Number thirty-three.
I lift my father’s old basketball jersey out of the cardboard box, coughing a little from the dust. I’ve seen pictures of me as a toddler wearing this. It hung off my shoulders and dragged on the floor. Now, when I slip it over my head, it fits perfectly. At six foot seven inches, my dad was an inch taller than I am. His wingspan outreached mine and his feet were a size larger, but that’s where I stop making comparisons. I leave that to the pundits and media who speculate about what he could have been and what I may achieve. He was cut down so young before he really had the chance to fulfill even a fraction of his promise.
I massage the soreness in my leg and wonder if I’ll repeat history. The easy part of this recovery is over. I’ve been mostly off my feet for the eight weeks since surgery. I recently started upper-body work in a gym close by, just outside of Baltimore, and that is only the beginning. Months of grueling rehab lie ahead with no guarantee that I’ll be a hundred percent at the end. Speed and agility, the ability to turn on a dime—those are trademarks of my game and are things this injury could compromise irreparably. Only time and the hardest work of my life will tell.
Fucking Caleb and his dirty play that wasn’t ruled a dirty play. He’s slithered his way out of consequences all his life. It’s made him spoiled and cruel, but also clever enough to hide it. Me, he hates, so he did some underhanded shit that shoved me, at least temporarily, out of the way.
He’d never hurt them, though, right?
The more I’ve considered it, flat on my back and staring up at the ceiling, the less confident I am of Caleb’s boundaries. God, if I had Iris, I’d treat her like a queen.
Can you miss someone you’ve never had?
Because I miss Iris. I can’t even share that with anyone because they’d think I was a lunatic. Obsessed. Fixated.
I like to think of it as certain. Like when I’m in the zone, the game comes to me easily and I’m certain I’ll make every shot before the ball even leaves my hands—that’s how I feel about Iris. She’s a shot that hasn’t even left my hands, but I know will be nothing but net. I’m certain that if ever given the chance, it would be that way for us. Not that things would be easy all the time, but we’d just . . . click. We’d belong, something we’ve both needed for a long time. I felt hints of it the first night we met, and with each encounter, it’s become clearer. It’s quantified in breathless moments and skipped heartbeats. Nothing I can point to or prove, but it’s real. I’ve only grown more sure that together, we could belong.
“What are you doing out here?” my mother asks from the open garage door. “I was looking all over the house for you. Your phone’s been ringing off the hook all morning.”
“Probably Lloyd.” I grimace at the thought of another conversation with my agent. “He thinks he may be able to get me a good trade.”
“Trade?” Mom’s brows collapse into a frown. “Do the Waves wanna get rid of you because of the injury? Don’t they know you’ll be back stronger than ever? What’s wrong with them?”
I wish everyone had a mother like mine who believed in them even when they weren’t sure themselves.
“Lloyd’s just looking at contingencies.” I shrug and pull my father’s jersey over my head and drop it back into the box. “The Waves are an expansion team, and this was their first season. Decker invested a lot in me. Me getting hurt my first year probably has them considering cutting their losses in case I don’t come back as strong.”
“Your first season ended with you as Rookie of the Year.” Her eyes and smile are all pride. “They’d be fools to let you go.”
“Maybe I’d be a fool to stay.” I release a puff of air. “I could end up on a team that’s championship caliber now. Maybe in the playoffs next season, playing for a ring. If Lloyd can make that happen, I’d be a fool to turn it down.”
“You’ll know what to do when you get to it. You’ll know what’s most important. I’m sure Jared will have opinions.”
“Oh, always.” I laugh. “And on everything.”
She hands my phone to me. “You two still considering getting Elevation off the ground early?” she asks, poking through the box of memories.
“I want to. He’s not sure, which means we probably will.”
She chuckles, nodding and pulling out a photo album at the bottom of the box. “You do tend to get your way, August.”
“Eventually. Sometimes.” I pause at the look on her face as she flips through the album. It’s love, and pain, and regret. “What’s that you’re looking at?”
She turns the album to show me a photo. It’s a picture I’ve never seen. My mom, dad and I are standing on a basketball court with a packed stadium in the background, and my father is holding me, his arm wrapped around my mother. I’ve never thought we looked alike, but in this picture, I see echoes of my features in his.
“Wow,” I say softly. “We actually do look a little alike.”
