Your ankle looks sexy
The ice pack Coach made me bring home has been strapped around my ankle for twenty-three minutes, which is already eighteen minutes longer than I intended to tolerate it.
The training staff said nothing is torn. Mild sprain. Swelling. Stay off it tonight, treatment again tomorrow and no court until they see how I move in the morning.
All positive information.
The sofa sinks beside my uninjured leg.
Nate leans over far enough to inspect the ice pack, my face and then my phone. “You look terrible.”
“Thank you.”
“Emotionally, I mean. Your ankle looks sexy.”
“Get away from me.” I growl loud enough to sound like an injured animal.
He settles deeper into the cushions instead, one arm spreading across the back of the sofa.
Nate has showered but not dressed properly, which means he is wearing basketball shorts, no shirt and one sock.
The other sock may exist somewhere in the house.
With Nate, possession has never implied immediate use.
“What did the trainers say?”
“I’m not dying.”
“I wasn’t worried about death. Can you play Friday?”
“I don’t know.”
Nate winces in sympathy at the possibility of me watching from the bench. It always drives me nuts.
“Damn. Doesn’t look like you are, Will.”
Nate has never understood how to care about somebody quietly. If he thinks you are injured, sad, tired or insufficiently appreciated, he appears beside you with food and remains there until one of you dies. Usually the other person.
“Do you want me to check it?”
“You took one introductory biology course.”
“Still more medical training than Maddy.”
My attention immediately shifts towards my phone in my hand. Nothing from Maddy yet for the past twenty-minutes.
Injuries happen all the time on the court. I have however never received eight angry messages from taking a hit in a competitive sport.
She has gone out with Jenny now. That’s actually relieving because I wanted to talk to Nate.
“I need your opinion on something.” I lock my phone screen, then unlock it again.
Nate stops looking relaxed. “That sounds serious.”
“It isn’t.”
“Then you would have already ignored my opinion.”
Fair. I open the group chat thread and toss him the phone. He catches it against his chest and start scrolling.
The amusement disappears from his face one line at a time. He reads in silence. His thumb moves upwards. Stops. Moves again.
Nate reads without speaking for long enough that I begin regretting handing him the phone.
Finally, he looks up. “What the fuck?”
“Exactly.”
“How long have they been doing this?”
“The chat has existed since freshman year.”
“I mean about Maddy.”
“A few weeks.”
“And you’re still in it?”
“I told them to stop.”
Nate looks down at the screen again.
“Yes, I can see your heroic two-message intervention.”
I have opened it four times since returning from the game.
Nothing new tonight. A photograph from the bus. Two complaints about the officials. Leon blaming the cafeteria breakfast for his shooting percentage. Normal material.
Stupid college-boy bullshit.
I called it that because most of it was stupid, most of us were college boys and attaching the word bullshit allowed everyone to avoid examining the first two parts.
Nate probably reaches the message about open tryouts.
His jaw tightens. “You need to take this to Coach.”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking.”
“You’ve been thinking?”
“I’m talking to you now.”
“Will, did you somehow miss the entire Princeton cautionary tale where the swim team lost the rest of its season because idiots documented their worst thoughts?”
“That was an official listserv. This isn’t even a team chat. What swim team said was worse.”
Then the words Apparently she doesn’t do repeats. Better make the roster enter my head so fast, I wince sharply.
Nate gives me an incredulous look. “Great. Put that defence underneath the screenshot when somebody posts a screenshot of Rory’s blowjob depth chart, try to explain that was produced independently of Princeton Basketball. And knowing that fucker, he’s probably already done something.”
I hesitate.
“No,” I admit. “She would tell me.”
“Would she?”
“I told her to tell me if anyone gives her trouble. And I know jocks.”
“You need to report it, and you need to leave the chat tonight.”
“I’m not leaving.”
His eyebrows rise. “Why? Save everything first, obviously. Then leave before somebody leaks it and your name is sitting there between Captain Home-Court Advantage and Better Make the Roster.”
“Because then I don’t know what they’re saying.”
“Coach can know.”
“I need to know.”
Nate stares at me, then he leans back on the sofa and folds his arms. “You don’t want to leave because you want to know every time somebody says something about Maddy.”
“I want to know if this keeps affecting the locker room.” I protest quickly.
“Will.” His voice goes still. I don’t like it when Nate’s voice goes still. “You’re becoming controlling.”
A pulse starts beating behind my eyes. “I am keeping track of a problem inside my team.”
“This is not the official team. There are graduates and someone named Big T, who nobody seems to know who he is.”
