Late, but well
“Willy Willy Willy Wonka!!!”
Jesus Christ.
“He’s not waking up. William Mercer, once a disciplined captain, has gone soft with injury.” Nate announces in his most annoying announcer voice. “Nope. Cap is never soft. I think he’s having a wet dream. Fucking an angel, baby? You’ll do it in the air, no ankle needed.”
“Wake up. We’re here to drive you to Coach. You said you need a lift.” DJ’s voice comes next.
I pull the pillow away from my face and roll my eyes at the two idiots who are crowding over my bed. Yes. I was fucking an angel until these two loud obnoxious fuckers decided to be my alarm.
Twenty minutes later, I’m sitting in the car with Nate singing cheerfully at his own tune of my name in various rhythms that he makes up on the spot.
By the time we reach the athletic centre, Nate has discovered at least seven new ways to pronounce my name and I’m considering opening the door while the car is still moving.
The boys head off to pre-training while I march towards Coach’s office.
I have been here hundreds of times. Film discussions. Line-up meetings. Academic check-ins. One memorable lecture during freshman year after Collins and I returned from an away-game party forty minutes before morning training.
Today, I notice the door closing behind me.
Coach points at my ankle. “How’s it moving?”
“Better.”
“That is not what Melissa said.”
“The swelling went down.”
“She said you tried to test it by running stairs.”
“Two stairs.”
“She used the phrase noncompliant patient.”
“I was checking the range.”
He gives me the same expression my father uses when I say something technically defensible and practically stupid.
“Sit down.” Coach leans back in his chair. “We also need you capable of standing up during the next one.”
Coach is right. I was just stubborn enough not to listen during recovery training. He never sugarcoats anything, but he gives a shit about us beyond running faster, shooting better or being more aggressive.
I lower myself into the chair opposite him and stretch the injured leg beneath the desk.
He watches my face for a moment. “You asked to speak.”
I did. At seven this morning, before I had enough time to reconsider it.
Coach places his coffee down. “I also heard back from England.”
The word changes the room. Everything inside me becomes more attentive. The pain on my ankle becomes less interesting.
“The club wants updated game film,” Coach continues. “Medical information once the ankle is cleared and permission to speak with you directly after the season. Nothing promised. They’re looking at several guards.”
“They watched the Bucknell game?”
“They watched the last three. They want to know whether you’re genuinely considering the move or whether you like having an international club interested in you.”
Direct. That is Coach’s preferred form of communication.
I look towards the basketball on the shelf behind him. For weeks, England has been an option that requires nothing other than that I continue training, studying and telling everyone I will consider the right opportunity when it arrives.
A decision, however, requires action. I didn’t want basketball to remain a possibility I was too cautious to test.
“Yes,” I say.
Coach waits.
“I’m interested,” I tell him.
“In being wanted or in playing there?” He asks at once.
I’m a little thrown off by the question, then I nod answering. “Playing.”
The word feels a little strange once it is outside my head. More solid.
“I know nobody there cares what I did at Princeton.” I add. “I’ll be the new guy, and half the team will have professional experience I don’t. I still want the conversation.”
His expression changes only slightly, but he nods once as though I have finally given the correct answer to a question he has been asking for years. “I’ll tell them.”
“They’re not only looking at your numbers,” Coach continues. “They know you can play. They’re asking whether you can enter an established locker room, listen and adjust without trying to run the entire operation by Thursday.”
I chuckle, because that sounds like a valid warning. “I don’t try to run everything.”
“You sent me a revised practice schedule at two in the morning.”
“The old schedule wasted twenty minutes.”
“You are proving my point.” Coach almost smiles.
“They want a player,” he says. “Not another coach.”
Fair. Noted. Not a Coach.
Coach sets the pen down. “You asked to talk this morning?”
“Yes.” The single word takes more effort than the entire England conversation.
I take my phone from my pocket before I chicken out. “There’s a group chat.”
Coach’s expression changes. “What kind of group chat?”
I unlock the phone and open the chat. The messages are still there between a photograph of Mason’s lunch and Leon complaining about an economics professor.
Normal material surrounding material that has stopped feeling normal. I place the phone on the desk.
Coach pulls it closer. “What am I looking at?”
“Scroll up. Unofficial. It started my freshman year. Current players, former players and some guys from other teams.”
He begins reading.
Coach has a face specifically designed for making twenty-one-year-old men regret documenting their thoughts. It does not move much. His mouth presses slightly flatter, and one line appears between his eyebrows.
He scrolls through the first set of messages, then continues into the campaign comments that appeared later.
Finally, he places the phone flat on the desk.
“Which current players are writing this?”
