Play it Straight

THE FINE ART OF NUTMEGGING A STAR PLAYER

PHOENIX’S POV

“Okay, so I asked around and the person you need to impress today is Cristopher, not Justice.”

Zeke was pulling stuff out of the duffel bag that he brought with him. He had packed a bottle of water, a towel, protein bars and fresh set of clothes. One would think that he got all that for me to use after tryouts, but they were actually for him. He claimed that being near these many athletic guys would make him lose his cool and he’d need to be hydrated to continuing functioning like a normal human being.

“By ‘asked around’ you mean you flirted with someone on the team,” Miles stated and Zeke replied with a cheeky grin.

“Zeke, not to sound like the most righteous amongst us, but don’t you have a girlfriend? You’ve been flirting around lately.”

Zeke’s face contorted into a frown while Marlow and Miles smiled. Something happened, and they knew about it while I didn’t.

“Zeke?” I probed. “Did you break up with your girlfriend?”

“As a matter of fact, he did.’ There was a smugness in Miles’ voice as he said it and it made the frown on Zeke’s face to deepen.

“Is it my fault if her brother fancies me, dear Phoenix?” I stared blankly at him before saying, “Come again?”

“He’s not saying it right. Apparently, Zeke here had a thing with Elise’s brother last year. As a matter of fact, that was how he met Elise, although the poor girl didn’t know that he was dating Ethan. See, Ethan’s a Tennis player, so he stays in The Arena. Last year, your brother was looking for an artist who could help him out with a project and Zeke was chosen, so he was invited to The Arena. That’s where he met Ethan. They started dating then…”

“We did not date,” Zeke interjected hotly. “We made out a couple of times and he just so happened to like me a lot more than I liked him.”

“Cruel,” I said. “Continue Miles.”

“During one of his games, his sister came to cheer him on. That’s when she and Zeke met. He managed to avoid Ethan which was not as difficult as you’d think since they had completely different class schedules and living quarters. Ethan complained to his sister about the guy that broke his heart while she told him about the guy who made her giddy in the morning.”

Miles and Marlow were laughing now and Zeke was getting redder and redder with each word Miles spoke. I could sense right away that it did not have a happy ending.

“It was just a matter of time before they both found out it was the same person. Let’s just say Elise loves her brother more than she’d ever love any guy in the world. Show him what she posted on the Elite Block.”

At the mention of the Elite Block, I felt my whole body freeze up and shut down. My heart started beating rapidly and I got all sweaty. Bile rose to my throat and I felt like passing out. My limbs were shaking, but I tried to not let the guys see it as Marlow pulled out his phone and went on the website.

There was a weird and funny photo of Zeke mid sneeze with his eyes closed and his mouth all funky. The caption read, “I can’t believe I liked a guy who made me call him snuggle dragon during phone sex.”

“s**t,” I said out loud. Miles and Marlow were full-on laughing now, although I could only hear Miles’ voice. “That’s not all. There’s a bunch of really embarrassing comments about him in the CS. I think she gathered around all her friends and the people he’s dated to drop comments about him.

“Well, it doesn’t matter how hard she tries to humiliate me because I am still everyone’s favorite person. I can still make a girl dump her boyfriend for me and vice versa. If Elise thinks this little social media stunt would make me recoil and have no one else to date, she’s wrong. And my flirting with Jordan this morning is proof of that.”

The atmosphere changed and the sounds of sneakered feet against the floorboards died instantly as everywhere became still. Looking up, I saw Justice and a few other guys walk in. I knew I was a sucker for pretty and handsome boys and I basically drooled over anyone who fit my description of handsome, but my God! The guy he walked in with was on another level.

He wasn't just good-looking – he was the kind of beautiful that made your stomach flip and your thoughts scatter like papers in a windstorm. He had a jawline that could slice through silence and a stupid, lazy half-smile that bordered on illegal. His hair looked like it had been tousled by angels or maybe just a really good sin. And those eyes – God, those eyes – deep grey and dangerous, like he knew every secret you’d ever try to hide. He moved like he knew people were watching him.

“Fly trap,” Zeke teased and smacked my mouth. It hurt, but it got me back down to earth before anyone else noticed me ogling and drooling over the hottest guy on the planet.

“Alright everyone, gather round. It’s time to start the try outs.”

A skinny guy with round glasses and an oversized jersey handed Justice a tablet. He peered thoughtfully at it, his mind probably playing out how to go about the audition.

“Welcome, everyone, to the basketball team’s tryout. My name’s Justice and I am your captain.”

“Assistant,” one bulky guy said. Justice gave him a hard glare before continuing on like he was never interrupted.

“Now, usually, we play a full game to determine who makes the team and who doesn’t, but today, tryouts are going to be a little different. You’ll play amongst yourselves at first, and those who pass that round will play against our second-best player, Christopher.” He pointed at the Adonis who had taken a spot on the bleachers. My breath caught in my throat when we locked eyes. His gaze was soul-piercing and I thought I was going to melt like ice under heat and join a puddle somewhere.

“You look just like Jackson,” the guy who had interrupted Justice said.

