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  Playing The Game

  By Jeff Shelby

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Playing The Game

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright ©2016

  Cover design by Indie-Spired Design

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the expressed written consent of the author.

  Books by Jeff Shelby

  The Joe Tyler Novels

  THREAD OF HOPE

  THREAD OF SUSPICION

  THREAD OF BETRAYAL

  THREAD OF INNOCENCE

  THREAD OF FEAR

  THREAD OF REVENGE

  The Noah Braddock Novels

  KILLER SWELL

  WICKED BREAK

  LIQUID SMOKE

  DRIFT AWAY

  LOCKED IN

  The Moose River Mysteries

  THE MURDER PIT

  LAST RESORT

  ALIBI HIGH

  FOUL PLAY

  YOU'VE GOT BLACKMAIL

  ASSISTED MURDER

  The Deuce Winters Novels (Under the pseudonym Jeffrey Allen)

  STAY AT HOME DEAD

  POPPED OFF

  FATHERS KNOWS DEATH

  Short Story Collections

  OUT OF TIME

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  Playing the Game

  by

  Jeff Shelby

  ONE

  Here's the thing.

  When you're in high school, making varsity sounds like it will solve all of your problems. It'll make you popular, it'll make people get out of your way, and it'll make you feel like you belong. It'll make it easier to get girls, it'll make it easier to get away with crap in school, and it'll make weekends a hell of a lot more fun.

  Those things aren't wrong.

  But making varsity will also fuck up your life. Distort it all to hell. It'll start out looking like the greatest thing ever, but then it'll slowly morph into this monster that you never saw coming.

  Don't believe me? Trust me, you won't even recognize it.

  Fuck. Up. Your. Life.

  TWO

  My damn feet had grown again.

  It wasn't a bad thing to be sixteen and six-foot-three, but it sucked when you needed new shoes every six months and your dad didn't exactly have any extra cash laying around and your mom lived in another state with another guy who couldn't even remember your name because he was too busy having sex with her and telling her they needed time to themselves before they could even think about raising a teenager.

  Whatever, dickhead.

  I sat on my bed and re-laced the too-small Nikes, loosening them as much as possible before shoving my feet into them. My toes curled up against the fronts, and I felt like a gnome. Or one of those Chinese chicks who used to get their feet bound.

  I kicked them off and padded out to the living room of the two-bedroom apartment I shared with my dad.

  He was slouched in the old recliner, feet up, his tie hanging limply around his neck, the remote in his hand.

  “I need shoes again, Dad,” I said, stretching out on the couch. A spring poked me in the back and I shifted, trying to find a more comfortable position.

  He frowned, his eyes on the screen of the 22-inch we’d bought the day after we moved in. I had to squint to see it, the screen was so small, but when I’d complained, he’d looked at me and said, “At least we have one.”

  “Dad. Shoes. I need new ones.”

  His eyes stayed fixed on the television. “Why?”

  “Uh, because my feet grew.”

  “I swear we just bought you a pair, Brady.”

  “Before last season, yeah.”

  “Just shove 'em in there.”

  “Dad.”

  His frown deepened but he said nothing. He punched the button on the remote, changing the screen from one news show to another.

  “Tryouts are Monday,” I said. I hated that I had to ask, had to practically beg. Hated that I needed them. “I wouldn't ask if I didn't need them.”

  “Tryouts?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Like you even need to try out. That coach knows what you can do. He practically begged us to enroll you when we moved here two months ago.” The eyebrow dropped. “As long as you hold up your end of the deal, you'll be fine.”

  My end of the deal.

  To play hoops like a fiend and earn a scholarship somewhere.

  To block everything else out.

  Which I'd sucked at so far.

  “I'll keep my end of the deal,” I said.

  He eyed me. “I know you will. But tryouts are a formality. That coach tripped over himself getting us to the attendance office.

  I remembered. The big, unwanted move from Colorado to California. Divorce was final, and Mom was planning to marry the asshole who'd torn our lives apart, and I'd totally blown off the last semester of my sophomore year. Dad couldn't stand the idea of staying in Denver so he put in for a transfer with the restaurant chain he worked for, thinking we could both get a fresh start. Which they were cool with. Until we got to California and they closed the restaurant and Dad found himself scrambling to line up an assistant manager gig at a smaller chain, working nights and making a lot of pasta and rice for our dinners. Instead of finding a cool cottage by the beach like we’d both dreamed of, we'd holed up in a shitty old apartment instead, looking for a school that might help me get noticed during basketball season. As long as I made varsity.

  And held up my end of the deal.

  “Maybe cut open the toes,” he said.

  “I don't have to play.”

  He snorted. “Knock it off. I’m kidding.”

  “So was I.”

  His eyes lingered on me for a moment. He hit a button on the remote and the TV screen went dark. He set the remote on the arm of the recliner and looked at me. “I get paid tomorrow night. I'll get you some cash and you can go shopping over the weekend.”

