Pull (14 page)

Dad's jaw snaps shut. The muscles in his face tense up. He inhales sharply like he's about to say something, but then he just picks up the remote. He flips around, making stabbing motions at the T.V. When he lands on another news show—same headlines, but different spin—he leans into his chair, pushing back like he's trying to crush something behind him. “Well, you can think what you want,” he says. He doesn't
even look away from the tube. “But what we say goes. I'm not watching what happened to your uncle happen to you. You're done with Wes. It is what it is.”

“What?” I say. My parents hate that phrase—
it is what it is
—chalking it up as one more example that young people have totally forgotten how to communicate any significant meaning to anyone. And now he's laying it on me.

He slowly swivels his head and squints at me. “You heard me, Derrick.”

I'm right on the cusp with Dad. It takes him way longer than Mom to hit maximum anger, but Jayson and I have learned the hard way that you do
not
want to push him all the way there. So I drop it at last. It's not fair, but at this point, what is?

18.

I could go. If it were the playoffs, I could go. Monday I did light jogging during practice. Tuesday I jogged again and shot jumpers. Wednesday I went half-speed in drills, testing out the calf in basketball moves. Yesterday more of the same. I never went full-bore, but now and then I'd test it—plant for a hard cut, push off for a jump. Every time it responded just fine. I'd go home and do the routine of ice and elevation. Even that felt like overkill. I never felt a twinge, never an ache, so tonight when I got to the gym I told Coach I was ready.

“No you're not,” he said. “I've been around enough players to know all of them will tell you he's ready a week before he really is.”

So here I sit in street clothes again while my boys get ready to tangle with Covenant Christian. We've lost two more while I've been out, but we could maybe take these guys without me. Problem is, from what Coach said I'm going to be on the pine for Bishop Chatard tomorrow night too.

I play my part. I clap for the guys, give them a little chatter as they get loose. As they swing over toward our bench in the lay-up
line, I take a step onto the court and give each guy a quick fist bump. When Fuller comes by, I grab him by the wrist and pull him over to the sideline. He furrows up his brow, worried that something's wrong. I offer a fake jab to his gut to loosen him up. “It's all good, man,” I say. Then I pull him in tight and get in his ear. “You know how you wanted to prove you guys could win without me?” Fuller nods. He's breathing a little heavy and has a slight sweat going. It all kind of reinforces how out of place I am in street clothes. This thing I'm trying to do doesn't come natural. But with Fuller still pulled close, I turn both of us and point toward the Covenant Christian end. “These are the guys to do it against. Just attack, man. Go at ‘em. They can't handle a bull like you. And, man, even if you don't score, you know Jones and Stanford are gonna eat up their bigs on the glass.”

“Got it,” Fuller says. It's like he's telling an algebra teacher he understands the problem on the chalkboard. I expected he'd get amped, maybe even crack a smile. Not Fuller. He's going to be a hundred percent serious a hundred percent of the time. Then he jumps back into the layup line to go through his routine. It cracks me up, really. I laugh a little to myself and realize something I didn't think was the case even a month ago—I flat-out like being J.J. Fuller's teammate.

As soon as our talk's over, I feel deflated again. Murphy comes over to me and gives me a pat on the back. “Atta way,” he says. “If you can't lace ‘em up, then you got to talk up the boys.” He launches into a story about how when he was a sophomore in high school, their best player went down for two weeks. He gives me all the details—what kind of player the guy was, who had to step in during the injury, a game-by-game breakdown—but anyone who's ever heard an old player
tell a story knows where it's going. He's going to tell me how the team came together while the guy was out, then really hit the gas when he came back.

I don't want to hear it. Not because I disrespect Murphy or because he doesn't have a point. But when you're a player, you don't want to talk hoops. You want to play. While Murphy keeps on with his story, I look around the gym. Lia's in the bleachers across from us. She catches me looking at her. She gives a quick wink. I look away before I get caught up in thinking about seeing her after the game. I nod at Murphy to make him think I'm still paying attention, then turn and check where my family usually sits, up behind our bench. There's Mom and Dad, as always, even though I won't see any minutes tonight. But Jayson's missing. And so is Kid. That one's a surprise—he's been a fixture in these stands forever. It doesn't matter that Bolden booted him all those years ago. Or that his nephew's not in uniform. Or even if Marion East is struggling to win. The guy's a hoops junkie, and this is his alma mater. So the fact that he's absent makes me a little edgy. For that matter, he's been a ghost for almost a week now.

