The gym was alive with the sound of squeaking shoes and bouncing balls. I loved those sounds. We had started playing basketball in gym class, so it was like getting double the practice. I really did love basketball.
Lailah was at the far end of the gym. She was coming to all our games now. It was good to have fans, but having her there made me a little nervous.
Lailah put up a shot. It dropped—nothing but net. Nice shot. Or lucky shot.
“Pretty unbelievable, huh?” Kia asked.
I was jolted out of my thoughts. I felt so embarrassed that Kia had caught me looking.
“What?” I asked.
“Her.”
Lailah put up a second shot and it dropped. “Lucky,” I said.
“What are you talking about?” Kia asked.
“What are you talking about?”
“Isn’t it obvious? The fancy clothing, the strange, thinks-she’s-so-cool hairstyle, those super-long, ridiculous nails, and now she’s trying to play basketball.”
Lailah put up a third shot and it dropped as well.
“Lucky shot,” Kia said.
“That’s what I meant, but that’s three in a row so maybe it’s more than luck.”
“Even you’ve made three in a row.”
“Funny.” But semi-true. I could take Kia one-on-one, but in a straight shooting match, especially free throws, she was hard to beat.
Lailah dropped in her fourth shot. If that was luck, she was very lucky. But honestly, her shooting form was really good…almost perfect.
“You better not get into a game of horse against her. If you lose, it might be even more embarrassing for you to be around her,” Kia said.
“I can take her…what do you mean more embarrassing?”
“Nothing. She just made her fifth shot in a row,” Kia replied.
“Maybe it should be you who’s afraid to play against her…or…Come with me.”
I led Kia over to where Lailah was shooting. She put up another shot and made her sixth in a row.
“Nice shot,” I said.
“I’m more than a pretty face, you know.”
She was definitely a pretty face. I felt myself starting to blush. “You can shoot the ball. Do you play basketball?”
“I used to.”
“You used to?” I asked.
“I like watching it on tv, and playing it is okay, I guess. And I do like coming to your games.”
She smiled sweetly and I started blushing harder. I couldn’t let anybody notice that— I snapped myself back to reality.
As she was talking, she was dribbling the ball and looking at me and not the ball. Then she crossed it over through her legs! She had crazy ball control. That put her ahead of almost everybody on the school team. I thought about going away and talking to Kia first about what I was going to say next, but I knew she’d object and get mad. So I just went for it. “You know, we still have a spot open on the basketball team.”
Kia’s eyes widened in shock. She obviously hadn’t seen that one coming, but she quickly recovered. “That’s Greg’s spot. He’ll be back in a game or two.”
“Even with him we still have one spot open. We can carry twelve.”
“Do you really think I’m good enough?” Lailah asked.
“You shoot better than most of the guys on the team.”
She hesitated. “I know, but…it just seems so strange—a girl playing on the boys’ team.”
Kia made a huffing sound.
“I was thinking about trying out for the girls’ team, maybe.”
“You can play for both,” I said. “The girls’ season starts when our season ends.”
“Does she do that?” Lailah asked, pointing at Kia.
“She does not,” Kia answered.
“But she could,” I said. “You could too. I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t try out for—”
“Except for those nails,” Kia said, cutting me off. “There’s no way you’d be allowed to play with those nails because you could scratch somebody.”
“They’re fake,” she said. “I could easily take them off and get them replaced after the season.”
“So you’re going to try out?” I asked.
“Maybe.”
“You could talk to Mr. Roberts, or I could talk to him for you, if you want.”
“That would be so sweet of you.” She paused.
“And Nicky, thanks for thinking about me.”
I felt my whole body blush.