Page 242 of On His Team

Benson is already in the building when I arrive. Percy comes in not long after. Stanley appears carrying six coffees and refuses to explain why he bought six when nobody asked him to.

By two-thirty, all of us are in the team room. Something is playing on the television before the selection show starts, but nobody is watching it. Stanley sits down, gets back up, walks behind the couch, sits again, then gets up one more time.

Blue finally looks at him. “Sit the fuck down.”

“I can’t.”

“You’re making everybody worse.”

He shakes out his hands. “I’m making myself better.”

Percy is leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, hands linked between them. Benson sits beside him, quieter than usual. Mackey is next to me.

My phone buzzes.

Gianna: Are you going to throw up?

I look at the message.

Me: No.

Her reply comes immediately.

Gianna: Benson said Stanley might.

I glance across the room. Stanley is pacing again.

Me: Possible.

Gianna: Call me when you know.

Me: Yeah.

I turn the phone over on my knee.

The selection show starts. The room goes completely quiet.

I don’t understand why TV makes something this important look so casual. Regions populate one at a time while some guy at a desk talks in the same voice he would use to discuss weather. Entire seasons are ending or continuing based on names appearing on a screen, and the broadcast keeps moving like everybody watching is not losing their minds.

The first region fills.

Not us.

The second starts.

Michigan.

Stanley makes a sound under his breath, but nobody reacts.

Then the third region appears.

One-seed.

Two.

And then:

Camden.