“Rory, Leon and Mason mostly. A few other juniors. And me. I’ve written things before. But not so much since mid last year.”
“About other women?”
“Yes.”
Coach nods once, not approvingly. “Has anybody sent anything directly to this girl mentioned in the last few weeks?”
“Not that I know.”
“Photographs?”
“No.”
“Threats?”
“No.”
“Has anyone interfered with her work?”
“Not yet.”
His eyes rise at the qualification.
“Explain.”
“She and her friends are recruiting athletes for paid campaigns with local business. Like influencers management. Some of the guys in that chat are working with her or trying to. It started as jokes about her, then it became jokes about whether campaign invitations meant something else.”
“And does it mean something else?”
“No.” I don't hesitate on that one. “But one of them might decide it does, and I can't predict which one.”
I exhale carefully because my side objects to everything else.“It was stupid when it started. A couple of us were on away-game. Friends after games, people talking about parties, who went home with whom, whatever somebody heard. Everyone was eighteen and horny.”
“You still are.” Coach says, deadpan.
“Also yes.” Truth. “For the record, I don't care who sleeps with who. Half this college treats casual sex like a wellness programme and I'm happy for all of them.”
Coach continues watching me. “You’re worried they’ll fight over a woman none of them are involved with?”
“I’m worried stupid personal shit will turn into resentment, and resentment gets on the court.”
Coach’s eyes narrow slightly, and exhales.
“And if I let it keep going, that’s on me.” I shift in the chair. “I told you I’m serious about playing. I can’t ask you to recommend me as somebody ready for a pro locker room while I’m letting this one turn into a fucking mess.”
Coach picks up the phone again. For a few seconds, he scrolls without speaking. “I don’t disagree. You did the right thing by bringing it here.”
There. Correct decision confirmed. This has been eating me alive.
“You should have brought it earlier,” he adds.
Yeah. No shit. I’ve been telling myself that since ten last night.
“Probably.” I look down to my hands instead.
Coach sets the phone down. “Based on what you’ve shown me, I am treating this as a team-conduct issue.”
Thank fuck. That doesn’t sound as serious as the fucking swimming team incident Nate has reminded me of.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I am not suspending three players because they made disgusting jokes in an unofficial group chat.”
I nod.
“But I am speaking to Rory, Leon and Mason individually. You already know this is not acceptable. So you’re doing extra drills and cleaning up the locker room for the next two weeks.” He continues.
I groan so openly Coach already knows his punishment works.
Coach points at me. “You do not add suicides because you’re angry at somebody. You do not alter minutes to make a personal point, and you do not corner anyone in the locker room to explain what you believe professional behaviour should look like.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“You were already considering at least two of those.”
I say nothing.
“Thought so.” Coach confirms.
“What happens to the chat?”
“The current players leave after I speak with them. I cannot control graduates or boys from other teams, and neither can you.”
I do not particularly like that part.
Apparently my face communicates it.
“This is where your responsibility ends,” Coach says.
I badly want to tell Coach that speaking directly with these boys might affect Maddy’s campaigns. But then I remember Rory has been difficult from the beginning, which was why he’s been offensive lately and he’s a six-foot-two man who is capable of explaining himself if he quits.
I just hope the other two are not stupid enough to reject legitimate money because Coach tells them to stop making blowjob jokes. Or perhaps that sentence disproves itself.
“So this is a warning.” I confirm again.
“Correct. A warning. I’ll make it clear that the conversation is finished. Current players leave the chat.”
Coach pushes my phone back across the desk. “Go home and rest.”
“I have class.”
“You have a bad ankle, bruised rib and painkillers in your bloodstream.”
“International Relations does not require ribs.”
“It does require basic reasoning, which you are currently lacking.”
I stand slowly. Pain pulls across my side, sharp enough that I have to pause with one hand against the arm of the chair. But Coach knows me enough to pretend not to notice until I am upright.
“You did well,” Coach says. “Late, but well.”
I nod. “I’ll take it.”
I leave his office feeling lighter than I did when I entered, although that may be the painkillers.
My phone vibrates as I reach the end of the corridor.
Maddy: Nate says u r still wounded like a baby
Maddy: im bringing home more ice cream
A smile curves on my face. Damn. I’d be lying if I said I don’t want some ice cream after getting that heavy thing off my chest.
And seeing Maddy again after the whole of yesterday not hearing from her? Even better.
Will: no cuddles? Only ice cream?
Three dots appear.
Maddy: Pirates?
Maddy: cuddles require more fees
Will: name ur price
Maddy: ur dignity
Will: u already took that when u called me Willy during the home game
I put the phone away.
There is no reason to drag her into a problem that has already been solved.