Chapter 4
Noise bounced around the locker room. RJ had a speaker in the corner, playing Boosie’s Set It Off. We were a team in the suburbs, but we got down to Boosie. That was our song to get us hyped. The white boys loved that shit.
“Cut the music down!” Coach barked. Once it was down, he continued with his pre-game speech.
I tugged my hoodie off, rolled my shoulders back, and cleared my mind. Every few minutes, Slim’s face would flash in my mind—her annoyed expression and quick mouth. Even that little smile she tried so hard to hide.
“Y’all hear me?” Coach barked.
A few of my teammates mumbled “yeahs,” including me. I’d tuned him out because it was always the same shit. Give Stone the ball. Shoot those threes, Stone.
Coach Merrick clapped his hands loud enough to snap everybody back into formation. “Go warm up! This is our house. Our game. Lock in!”
I stood last while everyone piled out of the locker room.
The guys hollered, hyping each other up.
I always stayed back, needing one last quiet moment to myself.
I already knew neither my mom nor dad was out there.
It would be nice if one night…just one night, I’d look out and see them smiling and cheering me on.
The cheerleaders were chanting when I jogged through the doors.
I joined in the warmups with layup lines, passes, and jumpers.
I stretched, avoiding looking out into the bleachers.
RJ fucked up a pass to me. I jogged to retrieve the ball, and that’s when I saw her.
She stopped the ball with her Pumas that were on their last run.
I picked the ball up, and grinned right there in her face.
I couldn’t even hide the fact that I was smiling.
Of course, Slim didn’t smile back. Her expression was stoic.
Her braids were taken down, and now she had her hair in a ponytail. She had good hair that ended with curls. Thick hair. Shit she tried to hide with that damn durag.
Vani, behind her, sucked his teeth. “Nigga, warm up,” he called out flatly.
I ignored his ass, keeping my eyes on Slim. “You came,” I said, bouncing the ball.
Slim shrugged. “It’s just a game. You know I like the game.”
I nodded once, and before I jogged away, I said, “I’m a show out just ‘cause you here.”
The crowd roared once the whistle blew and the jump ball was thrown in the air.
The other team got possession of the ball, but they didn’t keep it for long.
Kyle, one of my teammates, snatched a lazy pass out of the air like it was nothing.
The second he secured it, he fired it my way.
I caught it in a stride. Defense from the other team was a little too slow.
One dribble and then a flick of my wrist behind the three-point line.
The ball snapped through the net so clean, it didn’t even touch the rim.
“Threeeee!” the announcer yelled as if he didn’t believe it went in so nicely either. The student section lost their minds.
I didn’t celebrate because this was what I did.
My eyes flickered over to Slim, who simply nodded.
Next possession, we forced a shot-clock violation.
RJ had the ball, and three opponents crowded him.
I juked the one trying to hold me, RJ found a way to pass it to me, and before one got on me, I was sending the ball to the net.
“Stone with another threeeeee!”
The gym thundered, but we were just getting started.
I didn’t even wait to change because I knew they’d be gone before the coach ended his speech.
With my jersey sticking to my back, I jogged to Vani and Slim.
They were on their way out of the exit, Vani walking a little slower, because he knew.
He knew what it was. We had that talk the night he made sure I wouldn’t be fucked with, leaving out the projects.
“Fuck you want wit’ Slim?” he queried, firing up his blunt.
“Man, it ain’t even like,” I told him with a chortle. “We just share the same love for the game.”
Vani stared as if he didn’t believe me.
“Let me have her number. I want to link up for some streetball.”
“We play every weekend,” Vani snorted.
“Aight, but let me have it.”
Vani’s eyes narrowed. He took a pull from his blunt and began calling out Slim’s number.
I jogged toward them, slipping past a cluster of cheerleaders and parents trying to get pictures.
“Aye, Slim!” I called out. She half-turned.
I held my hand out to Vani. He slapped it, and we snapped our fingers.
“You cold as fuck,” Vani told me. “We definitely need to run that money up on the West.”
“I’m down,” I replied, at the same time Slim said, “We don’t need him.”
“Yo, Slim…you trippin’,” argued Vani. “Hard.”
“He don’t need the money,” she shot back.
“Yeah, but we do.” They went back and forth like they were siblings, and as if I wasn’t standing there.
Vani walked away huffing, telling Slim he’d meet her silly ass at the car. Slim attempted to follow behind him, but I tugged her hoodie gently to pull her back. She eyed my hand, and I let it drop. People moved around us.