“Of course you do.” She brushes a fingertip over my father’s face. “He’s darker and his hair is coarser, but that bone structure. Same handsome face. Same mouth.”
Her smile is wistful, and maybe slightly wicked. I’m sure she has memories of his mouth that I want to know nothing about. So much of what I know about my father has been through the media and old friends telling stories. There are things I never asked my mother that maybe only she knows.
“Was he a good man?” I ask, watching her face for the truth. I don’t miss the bitter tilt of her lips settle into ruefulness.
“He was a great father.” She looks up from the photo. “He loved you more than anything. He was so good to you.”
“And to you?” I ask softly, prepared for whatever she answers. “What kind of husband was he?’
She hesitates, considering the picture again before looking in my eyes. “What kind of husband was he?” She tosses my question back before twisting her mouth into that rueful little curve. “A young, handsome one, with lots of money and time on the road.”
“Like me then,” I half-joke. “Sometimes I see so many parallels between us.”
“You won’t make the choices your father did when you’re married, August. I’m not worried about that.”
“Really?” I ask, thinking about all the ass I pulled in my rookie year. “Why not?”
“Because I raised you better than that.” She winks and brushes her hands over my hair. “You just need to find the right girl.”
Of course, my mind defaults to Iris—to the last time I saw her laughing with Sarai and bouncing her on her knee. Reminder. Another man’s baby bouncing on her knee.
“Maybe I’ve found the right girl.” I close the flaps of the box. “Maybe it’s just a matter of timing.”
It’s hard for me to surprise my mother. She usually sees everything coming from a mile away, but her eyes stretch, and her mouth drops open.
“Do I know her?” she demands. “Is she in San Diego? How did you meet her? When can I meet her?”
“Uh, Mom.” I hold up a hand to stay the tsunami of questions coming off her in waves. “It’s not like that. I mean, it is. For me it is. I’d bring her to meet you right now if I could.”
“She doesn’t want to be with you?” She rests her fists on her hips, the Irish feistiness to match that red hair sparking in her eyes. “Does she have any idea what she’s missing?”
“She doesn’t care about my contract or the money or any of that stuff.” Even though Iris is with Caleb, I know it’s not because he has any of those things. And as soon as I figure out why she is with him, I’ll convince her it’s not enough. Not as much as I could give her.
“Those aren’t the things I meant either,” Mom says. “You’re kind, and generous, and smart, and ambitious. I raised you to know how to treat a woman. She’d be lucky to have you.”
“Thanks, Mom, though you might be just a little biased. I think you’d like her.” My smile drops. “I mean, if she ever leaves her boyfriend.”
“August, what?” Her eyes stretch. “Tell me.”
“It’s a long story.”
She crosses her arms and sits on one of the nearby bins in the garage. “Do I look busy?”
I pull up a bin and tell her about that first night before the tournament, how Iris and I talked about any and everything; we shared our pasts, our families, our dreams, and hopes. I tell her how disappointed I was to realize Iris was dating Caleb. I leave out the part where I saw her naked breast at All-Star weekend, but I hit other highlights, ending with the last time I saw her, at the game before Caleb’s dirty play.
“So you’ve only seen her a few times?” Mom asks. The consternation on her face gives me pause. She thinks I’m crazy. I know I am.
“But we talked for hours the first time,” I say, hearing the defensiveness in my voice. “We talked about everything. I’ve never felt that connected to someone so quickly. And even at the All-Star game, it was like we just picked right back up.” I toss my phone back and forth between my hands and shrug. “I know what you’re thinking—it’s some infatuation. Or maybe you think I just like her because she’s Caleb’s girl, right?”
“I knew Matt was the one after our first date.” She chuckles at the startled look that must be on my face. “I did. We had exactly what you’re talking about. That ease. That spark. It feels like you’re the only two people in the world.”
That first night in the bar, I didn’t even notice the other customers leaving. I didn’t notice the bartender cleaning up. I barely noticed the game ending.
“She absorbed me,” I say, shaking my head. “I’d never felt that way about anyone else. When she told me she had a boyfriend, I felt like she was reading from the wrong script. Like that’s not how this is supposed to go. How can it possibly go that way when I feel like this already?”
I roll my eyes, playing my words back in my own ears. “I sound like a chick.”
“And what’s wrong with sounding like a woman?” Mom’s offended words chastise me.
