15. Karissa
Chapter fifteen
Karissa
The thing about Theo is that he has never once in his life been quiet about anything.
I'm supposed to be doing inventory.
I'm doing inventory the way someone watches a movie with the subtitles on. Technically looking at the spreadsheet, tracking every single thing happening six feet away.
"The problem," Theo says, very seriously, "is that everyone wants to talk about offense. Nobody respects defense."
"Defense wins championships," Noah says.
Theo points at him. "That's what I'm saying."
I write down the wrong number for the almond flour and have to erase it.
It started because Theo came home with a bruised ego and a bad call story. His rec league game. A ref who made a call that cost them the last two points, which meant they lost by one, which meant Theo spent dinner reconstructing the entire fourth quarter with salt shakers and a fork as the ref.
Noah was already here. He'd stopped by after his afternoon meeting, no explanation, just showed up the way he's been doing lately, quiet and without fanfare, like this is something he does.
He listened to the whole salt-shaker reconstruction without interrupting.
Then he said, "Did you box out on the play before?"
Theo stopped. "What?"
"The possession before the foul. Did your center box out?"
Theo thought about it. "No."
"Then the ref didn't cost you the game."
I expected Theo to argue. He loves to argue. Instead, he got very still the way he only does when someone has said something he has to think about, and then he said, "Okay but that's kind of annoying."
"Yeah," Noah said. "It is."
That was forty minutes ago. They haven't stopped talking since.
I give up on inventory around the time Noah asks Theo what position he plays.
"Two-guard mostly. Sometimes three if we're small."
"You quick?"
Theo grins. "Coach says I'm the fastest kid on the team who plays like he doesn't know it yet."
Noah looks at him for a second. "That's a good coach."
"He's okay." Theo shrugs, which means Coach Reyes is his favorite person in the building and Theo would never say so out loud. "Why, do you play?"
"I did."
"Like, seriously?"
"College. Not seriously enough to matter after."
Theo immediately recalibrates his entire assessment of Noah. I can see it happening. His eyes go a little sharper, his posture shifts. He is sixteen years old and the fastest way to his respect is apparently a credible basketball history.
"You want to play?" Theo asks.
I look up from the spreadsheet.
Noah glances at me. Brief, unreadable.
"Sure," he says.
There's a court two blocks away. It's a Wednesday evening in January and it's cold enough that our breath shows, but Theo doesn't care and Noah doesn't seem to either.
I pull my jacket tighter and sit on the bench at the edge of the court and tell myself I'm just here because someone has to make sure Theo comes home.
Theo checks the ball. Noah catches it without looking, which makes Theo immediately try to steal it back, which does not work.
Noah is faster than he looks.
He's also, and I'm noting this in a completely objective, observational way, built in a way that becomes extremely apparent when he's moving.
The suit hides it. Whatever he does at five in the morning in that private gym of his, it shows up now, in the easy shift of his weight, the reach when he goes for the board.
Theo is quick, young, and unafraid.
Noah is controlled. Every move has a purpose. He doesn't waste anything.
I watch Theo try to drive baseline and get cut off cleanly, and he laughs, not frustrated. Delighted. And backs it out to try again.
Noah says something low that I can't hear. Theo nods. Tries the move again, this time with a shoulder fake first, and gets a step.
He makes the layup.
"There it is," Noah says.
Theo is grinning so hard it looks like it might hurt.
I make myself look at my phone. I look at it for approximately four seconds before I look back up.
The thing is, I've seen men try with Theo before.
My mother's rotation of terrible decisions, mostly. Men who ruffled his hair and said things like your mother tells me you're good at school and never once asked him a question they actually wanted the answer to. Men who were performing a thing rather than doing a thing.
Noah is not performing.
He's just here. Paying attention. Asking questions that connect to the last question, so that the conversation has a shape Theo can feel even if he can't name it.
Theo doesn't let people in easily. It took Marcus four months to earn unsarcastic answers at the bakery.
Forty minutes with Noah and Theo's boxing-out the hypothetical.
I feel something shift behind my sternum. Slow and inconvenient, like a stone rolling somewhere it hasn't been before.
I don't like it.
They play until Theo's breathing hard and the last of the light is going gray behind the buildings, and then Noah bounces the ball once and says, "Call it."
"One more."
"You've got school."
Theo makes a face. "You sound like Kari."
"I'll take that."
I stand up from the bench and Theo jogs over and takes the ball and does not look like he wants to say something genuine, which means he absolutely wants to say something genuine.
"Good game," he finally says. Casual. Pointed directly at the ground.
"Good game," Noah says. Not making it a moment. Letting Theo have the cool.
Theo heads toward the exit and I fall into step beside him and Noah walks on my other side and for about half a block none of us say anything.
Then Theo says, without turning his head, "You should come to my game Saturday."
I stop breathing.
Noah doesn't miss a beat. "What time?"
"Eleven. But like, only if you want to. Don't come because of her."
"I won't."
Theo seems to accept that. He pulls out his phone and starts texting immediately, which is teenager for this conversation is over and I'm satisfied.
I keep walking.
There's a clause for this. I wrote it myself, in Noah's office, in my own handwriting. He's sixteen. He isn't part of this. I made Noah agree to it before I signed anything.
I could say it right now. It's a line I'm allowed to draw.
I don't.
Because Noah didn't buy Theo anything. Didn't pull a string or open a door or write a check. He showed a kid a shoulder fake in the cold and asked about his coach and meant it.
That's the one thing I never thought to put in a contract. You can't prohibit attention.
Noah is right beside me. Close enough that his arm almost brushes mine with every step.
I don't look at him.
"You don't have to," I say quietly.
"I know."
"He'll be fine if you—"
"Karissa."
I stop.
He's looking at me the way he's been looking at me more lately. Steady. Like he has nowhere else to be.
"I want to go," he says.
The stone behind my sternum shifts again.
I nod. I start walking.
I don't say anything else because I don't have anything safe to say, and because the way he said I want to go didn't sound like anything strategic, and because Theo is sixteen years old and already half in love with the version of Noah Easton who showed him a shoulder fake at dusk on a cold Brooklyn court.
I'm not sixteen.
I know better.
I'm terrified it doesn't matter.