“It doesn’t matter if I need the money or not, Slim. I can still help y’all get the bag. We win, y’all eat.” I huffed out a quiet laugh. She was so difficult. So damn stubborn.
Slim shifted her weight, the toe of her sneaker dragging across the gym floor like she was irritated with my presence. That had my brows furrowing just a little. Her brown eyes lifted to mine.
“Good game,” she admitted reluctantly. “But you don’t know what losing will cost us.”
“Let me help. If shit goes left, which it won’t…
I’ll back off.” My name was yelled out, and I began backing away from Slim.
I was gon have to hear the coach’s mouth for me not coming to the locker room and having them all wait.
“Unblock me!” I called out to Slim. She turned and disappeared through the doors.
The weekend was here again. The cleaning company was here when I made it downstairs after my shower.
Shirtless and in ball shirts, I sauntered to the kitchen for breakfast. JaMika Stone was in the kitchen, pulling biscuits from the oven.
As much money as they had to afford a cook, I had to give it to her.
She didn’t clean; she left it up to the cleaning company twice a week, but Mama got in the kitchen on the days we didn’t go eat out as a family.
Sometimes, I would stay home and let them go enjoy dinner with just the two of them.
I wasn’t a small kid that they had to keep an eye on twenty-four seven.
I kissed my mama on the cheek, maneuvered to the fridge for a bottle of orange juice, then sat at the island on a stool.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked, opening the juice and taking a swig.
“Golf course with the guys,” she responded.
Mama was pushing forty, but you couldn’t tell.
She kept herself up with her monthly spa visits for facials, trips to the beauty parlor for her hair that she kept in a bob to her chin, and always a middle part.
Mama was always dripping in designer. Like now, she wore her pink Versace robe with the matching slippers.
I had a black one, one that matched my dad’s, but I never really wore it.
Mama had her lashes done and lips already glossed.
She had a heart-shaped face with tight eyes, which I get from her.
Mama was a realtor with her own successful company, Stone Realty.
She wasn’t home a lot either, so when Slim claimed we had nothing in common, that was a lie.
Just because I had more money than she did, I can still relate to her a lot.
“He’ll be home for dinner. I was thinking about going to an Italian restaurant tonight. What do you think?”
I didn’t answer right away. My plans for the day were to be spent on the other side of town, hooping.
I’d sent Slim a message, but the shit didn’t go through because her ass still had me blocked.
Vani gave me his number and told me to come to the park around one.
I hit Jalen up to see what he’d be doing around that time.
He replied with, not shit. He’d meet me there.
Mama placed bacon on a plate covered with a paper towel. When I still hadn’t answered her, she paused and glanced over at me.
“You had plans?”
“Something like that,” I said.
“Like what?”
“Hooping.”
‘Hmm. Your dad told me about you being in Love Heights, Kane.”
My jaw ticked. She turned the stove off and set the spatula down. Mama leaned against the counter, crossing her arms across her chest. She gave me a look of concern and irritation.
“It ain’t as bad as y’all think. I went over there to hoop, and look, I’m still alive,” I sarcastically replied, gaining a brow raise from her.
“Don’t get smart, Kane,” she told me, pointing a finger at me. Mama turned around to start fixing our plates.
“Sorry,” I apologized. “You know Jalen lives over there. I’m good, Ma.”
She sighed. “Just be careful, Kane. Your father doesn’t want you over there, but I also understand how much you love that sport. You can’t play with guys from your school?”
I laughed. “No. Their version of streetball is different.”
Mama placed a plate piled with biscuits, eggs, bacon, and grits in front of me.
“Oh, you like to get scraped up and black eyes from elbows,” she muttered with a shake of her head.
“I like to play with people who get down for real in the game,” I said. I popped a whole piece of bacon in my mouth.
“Can you at least take your car this time?”
“Oh, nah,” I snickered, shaking my head. “I can’t do that, Ma.”
“Exactly, so that means you don’t have no business over there. You should be able to go anywhere and feel safe.” She sat beside me with her own plate.
“I can Rideshare.”
“Why, when you have a car in the garage that runs perfectly fine, Kane? That’s ridiculous,” Mama countered.
“Just be careful. Keep your location on. Maybe that’ll at least ease your father’s mind and lessen the punishment that is sure to come if you keep taking your butt over there. I just want you safe.”
“I’ll be safe.”
Mama nodded, sipping her coffee. “And Kane?”