“You know what I mean. Like all in my feelings. Desperate.” I catch her sharp look. “Not saying that all women are desperate. I just mean I sound like I would do anything to be with her.”
“Based on what you told me about her family history, maybe she needs someone who’s willing to take an outrageous chance on her. It sounds like she hasn’t had the easiest life and has seen a lot of bad in men.”
“I don’t get why she’s still with that asshole.” I run an agitated hand through the hair dipping over my eyes. “If you could have felt what was between us that night at the game. Neither one of us could look away. It’s still there for me, and I know it’s still there for her. I know how it sounds, but I’m not making this up.”
“She has a child with this man, August. You said she was on bed rest and couldn’t work. She probably has very little of her own. You never know what a mother has to do to do what’s best for her child.”
She grins.
“Even knowing I loved Matt, it was a long time before I let him fully into my life. I wanted to protect you. It hadn’t been long since your father died, and you were so impressionable. I had to be careful about who I brought around you. I had to be careful about everything. It seems to me circumstances have made your Iris more vulnerable than she ever wanted to be.”
My Iris.
It feels like all the stars and planets and the moon itself will have to align for her to be my Iris.
“I know you don’t like the comparisons with your father,” Mom interrupts my thoughts. “But there is one thing you inherited from him for sure.”
“What’s that?”
“Timing.” Her smile turns fond, her eyes distant. “He’d hold the ball ’til the last possible second. I’m screaming from the bleachers for him to take the shot, but he’d just dribble and watch the clock, and at just the right moment, he’d take the shot.”
“You’re right.” I laugh, because I remember watching tape of him when I was younger and thinking the same thing.
“As immature and impetuous as your father sometimes was off the court,” Mom says, “on the court, he was a study in patience and vision. Seeing the right opportunity and taking the shot when it was time. He used to call it ‘letting the game come to him.’ Try that approach with Iris. Let the game come to you, and at the right time, take the shot.”
My phone rings, startling us both. I grimace when I see Lloyd’s name onscreen. I’m a grown-ass man. I need to take care of my career the same way I’m taking care of this leg, and that means talking to Lloyd. “I need to take this. I’ve been dodging my agent.”
“Alright.” She stands and dusts off her jeans. She drops a kiss on my unruly curls. “And at some point, you will get a haircut, right?”
“Rehab hair. This is why I don’t let it grow.” I sift my fingers through the thick curls flopping everywhere and answer Lloyd’s call.
Lloyd takes forty-five minutes to tell me ten minutes’ worth of information, so I’m chomping at the bit to get off the phone by the time he’s bringing the conversation to a close.
“I’ll email those contracts over for you to look at and sign,” he says. “We need to get that commercial in the can. I suggested we not do it in your San Diego jersey, just to be safe.”
“It’s like that?” I ask, not sure if I’m excited or insulted that San Diego may be seriously considering trading me. At the start of the season it would have been what I wanted, but I had just started to feel like we were building something special.
“We’ll see.” Lloyd’s voice is diplomatic and dissembling. “I like to have contingencies. No telling when that commercial will air or where you’ll be by then. Oh, and did you speak to that Sylvia lady?”
“What Sylvia lady?” I’m only half listening, re-opening my dad’s box and picking through it to make sure I didn’t overlook anything significant.
“She called me this morning saying she’s left several voicemails for you. Something about NBA charity stuff and you wanting to volunteer in Baltimore.”
“Oh, yeah. I do. I have a ton of missed calls. I’ll call her back.”
“You start physical therapy next week, right?”
“Yeah. I mean, I’ve been doing some upper-body stuff but wasn’t cleared for weight on the leg before. Now I am, so we’ll go into beast mode next week.”
“Bleacher Report approached me about documenting your road to recovery.” I hear Lloyd’s lips smacking in anticipation over the phone. “Like a web series or a special.”
“Nah. I don’t want to do the circus act, sympathy, look-at-him-go thing.”
“It’s a good idea to stay in the public eye. That next contract is mostly about how you do on the court, but it doesn’t hurt if they know you can put butts in seats. And let’s not forget you were Rookie of the Year, despite missing the last games of the regular season.”
“That was probably a consolation prize,” I say, resentment festering in my words. “They knew Caleb’s play was dirty and didn’t want to give it to him. Giving me the award was their silent protest since his daddy always finds a way to protect him.”
“Well, it’s certainly added to the public’s interest in the two of you. It’s turning into a Magic Johnson–Larry Bird kind of rivalry. Theirs started in college, too.”