  “I'll get the cheapest I can find.” Cheap and basketball shoes were words that never went together. Ever.

  He waved a hand in the air. “Get what you need to get, Brady. We'll figure it out.”

  We'll figure it out.

  That had become his mantra. I knew things were tighter than he told me. I knew he was sadder about the demise of our family than he let on. I knew he was worried that I might blow off the entire basketball season and play like a dipshit. He didn't want me to worry, and he didn't want me to know he was worried. But the lines creasing his forehead didn't lie and I felt guilty for my part in creating the road map his face had become.

  I'd find the cheapest I could live with. I didn't need the newest and most expensive. Just ones that wouldn't mangle my toes and would hold my ankles in place.

  “How's school?” he asked. “Other than making your feet grow.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine as in ‘it sucks and I don't wanna talk about it’ or fine as in ‘it's okay because it's school and you gotta go every day’?” he asked, raising the eyebrow again.

  I stared at the ceiling. It was made of that popcorn stuff, big white bumps and flecks that sort of looked like the surface of the moon. Not that I'd been there or anything.

  “The second one,” I finally said.

  He nodded. “You got friends?”

  “Sure.”

  “Girls?”

  “Dad.”

  “I'm just asking.”
He pulled the lever on the recliner and dropped his feet to the floor. He paused, running a hand over his face, his fingers kneading his temples. “All seriousness, Brady. We're here because of me. If it's not working out, I want you to tell me and we'll—”

  “It's good, Dad,” I said. “Really. I'm fine. Once the season starts, it'll all be good.”

  He stared at me, as if he were trying to see if I was lying or something. Maybe my nose would grow or a big L would show up on my forehead. Or maybe he’d suddenly developed some parental radar that could detect that kind of stuff.

  But I wasn't lying.

  Not completely, anyway.

  He put his hands on his thighs and pushed himself out of the chair. It squeaked and creaked and I crossed my fingers that it wouldn’t collapse into a pile of worn fabric and splintered wood. Because I knew that would be the last straw, if his recliner went kaput. Not the divorce, not the move, not the loss of his job.

  “Alright. I'll stop hassling you. For now. I'm gonna head to bed. I gotta be at the restaurant in the morning for inventory and then head back tomorrow night for my shift.” He smiled at me, an exhausted, forced smile, the kind of smile no kid likes to see on their parent. “And to get my check.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  He grunted as he headed toward his room. “Just make the damn team so I'm not working doubles to get you through college.”

  THREE

  I wasn't lying to my dad about school.

  But when you're the new kid at a big public high school and you're trying to forget about shit and you're taller than most and you move from another state and you have to ride a bike every day and you use the same backpack you've had for the last three years and you don't know anyone and everyone kinda looks at you funny because they've never seen you before and you wear shoes too small for you and T-shirts that would fit a little better if they were just a little bigger and you've got this wavy crazy hair that can't be combed and the rumor is that you can dunk a basketball and you suck at geometry and you like books and you don't have an iPhone and you eat by yourself most days counting the days until basketball season starts because you know you'll have built-in friends then but you can feel the pressure building...

  Well, it's fine. It's not great and it's not awful and it's not good and it's not terrible.

  It's just fine.

  FOUR

  Cayla Rafferty was also fine.

  I'd bought my shoes over the weekend (last year's Nike Hyperdunks, size fourteen, white with red trim, eighty-four bucks and change) and they were clunky in my backpack as I set it on the floor, across from Cayla.

  She glanced at me. Long blond hair. Big blue eyes. Killer body. Always in the right clothes. “You're Brady, right? Mickelson?”

  I nodded.

  “So then you're trying out today?”

  I swallowed. “Yeah.”

  She smiled. “Good luck.”

  “Thanks,” I said, trying to save the cones and rods in my eyes from her blinding smile.

  I'd noticed her the first day. It was kind of impossible not to. She was a senior, a year older than me, which felt like decades in high school years. The only senior in my geometry class.

  Unfortunately, I'd also noticed her boyfriend, Ty Hammerling. Also a senior. A basketball player. Built like a guy with the word hammer in his name. I was big, but he was bigger.

  “Ty says he hears you're good,” Cayla said.

  What did that even mean?

  I shrugged. “I'm okay.”

  “Like, as in free-ride-scholarship-watch-you-on-TV good,” she said, and I couldn’t tell if she was asking a question or making a statement.

  I shrugged again. I unzipped my bag and pulled my book out from beneath my shoes. “I don't know.”

  I wasn't being an ass and I wasn't trying to be all mysterious. I just really wasn't sure how good I was compared to Ty and the other guys I'd be playing with. I'd been to summer camps and I'd held my own. But this school, this team? I had no clue. I'd been good enough in Denver, had gotten a couple of letters from schools saying they were interested, but that whole scholarship game was bullshit, anyway. Until I got a real offer from a real school, I wasn't getting excited about anything.