“Yeah. I don’t know who invited him. It is literally my responsibility to know when teammates have a problem with one another.”
“How do they have problems with one another exactly?”
Nate waits. I shift my ankle and immediately regret it when pain travels up my leg.
“The point is that basketball is a team sport.” My voice comes out sharper than I intend, which hurts my side and improves nothing. “If half the team thinks the other half is laughing behind their backs, it reaches the court. It always reaches the court.”
“So talk to them.”
“I have. We finally had a good win, and I’m not letting this season collapse because Rory and Leon cannot survive fifteen minutes without turning something into a sex joke over some freshman.
Scouts are watching. Some of these guys actually have a chance at playing after Princeton, and I am not letting stupid shit destroy the way we play together. ”
Nate looks at me for several seconds. “Team synergy means nobody fucks with somebody else’s girlfriend or starts throwing punches in the locker room. It does not mean keeping a digital roster of who gets to ask your housemate for a blowjob first.”
“They were joking. They haven’t done anything.”
“Thank fuck.” Nate leans forward, forearms on his knees. “That’s the reason you should tell Coach before one of them does something even more stupid and actually risks his career.”
I look at the phone in his hand.
Rory started most of it. Leon added to everything because Leon would join a discussion about surgical amputation if he believed there was a chance to make somebody laugh. Mason followed.
All three of them train hard. They show up. Leon is an idiot, but he is a talented idiot. Mason could play after college if he stops hesitating every time the defence closes. Rory has been talking about professional basketball since I met him.
This is where my reasoning keeps breaking.
“They’re college boys,” I continue. “They’re horny. Half of it is bullshit. This chat has existed for years.”
I hold out my hand. Nate does not return the phone.
Instead, he studies me for another moment. “Have you told Maddy about the chat?”
“No. I said I was handling it. Besides, I don’t want to embarrass her.”
Nate’s expression changes. Slowly. His eyes brighten with the exact kind of cheerful destruction that has ended many otherwise peaceful evenings. “I saw you.”
My attention sharpens. “Saw what?”
Nate grins. “Oh, nothing. Just you kissing her like the oxygen supply was about to be permanently discontinued.”
Every muscle in my body goes still. “You saw that?”
“I came back for my charger.”
“It was one kiss.”
Nate’s smile broadens. “Looked like several.”
“We were high.”
“How romantic.”
“She does not want to repeat it.”
Nate’s eyebrows rise. “Maddy told you she does not want to kiss you again?”
“She said we are never mentioning it.”
“That is not the same.” Nate rises his voice instantly.
I appreciate him pointing out the difference in the vocabulary. But when a girl tells you to never mention something, I genuinely don’t think it’s the right place to argue over the choice of words. You are expected to read into the subtext, which is clearly not what Nate has learned from Princeton.
“Maddy spent breakfast yesterday eating a banana while maintaining eye contact with you for an amount of time that made me uncomfortable in my own kitchen.” Nate laughs, quietly at first, then with enough force that his shoulders start moving.
I glare at him. “She was being annoying.”
“You threatened to take the banana away.”
Fuck. I never said my life was peaceful after that kiss with Maddy. In fact, she has made it painfully clear that I won’t be at peace, or forget that kiss while not be able to ever mention it again.
“Act normal,” I warn him.
“You two have done nothing normal for weeks.”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t.”
I don’t believe a word this bastard is saying right now.
“Nate.” I warn him again.
“I said I won’t.” He raises both hands. “I support privacy. Secrets. Women making reckless choices during altered mental states.”
“It was not—” I stop. “She kissed me back.” My voice rises.
Nate studies my face with considerably more attention than I would prefer. “Your face has looked painfully tight for a week, and I’ve played with you for three years. It is not basketball.”
“My ankle hurts.”
“Your dick isn’t in your ankle.”
“Get out.”
“I live here.”
I consider using the healthy leg to kick him. “Go live somewhere else.”
Nate leans across me and points towards the phone. “And save your own ass.”
“Fuck…” I groan. “You know everything is digital, therefore has timestamps, right? You’ll see the exact moment I leave.”
“Actually, no. Don’t listen to me. I study poetry and once sent my credit card details to a fake delivery company.”
“You did what?”
“It looked official.”
“You’re fucking twenty-one years old.”
“What did you say? I’m just a horny college-boy.”
Then he bends over and presses one finger directly into the edge of the ice pack. Pain explodes through my leg.
“Fuck!” I almost throttle this guy.
“Cap.” Nate's already halfway out. “You've never once asked me to keep something quiet. Four years.” He grins. “Not one thing.”