“Yeah, but they became friends, and Caleb and I never will.”
“They really played it up. Did commercials together and everything.”
I’m choking on my answer before it even comes out of my mouth. “The hell I’m doing a commercial with that motherfucker.”
Total silence.
“So . . . I guess that’s a definite no,” he says.
“That’s ‘if you ever put me in the same room as that dude again, I’m firing your ass.’ We legit don’t like each other, Lloyd. It’s not for the cameras or to hike ratings. The guy’s a shitbag who jeopardized my career. Don’t ask me to grin like a buffoon and drink Pepsi with him.”
More total silence.
“Duly noted,” Lloyd finally says. “Will you at least call Sylvia back?”
“Yeah. I’ll do it right now.”
I’m just eager to get off the phone with him. There are so many things Lloyd and I don’t see eye to eye on. The more I think about it, the more I’m ready to turn things over to Jared. With us getting Elevation off the ground, it’s the perfect time and ideal scenario: him managing my career as he convinces other athletes he can manage theirs.
I listen to the message Sylvia left. She invites me to do some talks for a week at the community center right outside of Baltimore where I played all the time growing up. It’s exactly the kind of thing I’d hoped to do while I was rehabbing on this side of the country.
“Thank you for returning my call, Mr. West,” Sylvia says when I dial her back.
“Please. Call me August. I’m sorry it took a minute. I’ve just started hitting the gym again and guess I hadn’t paid attention to messages for a few days.”
“No problem. Did you hear the opportunity I have in mind?”
“It’s perfect,” I say, thinking of all the times I got my ass handed to me at that community center. “I cut my teeth playing ball there. It’s not far from my mom’s, where I’m staying while I rehab. We’re right outside of the city.”
“Oh, good.” Sylvia’s warm voice comes from the other end. “I’ll email you details, but basically it’s a summer program, and we bring in someone different each week to inspire and encourage the kids. You’ll talk for maybe thirty minutes or so.”
“Sounds great.” I pause for a second, hesitant to broach my awkward question. “Um, obviously I play for the Waves out in San Diego, not the Stingers, but this is my hometown, and I really want to contribute here, too. Will any other Stingers be involved?”
“Actually—”
“I’m fine working with anyone from the team,” I cut in. “But Caleb Bradley and I aren’t—”
“I’m familiar with the, shall we say, difficulties between the two of you.”
“Good.” I blow out a breath, relieved that I don’t have to go into more detail to make my point.
“However,” Sylvia says, “his fiancée, er, sorry . . . girlfriend will be one of the volunteers. Several of the players’ partners are working at the center that week, but they—”
“Iris?” I stomp over whatever she was about to say, gripping the phone practically to the point of cracking. “Are you saying Iris DuPree will be there the same week?”
Crickets from the other line. Too eager?
“I mean, if that’s what you’re saying,” I continue, deliberately dialing it down, “let’s not mention it to Iris.”
“Um . . . what?” Confusion and reluctance pile up in Sylvia’s pause. “I won’t lie—”
“Lie?” I laugh a little to put her at ease. “Who said anything about lying, Sylvia? I was thinking just so she doesn’t feel awkward or maybe like she shouldn’t come, considering how things have been between Caleb and me. I think it’s great she’s volunteering.”
“If she asks, I’ll have to tell her,” she says a little stiffly.
“By all means. And if she doesn’t ask . . .” I shrug like she can see me. “She’ll find out when she gets there, and we’ll help the community center, which is the ultimate goal, right?”
“Right, but I don’t want any trouble.”
“There won’t be. Promise.”
It’s silent on the other end for a few moments, and I hope I’ve convinced her.
“Alright,” she finally says, her voice still a little uncertain. “I guess we could leave it a surprise for everyone. That might add some excitement.”
“Excitement. Exactly. Great idea. It’ll be fine. I have no beef with Iris.”
“Okay, well, I’ll send that email of the topics we suggest. You can modify as you see fit.”
“Thanks, Sylvia. I’m really looking forward to it.”
Once I disconnect from Sylvia, I sit on the plastic bin alone. On instinct, I walk back over to the box of my father’s things and pull out the jersey, slipping it over my head again.
“Perfect timing, huh?” I ask the empty garage. “Looks like the game is coming to me, Dad. We’ll see if I get to take the shot.”
