I nod to Kid and Jayson. “Go on. I’ll hoof it home later.”
They both know I’m going over to Wes. Jayson raises his eyebrows. “You know Mom’s not cool with that,” he says.
“She doesn’t have to know,” I say. That came out a little sharp, so I shrug at them. “Wes is my boy. I can’t just ditch him forever.”
Jayson doesn’t look convinced, but Kid understands. He nods at me and gives a half-smile. He might have lectured me about cutting dead weight, but Kid knows that you have to stay true to your people.
This isn’t at all what I had in mind. It’s like with hoops—sometimes you play out a whole game in your head, how things will break your way, how you’ll put the clamps on the other squad, how you’ll get a run-out early to get things rolling. Then that orange goes up and everything switches up on you. The other team’s changed offenses. Your first shot rattles out. You get a cheap foul. It all goes to pieces.
That’s about how it’s gone with Wes tonight. The idea was to get him away from JaQuentin, just let him ease back into being the same old Wes—easygoing, ready to chill, no stupid stuff. Instead, he dropped it on me that he skated on home detention because JaQuentin “had the hook up.” Then he told me we could head back to the block together. I figured that meant just me and Wes kicking it on foot like old times, but what that really meant was piling into JaQuentin’s black Tahoe, the last place on earth I want to be. I’m in back next to Wes, and there’s some thugged-out guy riding shotgun. That guy’s about as tatted as Kid Ink. He’s got his neck marked, some detailed designs on his forearms. Even his fingers sport tats—a 3 and a 7 on his right hand with a symbol I can’t make sense of between them.
And of course JaQuentin isn’t rolling straight back to Patton. No, he tells me he’s got to make a pit stop, and soon enough we’re cruising slow through the streets behind the Marott Apartments. Peggs keeps eyeing his phone like he’s waiting on a text. I give the death stare to Wes, but he just shrugs. Then he mouths It’s cool to me. I just shake my head and turn back toward my window. I don’t want to get into it now. Lord knows I don’t want to distract JaQuentin from his driving any more than he already is with that phone. It’s a sure bet he’s riding dirty, so I don’t want a repeat of this summer with Wes.
“Can you believe this motherfucker?” JaQuentin asks his buddy in the front. Peggs holds up his phone. “I texted him ten minutes ago and he said he’d be here. Shiiit.”
His inked-up friend just grunts. JaQuentin steps on the gas and roars around the corner to start another lap. He loops his arm around the passenger side’s headrest and cranes back toward us. He shifts his lazy gaze back and forth between me and Wes. Meanwhile, he’s still cruising a few miles an hour, his car drifting across the center lines. “After this we gonna hit up a place on 30th. My boy Hutch is throwing down tonight. You two invited.”
When I clear my throat, Peggs doesn’t even flinch. “You got a problem, Bowen?” he asks.
“I got to get back,” I say. I try to put a little oomph behind it. After all, I’ve got four inches on the guy. But I can’t hide the fact that I’m way out of my comfort zone.
“What? You ball a little and you think you’re too good for us? Shit. You in my car now, D-Bow.” Then he hits the brakes and jackknifes into an open space, the back end hanging out a good two feet. He points out the passenger side’s window. “There he is. Let’s roll.”
He and his friend get out. A gust of night wind comes into JaQuentin’s ride. I’m no fool. I know what they’re doing. They move beneath dim streetlights down to the corner where a man—older, bulkier—waits. He keeps his body still, but his head swivels slowly, like a security camera. The street’s so quiet you can hear the roar of engines racing on nearby blocks. When the man finally sees JaQuentin, his There you are cuts clean through the air. After that, they talk more quietly. All you can hear are rises in inflection, bursts of laughter now and then.
“You got to be kidding me,” I seethe at Wes.
He’s pinched himself all the way back into the opposite corner, as far away from me as he can be. “It’s not a thing,” he says. “Be cool.”
“Be cool,” I spit back. It’s like someone who’s just committed three straight turnovers and been beaten for three straight buckets turning to you and saying My bad.
When we were runts, they’d hit us with all these talks at school. They’d bring police officers in to lecture us about every single danger out there. Nobody took it seriously. It was like the more they tried to scare us, the tougher we had to act. They did this one exercise, though, I thought was over the top. They’d have a person stand on the teacher’s desk and try to pull up another kid who was sitting on the floor. Nobody could do it. Not even the strongest guy. Then they’d have the person on the floor tug on the person on the desk. Most of the time, the person on the desk would come tumbling down in a heap. They told us that was what it was like trying to help someone who was messed up with the wrong people or on drugs or something. All they did was drag you down.
I guess I always thought that was stupid—like the moral was to never try helping anyone. Until now.
“You didn’t have to come,” Wes says.
“I wanted to try to help you.”
Now Wes gets his back up. “Help me? You think I need your help? Just accept that I got my own thing going and deal.”
“This is your thing?” I gesture out the window to where JaQuentin slaps hands with the guy they met. They hug it out and then Peggs and his boy start back for the car. Right then the chirp from a police car pierces the night. Everyone freezes. In that pause I feel it all—my season, my career, my dreams—drifting away like so much smoke.
But it’s just a noise from another block, signaling trouble for someone else. It’s like a warning shot though. JaQuentin hustles back to his ride. He and his boy pile in. He smiles at us in the back seat. “Business is over. Play time now. Let’s hit up Hutch’s.”
“I can’t do that,” I say.
JaQuentin’s smile vanishes. He turns to his boy riding shotgun. “D-Bow does think he’s too good for us. I guess if you don’t have scholarship offers from the ACC then you don’t rate in the great D-Bow’s book.”
“It’s not about that, it’s—”
“What?” JaQuentin shouts at me.
“I just got to get home.”
JaQuentin stares at me for a few seconds. He looks at his friend. Then at Wes. Then back at me. “Fine,” he says. He throws his ride into reverse to back us out, then lays down some tire as he roars down the road. First stop sign we hit, he slows enough that I can hear him mutter to himself—“Some bullshit, Bowen. Straight bullshit.”
But at least we’re heading back to Patton.
I don’t even try to cover it. I’m late, so they’ll demand an explanation.
And as soon as the name—Wes—is out of my mouth, Mom springs off the couch. “I know!” she hollers. I shake my head, and she can see what I’m thinking. “Don’t act like your brother betrayed you. What? You think he’s going to lie to me to protect you? Would you do that for him?”
I mutter out a no, the only acceptable answer. Besides, it’s probably the truth. I fear nothing on the hardwood, but, man, nobody has the brass to lie to my mom when she gets heated up. I take a quick look at Dad. He’s sitting in his chair, hands gripping the armrests. He reaches up slowly, removes his glasses, and wipes his tired eyes. Then he shakes his head. “If you’re looking to me for sympathy, you’re not going to find it. Come on, son. On the same night you were