Chapter 9
Coach doesn’t look at me when he says it.
That’s how I know it’s real. If he looked, there’d be a crack in it.
A check-in. That thing he does when his eyes say don’t make me regret this.
But he doesn’t even glance down the bench.
He just lifts his whistle, points like it’s a weapon, and says, “Second unit. Ollie, you’re up. ”
No pause. No let’s see what you can do. No kid, you ready? Just—fact. Like my name belongs there.
For half a second, I freeze. Towel still in my hands. Water bottle uncapped. My brain stalls like it’s buffering on bad Wi-Fi.
Then Marco elbows me in the ribs. “About time,” he says, grinning like this is his promotion too. “Try not to embarrass us.”
I snort. “You’re already doing a great job on your own.”
He laughs and gives me a shove toward the court. “Go.”
I drop the towel like it burned me and jog out before Coach can change his mind.
Practice is already loud in that particular League way—organized chaos pretending to be normal.
Sneakers shriek against the hardwood. Balls thud in sharp, rhythmic beats.
Someone yells, “Ice,” from the weak side.
Someone else tells him to shut up. Assistant coaches pace like sharks who smell blood even when there isn’t any.
The air’s thick with sweat and that lemon cleaner they use on the court. It always tries to smell fresh. It never succeeds.
I take my spot at the wing, bouncing lightly on my toes, forcing my shoulders loose. Don’t look eager is my mantra. Eager gets noticed for the wrong reasons.
Marco lines up across from me for a second before switching off. “You good?” he asks quietly, eyes forward.
“Yeah,” I say. “Don’t help me.”
He smirks. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
The vet, Leroy, guarding me slides into my space like he owns it. Nine years in the League. Arms like steel cables. Permanent scowl. He bumps my shoulder as soon as the ball comes live. It’s not hard enough to draw attention, but it’s hard enough to send a message.
“Don’t get cute,” he mutters.
I grin anyway, because my pulse is still loud in my ears from Coach saying my name like it mattered. “Wasn’t planning on it,” I say.
He makes a sound like a laugh that got strangled halfway out.
The play starts clean and then immediately goes to shit.
Someone misses a read. Someone else overhelps.
A big slips early. The spacing collapses in on itself like a bad magic trick.
I see it unfolding before anyone calls it.
The ball swings my way with eight seconds left on the shot clock.
Perfect. I catch it, and for a split second—just a split second—I think of Rafe.
Not in any big, emotional way. Just a flash of him in the stands the last time he managed to make a game. Leaning forward, elbows on his knees, eyes locked in like it mattered just as much to him. Like he’d kill someone if they took this from me.
The thought is gone as fast as it came.
My body’s already moving. Leroy closes out too hard, heavy on his front foot. He wants me rushed. Wants me young. I jab once. He bites, and I drive.
The lane opens just enough. A seam. A breath. A narrow window that exists for maybe half a heartbeat. I take it and split two defenders. Feel a forearm dig into my ribs. Someone’s hand comes down on my shoulder, late but mean.
Pain flares hot and sharp. I keep going. The ball leaves my hand on instinct—high, soft, tight angle off the glass. For a fraction of a second, the gym goes quiet in my head. Then it drops clean, and the net snaps.
“Okay,” Marco mutters from somewhere behind me, impressed despite himself.
Leroy turns, scowling. “Lucky.”
I jog backward, breath coming fast, and shrug. “If you say so.”
His jaw tightens, and I hold back my smirk, knowing better than to piss people off.
Coach’s whistle cuts through everything. “Again.” No additional comment, and there’s zero praise, which somehow feels better. Praise means you surprised him. “Again” means you did exactly what you were supposed to do.
We reset, and Leroy leans in while we wait for the ball. “You talk a lot for somebody who still rides the bench.”
I smile without showing teeth, also knowing he’s full of shit, as I always play it cool and rarely get involved in smack talk. But the words spill out anyway: “You guard a lot for somebody who just got beat.”
Marco snorts from the sideline. “He’s got you there.”
Leroy shoots him a look. Marco just grins wider.
The ball comes in, and the drill rolls on. Fast breaks. Rotations. Shell defense. Bodies colliding. Sweat flying. Someone swearing loud enough that Coach glares at them like he’s considering murder.
At one point, I get shoved from behind on a rebound and nearly eat hardwood. My palms slap the floor. My heart slams against my ribs. No one checks on me. They just keep playing, which is how I know it’s real.
