Chapter 4 – Nick
Things didn’t slow down after graduation.
Those long summers when Nick had nothing to do but spend weeks having fun and playing basketball were over.
While official classes didn’t begin until August, as athletes, everything started sooner.
There were only a few weeks before summer classes started—Coastal Miami’s way of giving them a head start to lighten their load during basketball season.
Those weeks before the move into the campus dorms were too short and too busy.
Nick finally took the time to meet with his top five agents after a thorough vetting.
Out of the five, Donovan Luck was the clear top contender.
Nick had been impressed by all of them and felt he would’ve been in good hands no matter which he signed with, but within the first minute of Donovan sitting across from him, Nick knew he was the one.
By the time Nick was moving into the dorms, he’d already signed his first three contracts with brands that he already loved, earning him new shoes and clothes and salaries to come in exchange for promotional activities.
Declan was way ahead of him, already settled in a lavish apartment near campus that Nick and Reece had been crashing at with him.
It was hard to believe how drastically their lives were changing every day.
Reece’s offers came flooding in too, and he looked absolutely elated, eyes twinkling and smile bright, but he turned every one of the offers down, claiming an agent would only add pressure to him when all he really wanted to do was play basketball.
There was no time for Nick to argue with Reece about it.
They were moving in and starting classes mid-June, and along with classes came training.
Meeting their teammates—officially becoming part of the Coastal Miami Mess—conditioning, film review, and even some special appearances by the occasional NBA player.
The teammate Nick had his eyes on most was a guy named Alex.
The guy was short and quiet, but he had the most watchful eyes and was a certified genius.
He’d also immediately taken an interest in Declan, and as if he’d been studying him for years, helped him overcome his Achilles’ heel in a single day.
As someone who’d been playing with Declan most of his life, Nick was baffled that the slightest adjustment could have such a profound effect—and he would not let Declan soar right over him by not overcoming his own weaknesses.
“Yo, Shorty,” Nick said, snorting when Alex tipped his head back, onyx eyes meeting Nick’s with a single, emotionless blink. “Call me out on my bullshit too.”
Part of Nick said it hoping Alex wouldn’t have much to say—he did graduate as number one in the country after all—but Alex actually had a lot to say, and didn’t hesitate to respond.
“The first thing you need to address is your very telling weight shift. You’re settling your weight back on your heel before your drive.
You’re fast, so it’s only costing you a fraction of a second, but that’s just long enough for elite players to notice due to repetition.
You should keep in mind how often your gameplay will be studied in film review. ”
“Well damn, don’t you need to at least think about it?” Nick huffed, ears burning.
“I have,” Alex answered simply. “The brake is so natural to you that you do it almost every time. It hasn’t posed that great a problem for you yet, but it will without a doubt in the very near future.”
Nick wasn’t one to panic but Alex was so matter-of-fact about it that the taller man was instantly beading sweat.
He had to move around, dribble the ball a few times as he went to shoot, eyes widening the instant he felt his heels lock before he shot.
It did happen fast, and he supposed that in the moment he never checked himself on it because he was sinking his shots easily even with strong defenders on him.
“You felt it,” Alex noted, circling Nick with his dark eyes dragging up from his feet to his face.
“Breaking the habit shouldn’t be too difficult for you, though I must say I’m disappointed in your high school coaches for not calling you out on it.
Just because you’re already good doesn’t mean there’s no room for improvement. ”
Alex didn’t just point out the problem, but he helped Nick work on solving it.
In the following days, during his private practice, Nick went barefoot per Alex’s recommendation.
Now that he knew about it, he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
And with him overly aware and so focused on correcting it, Nick was consistently getting better with his movement by keeping on the balls of his feet.
Every day, Nick was learning new things.
He felt himself improving in real time, so fast that when he looked back at his high school years, it was as if he’d mostly been sitting still.
That wasn’t the case, Nick was still improving, everything now was just on a new level and it thrilled him.
Adjusting to life on campus and life as a college basketball player was fun, proving to be exactly what Nick needed to put his past behind him.
Leaving the family home he grew up in was like shedding a weight off his mind—he found a sort of freedom in this new chapter of his life.
The distractions were good. Classes and basketball weren’t the entirety of that.
Nick was constantly reminded that his favorite distraction was Reece and he didn’t understand why he couldn’t move past it.
One weekend while Reece was on a trip out of state with his sisters, Nick stayed over with Declan and vented to him about it.
The whole need to be close to Reece, the protectiveness he felt around him, it was so different from his relationship with Declan that it didn’t make sense.
“Come on, Nick, it’s ‘cause you’re into him,” Declan said, waving a hand around in the air as if to emphasize his point.
“The fuck’s that mean?”
“You know, like you wanna kiss him again.”
Nick’s heart jumped into his throat, his stomach sinking, whole body overheating. He hadn’t forgotten their first kiss, not even a little, but it had hardly been a kiss at all—and so long ago—yet Nick’s lips tingled thinking about it.
“I’m not into guys,” he said, fairly certain that he wasn’t. He’d never been attracted to guys and he was almost always around guys. Reece was pretty, sure, but that didn’t mean anything…
“So what girls are you into?” Declan challenged, brows raised.
“Fuck,” Nick breathed in panic. He’d never been into girls either.
Declan fell over in a fit of laughter and Nick knew he had to do something, so he went out, trying to find and understand himself.
He’d never taken an interest in anyone because he was busy focusing on his goals, future, and making it through life one day at a time.
Things seemed to be so much easier for Declan—making friends and hooking up with people was nothing to him—but for Nick, nothing ever felt right.
The more Nick tried to distract himself with girls, the worse things got.
It didn’t feel as if he was doing it for his enjoyment more than forcing himself to do it to prove something that he’d yet to prove.
And every new experience Nick had only made him more curious about what he didn’t have.
He was noticing Reece more, in different ways, and by the middle of basketball season their freshman year at Coastal Miami, it seemed as if Reece had taken notice, because he started attacking Nick with his presence and words in a way he wasn’t prepared for and shouldn’t have liked.
“Nicky, it’s like you’re getting stronger every day,” Reece said one day when they were playing at the park. Alex was always accompanying them now, distracting Declan and leaving Nick and Reece with too much time alone and Nick with no way of escaping cleanly.
It shouldn’t have been such a big deal to have Reece’s long fingers groping up and down the length of his arm as if measuring the muscles personally.
But between the simple touch and Reece’s closeness—Nick’s body was set alight.
He started having thoughts he shouldn’t have been having, about what Reece would feel like, how he’d taste if they really kissed.
All thoughts that made him panic more. Reece was always making things more difficult, too friendly and touchy and flirty for his own good.
Reece’s popularity was soaring. His choice to forgo the agent wasn’t holding him back in the least. He was busier than ever, his modeling work taking off and coupled with his status as a Coastal Miami basketball player, Reece was highly sought after by brands and had already been filming commercials since early spring.
There weren’t many students who didn’t know about him or want to know about him, and Nick found that he was bitter about it—something else he couldn’t explain.
All things considered, Nick was doing his best to navigate all the changes in his life and his own feelings, until everything came crashing down around him sophomore year.
It was mid-season and they were in the final quarter against their rival university who’d been on a losing streak against them since the previous season.
The team wasn’t horrible, but their teamwork was a joke and their players were infuriating, none more-so than their starting small forward, Harrison Hunter.
The guy had a reputation for being a dirty player, enough fouls on his record to ruin his career, and it seemed he wanted to ruin everybody else’s.