Page 28 of Scoring the Player
ARNAZ
“No Trespassers”
Sky-tall electric fences, overgrown thickets, guarded patrols.
Pray they keep you from the vacant rooms of my soul.
In a perfect world, each NBA team is a strong contender, which makes clinching a win challenging. In reality, there are games we go into knowing the win is in the bag for us because the team poses weak opposition. Such is the case with this season’s Detroit roster. They hung their one shot at glory on their star point guard, who ruptured his Achilles tendon in the third game of the season. Coach benched our starting lineup after halftime. The score is 104-75 with less than three minutes on the game clock.
“Want to hit the weight room after?” I ask Sid.
“Can’t,” he replies, nibbling on his bottom lip. “Need to dip.”
That’s right. Ty gets home today after a stretch of road games.
“I can already see the hickey,” I joke. They seem to cover more surface area these days.
He smirks. “No word from Salem yet?”
“Who?”
“I forgot that’s dead.” He rests his palm on my bouncing knee. “But why, again?”
“You know why. He’s not my type.”
He snickers. “All types are your type.”
I fight a grin.
“You know, it took backbone to do what he did in front of the world. I think you?—”
“Yurp!” We both fly out of our seats and yell props to Wes, who just swished a freak shot.
“At least the press has finally moved on.” I crash back into my chair. “Well, most of them.”
“Fuck Darius and Todd,” he says, pulling my arm until my fingers drop from my teeth. “Let one of us run up on them in person. See if they question our manhood then.”
Ten toes down, I know Sid has my back. He uses his considerable platform to fight homophobia, and checks anyone who gets out of line on the court. He’s a real one. No doubt. But he and Ty aren’t out to the public yet, and though they have every right to be offended, it’s my name that’s getting dragged.
Mine and Salem’s.
“Yo! Special delivery for you,”Nick calls over his shoulder as I enter the locker room.
“Give it to Ussef,” I toss back as I cut through the circle.
“Uh,” Ussef replies. “You might want to keep this one.”
Heat flushes over my scalp as a tall, cream-colored box with a dark-red bow atop a server cart comes into view.
Johan hands me an envelope with my name on it, and I tuck it into the front of my shorts.
“Open it.” I nod to him.
“Uh-uh.” He backs away. “It looks fancy.”
Christ.
I reach for the ribbon, then pause to blow on my hands before pulling and following the handwriting on the box along the edge that readsopen here.