“You feel me, D?” This is Murphy. He's caught me spacing. I feel like a kid in class who's been called on when he clearly has no idea what the teacher is talking about.

“Yeah,” I say. “I get you.”

Murphy shakes his head at me. “Man, don't fake it on me. You weren't listening to a word I said.”

I protest, acting all indignant. “I'm listening. You're telling about how your team toughed it out your sophomore year.”

Murphy rolls his eyes. “Please, D. Don't even.” He shakes his
head at me, all disappointed. “I was telling you how to attack Howe next weekend when you come back. But you're not listening. You're a hell of a player, but sometimes you just don't listen.” Then he heads onto the floor, wanting to talk instead to the guys who are going to play ball tonight.

We won. Or, really, Marion East won. It's hard to say
we
when I was nothing more than a fan with a choice seat. Anyway, it doesn't take much to down Christian Covenant. They hung for a while, then Reynolds got loose for a few threes and Stanford went beast-mode down low. Fuller never really took my advice, but he got his here and there. And even Rider and Jones got in on the act late, tacking on some garbage-time points in a 20-point curb-stomping. And not a one of those guys having as successful a night as I am. Not by a long shot.

Lia's house. Alone. Her room.

She shed her shirt about five minutes ago. It wasn't long after that I got her bra off—didn't even fumble around with the snaps, just undid it smooth like some pro. She was lying back on her bed. I started to climb on top of her—but she put her hand on my stomach for a second.

“Uh uh,” she said. “You too.” She pointed at my shirt. I ripped that thing off in a heartbeat.

Which puts us here. Both of us on her bed, skin on skin. And every place we meet—her fingers on my stomach, my mouth on her neck—creates a jolt of electricity. In the corner, she's got a lamp on with a shirt draped over it, so it casts us in a dim red glow. My heart is racing so fast I feel a humming in my head, like I'm about to pass out from
the tension. Slowly—like any sudden move might break the spell—I let my fingers creep down from her chest to her stomach, then a few more inches to the top of her jeans. As nimble as directing a little touch pass, I undo her button. She gasps. My fingers on her zipper, she grabs my wrist. I wait.

“Oh, Jesus, just do it,” she says at last. Then she buries her teeth into my shoulder so hard I bet she draws blood.

She raises her hips off the bed as I peel those jeans off. I stand there above her and just look for a second—Lia Stone, naked in front of me, except for a whisper-thin pair of black panties. I take my jeans off first, then I reach back to her. She hesitates, then raises her hips again.

“Don't stop now,” she says. And I don't. Who says I never listen to what I'm told?

We're talking afterward, but our words seem to float away from us and out the window. Nothing stays with us now, not in this afterglow. Her head is on my chest, her leg swung across mine. I pick up bits here and there. She's talking about her dad raising her alone for the most part. Her mom split to Georgia when Lia was six. She sees her in the summers, I think—that part I didn't pay enough attention to. I know this is important—Lia's trying to tell me who she is, what her life's about—but I can't get my head out of the clouds. This isn't my first time. But it's the first time with Lia, and all I know is that I want there to be more times.

The only thing that's bothering me is that I still don't know how to tell if she got hers. I'm afraid to ask, to really say the words. I remember what Wes told me about my lack of swagger. He may be
wrong about a million things, but not that one. Even now, I can't just say what I want to say around Lia. I wait a minute and then say, “You good?”

“Very,” she says.

But I realize that she'd say that no matter what. If you want a real answer, you've got to ask the real question. I start to work up the words in my head, but she springs off of me. Maybe she sensed what I was going to ask and didn't want to answer. Whatever the reason, she's suddenly bouncing around like her alarm clock just went off. She puts her bra back on, then digs around until she finds her panties. Then, as if she's suddenly embarrassed for me to see her naked, she wriggles around under the covers to put them on. “Come on,” she says. She smacks me on the arm. “Get that ass in gear.”

When I don't budge, she grabs the sheets and rips them down, exposing me—naked head to toe except for the condom still hanging off me. Now I'm the one who's embarrassed. But when I reach for the covers she beats me to it. She pulls them all the way off the bed, balling them in a pile on the floor. It gives me no choice but to start getting dressed.

“Move it,” she says, teasing again. “You don't get to fuck me and then just lay around. I need some quality time before you go.”