“Yeah, not s**t, Sherlock.” Christopher’s voice was heavenly. I always fancied myself loyal to some extent, but right now, Christopher was making me think of pushing Miles aside. “You’d think that as twins they’d look nothing alike.” He said this last part while maintaining eye contact with me. My body was on fire from that stare but I willed myself to not look away. My best friend, Amanda, always taught me that no matter what, I should never look away from a stare-down with a guy. “They always are impressed when we don’t blush and shy away”, she said, “So make sure to never do that. That way you can earn their attention.”

I was certain that would have been the case if I wasn’t a ‘boy.’

He looked away first, a small scowl on his face. I couldn’t tell if he was mad at me or something else that pissed him off.

“Okay. Let’s begin.”

All the new players gathered on the court. I assessed my rivals – every single one of them was bigger and taller than I was, but the good thing was that they didn’t look gnarly like the guys in my former school did. These ones here had a quiet and calm disposition about them and I was intent on using that to my advantage.

By the time we were done playing, I had scored fifteen points and my wrists hurt from how much I had to bend them backwards in order to score a point. I had underestimated those guys. Just because they looked calm and innocent didn’t in any way mean that they did not know how to play. I prided myself in my amazing basketball skills, and I did believe I could beat anybody in a one-on-one match, but I didn’t realize that playing with a team of heavily built guys was completely different from playing with a team of semi-professional skinny girls.

“Okay. Crossbow, Molborror, Bellamy, Evans and Jameson…” My heart leaped to my throat when I heard my name. I made it! I made it passed the first round.

“Take five. Don’t get too comfortable though.” He glanced at me, but it was only brief. Justice and I hadn’t crossed paths since he rescued me from Trevor and gave me permission to use his bathroom. I always made sure to go there early in the morning when no one else was up, and late at night when I was certain my roommate was sleeping. We didn’t have any classes together and it was hard to spot him randomly in the dinning hall or along the walkways.

“Jameson. You’re up.”

I did not count on being called first. I was hoping that I’d get to see someone else play so that I could assess just how good Christopher was. He came down from the bleachers, his sleeveless arms flexing with each step he took. I gulped thinking desperately of how I was going to focus being that close to him.

The basketball smelled like sweat, and my palms were already damp. Three minutes in and neither of us had made any basket. I could sense he was just as frustrated as I was because of how good we both were. I was no longer thinking of him as a boy I had a crush on but was seeing him as the enemy. I needed to crush him.

You’ve done this before. Hundreds of times. You’ve played against boys. You’ve played better.

I tried to pep-talk my way into scoring a point but it didn’t work. Instead, because of my slight drop in focus, Christopher managed to best me. One dribble and a quick step was all it took for him to be up in the air, the ball aiming straight for the net. Loud cheers rang out praising him as I groaned in frustration. I looked over at Zeke, Miles and Marlow who all looked at me encouragingly. Marlow glared hard at Christopher before facing me and giving me a thumbs-up.

I looked up and locked eyes with him. Christopher. He twirled the ball on one finger and smiled at me like I was his little brother.

“Don’t worry, I’ll go easy on you,” he smirked.

I hated that smirk. Matter of fact, I hated him now. It was scary how easy it was for me to go from drooling over someone to wanting to rip their head off their body.

He tossed me the ball.

I started dribbling. My fingers found the rhythm quick; left, right, crossover. He moved with me. His stance was tight, arms spread. I pivoted once, twice…then slipped the ball clean between his legs.

The entire gym gasped but I was too focused on scoring. Christopher was standing, frozen on the spot. That was the opportunity I needed to score one in. The ball bounced behind him, and I darted around his side, caught it, and made a layup so smooth the net didn’t even twitch.

“Yes!” I screamed out in triumph. That was a three-pointer. I was two points ahead of him. I looked at my friends on the bleachers and noticed that they were the only ones clapping and smiling. That was when I noticed the awkward silence that filled the other parts of the court.

Christopher was burning a bright shade of red that his tan couldn’t even hide. His glare made me squirm and I staggered a bit. Turning to face Justice, I saw that he had a surprised look on his face, before it slowly morphed into a smile. He even snorted, but covered his mouth with the back of his palm.

“Daaaamn,” someone sang from the bleachers.

“He just got megged by the new kid.”

And that’s when the weight of what I did hit me.

“Oh s**t!” I gasped slowly. It was only my first day, but I had managed to humiliate the person who got a say in whether I was on the team or not. I wanted to die. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me in that moment.

“That was lucky,” he muttered, not looking at me.

“I wasn’t trying to…” I started but he cut me off.

“Save it.”

He stormed off. Justice didn’t say anything, just typed in something on his tablet with a goofy grin on his face.

“Max, please take over from Christopher.”

A very pretty and adorable boy with blue-green eyes walked up to me, a smile on his pretty-boy face.

“Ballsy, dude. Good way to make enemies on day one.”

I didn’t even have it in me to gush about his voice and his angel like appearance.

I watched Christopher go, heat burning up my neck. I didn’t mean to humiliate him. I didn’t even realize I’d nutmegged him until the whispers started.

Great. First day, and I just murdered one of the best player’s pride on public display.

What else can you mess up, Phoenix?