  I needed to make the team. Not just to make friends and get girls. That was a no-brainer. But if I wanted to be all responsible and shit, I knew I needed it because that was the only way I was getting to college. My dad couldn't afford it. We both knew it. Every time I mentioned loans, he freaked out, telling me I'd never get out from under the debt if I did that. So if I wanted a college diploma, basketball was gonna be the way to get it. I wasn't some braniac looking to ride a sports scholarship on my way to becoming a lawyer, but I watched my dad drag himself home from his shitty, late-night shifts at the restaurant and I knew I wasn't going down that miserable road, either.

  So I needed to block everything out and focus. And make the goddamn team.

  “I'll bet you're good. You look good.” Her eyes were on me, like she was eyeing a plate full of doughnuts. She twirled a pencil in between her fingers, her thumb sliding up and down the shaft, and I had to look away.

  “We'll see,” I mumbled.

  It was as much for me to hear as it was for her.

  FIVE

  Alright, I sorta lied, because my dad caught me one time in sixth grade telling Kenny Stratton that I was better at basketball than everyone else in school and so instead of going home he drove me to the downtown Denver YMCA where they had pickup games every night and he sat there as I got demolished by guys who were about seventy times better than me and then on the way home he said it wasn't good to brag because there's always someone out there who's better than you and it was embarrassing when that guy showed up and made you look stupid and that he'd ground me from basketball for a month if he ever heard me running my mouth like a punk to anyone ever again.

  Point taken, Dad.

  But I knew I was good.

  I'd played for too long to not know it. Most any time I walked into a gym, I was the best player on the floor. It didn't matter to me. I mean, it wasn't like I was going to go around yelling it and puffing out my chest. Or brag to hot chicks in my geometry class. But it was a fact. I was usually better than everyone else. (And seriously, that's not bragging. That's a fact. If I had stats to prove it, I'd show you. But really, I can play. My dad would be cool with me saying it like that. I think.)

  And tryouts at school ended up being no different.

  Coach Raymond was a tall, skinny guy with a voice that sounded like it belonged to a radio announcer instead of a high school basketball coach. He seemed to talk more than he actually coached, rattling on and on about inspiration and battling and the kind of shit a coach talks about when he doesn't know what to draw up when a zone is suffocating you and taking away your best shooter. He ran us through some basic drills, some shooting and passing stuff, some dribbling, some rebounding, nothing I hadn't seen before. Then he matched us up and we played five-on-five for ten minutes at a time, full court.

  Ty Hammerling, Cayla's boyfriend, was good. Senior. Couple inches taller than me, definitely more muscles than me. Decent shot, knew how to play defense, ran hard.

  Derek Stoddard was better. Senior. About my height, could handle the ball. Could get to the hoop from the wing and could finish most of the time.

  Ken Blanton was not. Senior. Biggest guy on the team. He liked to post up and call for the ball, then take a garbage turnaround jumper that clanged off the rim, then bitch about getting fouled as he was the last guy up the floor.

  Blake Trucott was okay. Senior. He hustled, played decent defense, found the open man. Nothing special, but didn't hurt you, either.

  But it was all running through me.

  I brought the ball up when Derek couldn't shake free. I started the offense. I hit my threes. I jumped the passing lanes. I broke down whoever had to guard me on the dribble. I found the open guy on the break.

  And they all knew I was the best guy in
the gym the first time down.

  Ty rebounded the ball and fired an outlet pass to Derek. I was streaking up the opposite side of the court. We made eye contact and I lifted my chin as I blew by the kid who tried to grab at me as I went by. Derek took another dribble to half-court, then lobbed the ball up to the rim. Pretty sure he was testing me, to see if the new kid really could get up because it was kind of a risky pass when he didn't know for sure I could get it. But I caught it on the way up and grunted as I slammed it through the hoop with two hands.

  For a moment, all the shit went away. The divorce. The lack of money. The move. The pressure. It all faded away into the hardwood and nylon.

  Oohs and aahs flittered around the gym as I dropped to the floor and ran back on defense.

  Nail the play. Announce yourself. Scream it out loud.

  I'M MAKING THE DAMN BASKETBALL TEAM.

  And I did.

  SIX

  And that's all it took.

  I was in.

  Derek found me at lunch the next day and invited me to sit with him and Ty and Ken and the other returners. Other guys, guys not on the team, said hey to me in the halls. People I'd never spoken to before were watching me. Girls were looking at me. Noticing me.

  All because I made the team.

  “Games are crazy, dude,” Derek said. He blew at the hair on his forehead, a blondish, stylized version of my own too-wavy-to-be-cool hair.

  “Yeah?” I asked, not because I didn’t believe him but because it seemed like he was waiting for an answer.

  “Gym is packed,” he said as he polished off his sandwich. It was loaded with roast beef and ham and it looked good. Better than the limp peanut butter on white that was sitting in front of me, and way better than the meatloaf surprise I would have gotten if I hadn’t remembered to slap a sandwich together. Qualifying for free school lunches didn't do jack shit when the food they served wasn't suited for dogs, much less humans.