Page 25 of Love & Streetball

I grinned, rubbing my chin. Scottie and I together would be wild, like on some Love and Basketball type shit. It sounded cliché as hell, even in my own head, but the parallels were there. The game, then tension, the way we looked at the world from opposite sides of the tracks. It fit just like the movie.

I watched the side of her face when she focused back on the seventy-five-inch screen. Scottie had a roughness to her, but there was a softness there that people missed if they weren’t really paying attention to her. I saw it. I saw it all.

“So,” I started, stretching. “There are games coming up. Each team needs to put up eight hundred.”

Scottie tossed her head back and groaned. “I wouldn’t even be able to pitch in.”

“I’ll put it up,” I said with a shrug like it wasn’t anything. It wasn’t. I had plenty of money and access to more if I needed it.

“I can’t ask you to do that, Kane…”

“You’re not asking. I’m offering, Slim.” I licked my lips. “I just ask for one thing.”

Her eyes narrowed into slits. “What?’

“Don’t let this shit get addicting. One or two games and you’re out.”

Her brows furrowed. “Why are you acting like this could get me killed or something?”

I scoffed. “When you cross paths with the wrong niggas…anything is possible.”

Slim rolled her eyes as if I was just talking out the side of my neck. “I promise I won’t get addicted to whooping these niggas in basketball, making them cry, and running home to their mommies.”

I ran a hand down my face as I chuckled. “Maaaan.”

My phone rang, and I when I saw it was my pops, I excused myself and walked down the hallway.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Who is that in our home, Kane?” his deep voice boomed.

“A friend,” I replied, uninterested in where this convo was going.

I couldn’t do shit right in his eyes. He didn’t want me on that side of town, but when I brought that side of town to me instead, he still had something to say. He assumed that when Jalen was over to play the game, he was here to steal whatever he could find that was valuable. That was far from the truth. Jalen ain’t touch shit over here, he had no business touching. Pops was paranoid and bougie as fuck. Mama liked Jalen, but whatever Pops wanted, she followed. I wasn’t letting him run Slim off, though. I felt she needed me…and maybe I needed her too.

“My friend, Scottie,” I replied, making sure to keep my voice down.

“And where is she from? I’ve never seen her before.”

“You haven’t met all of my friends,” I countered. “She’s good people.”

‘She’s good people? When did you start talking like that, Kane? Where is she from?”

I sighed. I thought he and Mama would be too busy to be looking at the cameras. I should’ve cut the damn WIFI off.

“It’s not slang. She’s from Love Heights,” I answered. I could have lied, but I chose not to at the last minute. The lie was sitting on the tip of my tongue.

“Kane,” he gruffed as if he was annoyed. “Where did you find her?”

“Find her? That’s disrespectful.”

“Excuse me?” he snapped, his temper flaring. He always did this, always treating people like they were gum under his shoe.

“I didn’t find her anywhere. We played a game of basketball. She’s a person, not a stray dog.” I felt my temper flare, too. Mama did say I was just like him.

There was a heavy silence on the other end of the line. I could picture him standing outside the ballroom, his face flushed, pacing while gripping the phone tightly enough to crack the screen.

“I’m in the house.” I ran my tongue along the inside of my cheek. “Isn’t it where you want me to be?”