you going to shoot or what, Supergirl?”
“Three-point swish,” I call. The ball glances off the back rim, so I snag the rebound and pass to Griffin.
“Antoine’s better than Sam,” Vik says. “But Sam’s team is better than Antoine’s.”
“Seriously?” Griffin is in no rush to shoot now that he has the ball. “You’re going to do Jackie and Jae like that?”
“Jacqueline’s tied for valedictorian with a couple kids—”
Griffin snorts. “You and Mir, you mean.”
“—and she might be the best student in our year, but she’s not the best navigator.
I’m not insulting her; she’s said that herself.
Same with Jae. They belong in Clinic A, but they’re not top navigators like Antoine.
Those three formed a team because they like each other, not because Antoine thought his girlfriend and his best friend were his ticket to the Archive. ”
“But Antoine might be Jackie and Jae’s ticket.”
“Don’t be a prick,” Vik says fondly. “They love Antoine; they’re not using him. Take your shot.”
Griffin laughs. “Yes, sir.”
When he misses the same three-point swish I did, Vik calls a left-handed layup. He manages it, barely, and tosses the ball to me. I make it; Griffin doesn’t.
“H-O,” I tell him.
“Rude, verging on sexual harassment.” Griffin bounces the ball to Vik, smirking at his own joke.
This time it’s Vik who tries the three-point swish. He makes the shot but hits the rim, like I did. My ball. I call the same shot—and drain it this time.
“Now you’re showing off,” Griffin says.
“Yes,” I say. “Basketball is the point of basketball, and showing off is the point of H-O-R-S-E. So are you guys going to actually try? Or are you going to lose?”
***
They lose, three games in a row, though in the last game Vik fights me to H-O-R-S before I knock him out with a through-the-legs layup.
What surprises me is that losing doesn’t bother them.
When I played at the Y back home, even the chillest guys got snippy once they realized a parochial school girl was handing them their butts.
Vik shrugs and smiles. Griffin—who cheerfully admits he hasn’t played a sport without nav since second grade—laughs outright.
It’s not what you’d expect from a big man on campus, and it’s sort of endearing.
Another nice thing about Griffin’s laugh—it lets me know that Vik is joking when he comes out with deadpan pronouncements.
The two of them act like old friends: They get each other’s humor, catch each other’s references.
They also disagree about everything. While we play, they argue about which teachers deserve our respect, what’s the best food at the dining hall’s Sunday brunch, and (repeatedly) whether Dr. Langmore is a great teacher or a minion of darkness.
“Her title might be Navigation Program Director,” Vik says, “but we all know her real job is wrangling big donors. The Silicon Valley billionaire who tweeted in favor of literal eugenics. The wellness influencer who scares parents about aluminum in vaccines. Oh, and let’s not forget the oil refinery heirs. ”
“So, what, guilt by association?” Griffin snorts. “Better they spend their money on us than…well. Anything else they might spend their money on. Like, say, political campaigns. Dr. Langmore is doing the world a favor.”
“Donors get to make demands. I’d like to know what they’re demanding.”
“She wouldn’t agree to anything shady,” Griffin says. “And you can talk all the shit you want, but her junior seminar on practical applications of nav was like—transformative for me.”
“Ah, yes,” Vik says as he spins the ball on his finger. “Her junior nav seminar. Where she gathers her twelve apostles.”
“She selects twelve juniors randomly—”
“Which is why her little favorites always end up in the seminar. You, Mirabel, Elena—”
“Little favorites?” Griffin flips Vik off, but they’re both smiling.
I’m intrigued enough by the dynamic—is this what male friendship looks like, or are these two high-key weird?
—that when Griffin invites me to get dinner with them, I say yes, though I’d been planning to take a meal to go and sulk somewhere private until bedtime.
Vik and I change clothes first, and Griffin waits for us, but when we walk into the dining hall thirty minutes before it closes, Bree’s still eating at a low table with Aria and Peyton, telling a boisterous story, flailing her hands around.
I feel sharp guilt and jealousy and smallness, and I have to look away.
I feel even worse when Mirabel joins Griffin, Vik, and me at our bar top, impeccable in a dark green shirtdress. “Why isn’t your team eating together?” she asks, pulling up a chair.
“Are we required to?” I ask.
Mirabel’s eyebrows jump. “You’re the only transfers left in the trials. I’d expect you to celebrate. Besides, you and Candace are always joined at the hip.”
“We invited her to eat with us, Mir,” Vik says quietly.
“Fine,” she says.
When she walks off to the food stations, Griffin glances between me and Vik, mouth curling in amusement. “You could try being nicer.”
Vik bites into his grilled cheese, chews, and swallows. “What did I do?”
“You were fine,” I tell him. “She could try being nicer.”
“She’s nice to me,” Griffin says.
“So the most important person is taken care of?”
He pouts. “You say it with such sarcasm.”
“Let’s move on,” Vik says, “before you hurt his feelings.”
We’re all in Classic English Novels, and we just started a unit on Dracula.
Griffin claims to like it because it’s a fast read, Vik thinks it’s drivel, and I have complicated feelings.
When Mirabel returns, she ends the debate: “Stoker’s tedious and sexist. I don’t care if he’s classic. Thank you; next.”
“Are we going to Zipporah’s party next Thursday?” Mirabel asks.
“Of course,” Griffin says. “It’s Vik’s party too.”
“It’s not,” Vik says.
“It’s the September Birthdays party. Your birthday is in September. Ergo, yours. You coming, Supergirl?”
“I wasn’t invited,” I say.