When Coach finally calls a water break, I bend over with my hands on my knees, lungs screaming, jersey plastered to my back.
Marco tosses me a bottle. “Welcome to the rotation,” he says, casual like it’s nothing.
I take it and bump his shoulder back. “Don’t jinx it.”
He grins. “Too late.”
Leroy passes by and shoulder-checks me again—lighter this time. “Not bad,” he says, which from him is basically applause.
I nod once, like I’m used to it. Like I belong.
As my breathing slows, it hits me—not in some big dramatic way, just a quiet certainty settling in my chest. No one’s treating me like a rookie anymore.
They’re not protecting me. They’re not ignoring me.
They’re testing me. Pushing me and making me earn every inch.
Like I’m a real problem they have to deal with. And instead of wanting to shrink from it, all I can think is Good.
It sneaks up on me after that. Not the games—I notice those. I always notice the games. Every missed rotation, every possession where I hesitate half a second too long. That part of my brain never shuts off.
It’s everything around them that changes.
My minutes start creeping up in ways no one announces. Coach just leaves me out there a little longer. Pulls someone else first. Stops checking the clipboard so often when I’m on the floor.
My name stops coming with qualifiers. No more rookie Ollie, no more young guy off the bench. Just my last name, clean and uncomplicated, like it belongs where it is.
We have a home game tomorrow. I’m sitting on a folding chair in the locker room, taping my ankles the same way I’ve done since college—left first, then right, not too tight, not too loose—when something flickers on the screen mounted above the lockers.
Pregame graphics. Stats. Matchups. Headshots sliding across the screen in slick broadcast fonts. I glance up without thinking. And there I am. Not centered. Not highlighted. But there.
My face, cropped clean. My number. A couple of bullet points that make me feel like I’m looking at someone else’s résumé. I stare at it longer than I should, fingers frozen halfway through wrapping the tape.
Marco catches me and snorts. “You gonna finish that, or you trying to manifest something?”
Dan claps me on the shoulder as they pass. “You good, man?”
“Yeah,” I say quickly, dropping my gaze back to my ankle. “Just admiring the lighting.”
He laughs and moves on while my heart keeps kicking against my ribs like it wants out.
By mid-March, the arenas feel different. Not bigger. Not better. Just louder and definitely sharper.
Drawing to the end of the season does that—it takes an already chaotic environment and cranks it until everything feels slightly unhinged. Every fan thinks they’re part of the story. Every possession feels like a referendum.
We’re on the road, third game in six nights, and my legs feel like someone swapped them out for wet sand when I wasn’t looking. Everything hurts in that dull, background way you learn to ignore or you don’t survive.
Late in the fourth, Coach sends me to the line. I bounce the ball once. Twice. And then I hear it. My name. Not shouted by one drunk guy with good timing but chanted. It rolls through the lower bowl in a steady rhythm, like the building itself decided to get involved.
I blink and stare down at my hands because if I look up—if I see faces—I might forget how to do the one thing I’m here to do.
The ball feels heavier than it should. I exhale. The first shot drops clean. The second follows it. The sound that comes after hits me square in the chest. Not the applause, but the approval. It’s loud, immediate, unrestrained.
I jog back on defense telling myself, Don’t be weird.
Immediately, I’m weird about it.
My awareness spikes too high. I overcorrect on the next possession. Close out too hard. Recover late. Marco yells my name, and I snap back into place like I was yanked by a cord.
Focus.
Just play.
After the buzzer, the locker room is a mess in the way winning locker rooms always are. Music blaring from someone’s speaker. Guys arguing about where we’re eating. Ice bags already appearing on knees and shoulders like magic.
I drop onto the bench, breath still coming fast, and pull my phone out of my locker before I can overthink it.
Me: Crowd was loud tonight.
The reply comes instantly.
Rafe: Told you. They know now.
I snort, rubbing a towel over my face.
They know now.
Cool. No pressure or anything.
I lock the phone and sit here for a second longer than necessary, letting the noise wash over me, letting the feeling settle without naming it. Because naming it might make it real, and I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet.
It doesn’t stop with the noise.
The next night, after another win, I’m halfway through unlacing my shoes when a PR assistant pokes her head into the locker room and says my name. Not the whole name. Just “Ollie,” like we’re familiar.
I glance up, expecting a mistake.
She’s already looking at her clipboard. “Media wants you.”
I almost laugh. “You sure?”
She nods without looking at me, like this is routine. “Yeah. They’re waiting.”