Page 124 of The Baller

“Since you’re up, can you make more coffee?” snickered Tanner.

“I’ll take one, and some juice too,” Ace added.

Four glasses were banged down on the counter, loud enough that everyone else stopped what they were doing. It seemed Radley wasn’t the only one who’d woken up in a bad mood this morning.

“Park, what’s wrong with you today?”

“Nothing.”

Ace got up, joined Parker on the other side of the counter, and slung an arm around his shoulders. “Buddy, what’s up?”

Parker sighed so deeply I stopped whisking the batter, and even Tanner stopped eating Ace’s pancakes.

“It’s New Year’s Eve tomorrow.”

All three of us stared at him, waiting to see if he was going to add any more to what we all already knew. Based on the way he was staring back at us, it felt like we should know.

But I didn’t.

“Yeah, and…”

“Midnight…” he sighed again. “You guys are all going to be making out… and I’m not.”

“Tanner won’t be,” Ace added helpfully, or perhaps not, given the way he got scowled at.

“Hey! I might be. I could make out with someone.”

I glared at Tanner until he stopped talking and turned back to the matter at hand. “Park, bud, if you want to make out with someone, then I’m sure we can find you any one of a hundred girls who’d only be more than willing.”

But he shook his head so sorrowfully, I could almost feel it in my belly. “Nah, I don’t want a random girl.”

The silence in the kitchen was only broken by the splutteringof the coffee machine firing up, and he turned back to it while the rest of us looked at each other for some kind of solution to Parker’s problem.

The batter hissed as it dropped onto the griddle.

“We do need to talk about tomorrow night. Do we have a plan yet?”

“We’ve got Stone’s New Year’s party if we want to go to it. He has that sick terrace we can watch the fireworks from,” I replied, and flipped over the first pancake, “but we can ask the girls when they get back here.”

“Girls? Is Millie coming back here?”

Parker gently placed a coffee in front of Tanner. “Dude...”

“What?”

He opened his mouth then closed it, like he’d though better of whatever wisdom he was about to impart. “Nah, you know what? I was gonna say don’t do anything stupid, but you do you, bro. Don’t waste time fucking around like I did. If you want to pursue Millie, then I fully support that.”

A wave of emotions passed over Tanner’s face before he pushed off his stool. Rounding the island, he pulled Parker into an embrace.

“Thanks, man. You’ve no idea how much I appreciate you saying that. And you know what? If you want Scout, we are going to go and goddamn get her. I give you my word, I won’t stop until you have her.”

Parker wrapped his arms around Tanner and slapped him on the back. “Thanks, bud. I love you.”

Ace and I watched the little bromance in silence, not wanting to disturb their moment, until he took a giant glug of juice which was more about disguising his grin. “Well, that was lovely.”

A much cheerier Parker placed the final coffee on the counter, and went back to what was now a soggy bowl of Coco Puffs and the Cosmo. Ace took responsibility for pouring out more juice, while Tanner returned to his stool and dished out the second stack of pancakes I’d made just as the buzzer for the elevator went off, alerting us someone was on the way up.

“We really need to stop giving people the access code,” he said, twisting the cap off the extra-large jug of maple syrup we kept, because regular sized ones lasted less than a week.

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