“That wasn't quality time?” I say, teasing right back.

She pauses. She's got both arms in the sleeves of her sweater, but hasn't pulled it over her head yet. Her jeans are already on, but somehow that pose—her squinting at me over her sweater, her mid-riff still exposed—just floors me. What I'd like to do is pull her right back onto this bed. “You think you're all on point, don't you?” she says. She's
still teasing, but there's an edge to it, just enough to let me know I don't get to act on my impulse.

“Well?” I say.

She relents, gives me a wink. “You're okay,” she says. “Just never forget I could do that”—she points to the bed, to me—“with any guy I want. So what comes before and after better be good too.”

That's when we hear it. The front door. Footsteps. Then a man's voice: “Lia? You home, sweetie?” Her room is at the end of the hallway. It's not a long walk from the front door back here.

We're a blur of hushed obscenities. And while I might have quicks on the court, I've got nothing on Lia here. By the time I've got one leg in my pants, Lia's already smoothing down the covers. She whips her head around to look at me, eyes blazing with sudden anger. “Damnit, Derrick!” she hisses. “What are you standing around for?”

She grabs my shirt and shoes off the floor and shoves them in my arms, then pushes me toward the side door in her room. In the dark, I don't realize where I am at first. But then the door opens again, and Lia's hand slips in to flip on the light. Once that's done, she chirps
I'm in here, Daddy
so innocently it buckles my knees.

So here I stand in her bathroom, surrounded by pink towels and colored soaps and an endless array of lotions and makeup containers. Her shower curtain has a picture of three kittens on it. I feel like I've stepped into the bathroom of a pre-teen. I put my hand to my head and whisper to myself, “What were we thinking?” But then an image of Lia's body flashes through my mind—her neck arching to be kissed, her lips parted. It's not about thinking.

Her bathroom has two doors—one back to her room and the
other to the hallway—and through the second one I can hear a muffled conversation between Lia and her father. His voice rumbles in a low bass for a few seconds. Then hers comes lilting down in high, sing-song tones. Then I hear, plain as day, “Oh, yeah, Derrick's here. I told you he was coming over after the game, Dad.”

I know that's my cue, but I've been so caught up in my own drama that I'm still not dressed. My shirt's in my hands, and my pants are sagging down with my belt undone. As I race to finish dressing, footsteps approach from down the hall. I can also hear her Dad responding to the news that I'm here. While I can't make out exactly what he says, there's a shift in his tone—his voice rising in pitch and coming a little faster.

“I swear I told you before I left for the game tonight,” Lia sighs. Then there's a light rap on the bathroom door. “You okay in there, Derrick?” she asks. She keeps her voice gentle, but there's just a trace of urgency at the end, like she's saying,
For the love of God get out here and be presentable.

I get my shirt on, buckle my belt. Then there's my shoes—no socks. I realize that they're still somewhere on her floor, as is my coat—tell-tale signs that we were up to exactly what her dad suspects we were up to. For a second, I consider going in after them, like a criminal returning to the scene to cover up evidence. But what if she didn't close her bedroom door and her dad sees me? There's another knock on the bathroom, a little louder this time, and my decision's made for me. I slip my bare feet into my shoes and pull my pants down an extra inch so he won't catch a glimpse of my ankles and get suspicious. Then I flush the toilet—and somehow this makes me flood with guilt. Somehow it seems like that's the dead giveaway.

The hall light is harsh, far brighter than the bathroom, and I immediately look away.

“Derrick Bowen? I'm Mr. Stone. Good to meet you.” When I look again, he's standing halfway down the hall, hand extended. Now, if we met between the lines, I'd take him straight to the rack and bully him all over the place. But there's something in his posture—chest puffed a tad, eyes intense, his hand stiff in the air—that makes him seem like a seven-footer not to be tested.

“Hi,” I say. I take those few strides down the hallway and offer my hand. Then I do the thing I told myself I wouldn't—when he pumps my hand, I look away. A sure sign of guilt. I check myself and meet his gaze, but it's too late. He's already peering right into me, still squeezing my hand to death. He's a little pudgy in middle age, but there's some serious tension in his jaw and some real strength in his grip. Behind him, Lia watches us nervously.

Finally, Mr. Stone breaks the standoff. He smiles—a fake, overly cheerful grin—and waves his arm toward their living room like an usher. “Come on and sit down,” he says. “Can I get you anything?”