Page 1 of Kickoff

Prologue

I think you are pretty. For a girl

Wiping the sweat along my hairline with my sleeve, I watched the moving truck as it parked in front of the house next door. A man about Dad’s age climbed out, followed by an older boy, probably in high school, who looked just like him. No doubt father and son. Both stood with their fists on their hips, observing the house after the boy removed the Just Sold sign from the front lawn.

I wondered if they were the new owners.

Mom told me there would be a kid about my age moving next door, and I’d been shooting hoops all day, trying to catch sight of him. I couldn’t wait to have a new best friend since most kids in our street were either babies or teenagers.

Craig, my older brother, said earlier I looked like a creep, but I didn’t care.

Since Lee, my old best friend, moved away last month, I had been wondering what his replacement would look like.

The father-son duo rounded the box truck, opened the rear roll-up door, and entered the cargo area only to come out with their arms full of boxes seconds later.

The man spotted me and offered a warm smile. “Hey there.”

I returned his greeting with a wave.

Maybe I did look like a creep after all. Not wanting them to think I was being weird, I focused on the ball in my hand.

From the time I was old enough to throw, I’d been obsessed with balls. Footballs. Basketballs. Baseballs. Anything I could toss, dribble, or hit. Passing a ball was my special power as Mom called it.

According to Dad, I had what he called one heck of an arm. I could throw with precision and barely ever tired out. Last summer, my parents enrolled me in baseball and football camps. Since then, the latter had become my sport of choice. I loved everything about throwing a pigskin across a field in a perfect arc and watching the receiver catch it mid-air. Each time, it filled me with pride. It helped that my brother’s sport of choice was also football. While my special power was throwing, his was catching.

And we worked great together. Like a well-oiled machine, Dad often said. Yep, Craig always anticipated my moves as I did his.

Right now, I was alone and couldn’t play catch, so basketball was my only option to blow off some steam and busy myself.

Handling the ball with ease, I shot from the sidewalk into the basket. “He shoots and scores.” Pivoting on my feet, I dribbled some more, pretending I had some fierce opponents hot on my heels. “Mason Pierce is the player to watch this season, ladies and gentlemen. No wonder he’s going pro next year.” Craig always made fun of me when I faked being a commentator, describing my own plays, but I didn’t care. I had to get used to it because playing for the big league was my future—and my dream.

I feinted a spin to the right, only to go left and shoot a three-point hoop from an imaginary top of the key. The ball slid smoothly through the rim fixed above the garage door. Pride coursed through my blood, and I pumped my fist.

“Wow, you’re good.”

I jumped around at the sound of a small voice behind me. A girl with long, wavy brown hair and turquoise eyes that glimmered with curiosity under a hitched brow stood a few feet from me. For a second, I lost myself in the pool of her eyes because they looked like the ocean on a sunny day.

“Who are you?” I asked with a sigh, scanning the length of her, wondering if my wishes had gotten mixed up because I seemed to have landed a girl-neighbor instead of a boy-neighbor.

“Melinda Shepard. I guess I live next door now. We’re moving in today.”

“Oh.” My shoulders dropped. She was not a boy-neighbor. I wanted to say something else, but my words were stuck in my throat, and I had no idea how to get them out. This kinda sucked. Big time.

The forgotten ball rolled between my feet down the pavement, and I bent forward to retrieve it before it reached the street.

“Are you a student at Elk River Middle School?” she asked.

“Yes, I’ll be in seventh grade. Going to be twelve soon.”

“I’ll be in seventh grade too. I turned twelve at the beginning of the summer.”

“We’re the same age? Wow, you’re tall. Like tenth-grade tall.”

She shrugged. “Mom too said that the other day when we went shopping. Will you be on the school basketball team? You’re pretty good. You should try out.”

“No. I play football. I’ll be on that team. I only play basketball when I’m alone and have nothing fun to do. Mom doesn’t want Craig and me to play video games so⁠—”

“My mom doesn’t even want me to watch TV other than on Saturdays when we have a family movie night.” She shrugged. “How old is your brother?”