Page 167 of ClickBack

“He watched me win both of mine from somewhere else,” Von says. “I want to know what it feels like when we don’t have to find each other on the phone afterward.”

I stop leaning against the wall.

He sees it and keeps his eyes on mine. “I want that for us.”

For a moment I have nothing useful to do with my hands. I fold my arms, then drop them. I’ve been asking Cam what everybody wants for months. I didn’t ask Von that question because I didn’t trust myself to hear his answer without making it more important than everything else.

Now he has said it in front of a room full of people. He is still sitting there, still my brother, not asking me to promise something I don’t control.

“And if it doesn’t happen?” Bellamy asks.

“Then it doesn’t. He’s still Jay. We’ve been brothers longer than anybody paid us for this.”

Terrence looks toward me. “You coming up here, or are we supposed to keep shouting?”

Von grins. “Come sit down, bro. You back there looking like Graves put you on shift.”

The producer brings a chair. I pass Giselle on the way up, and she catches my hand briefly without stopping me. I sit beside my brother while they fit the spare microphone.

“Now we have television,” Terrence says.

“We had television,” Bellamy tells him. “Please don’t make me edit you out of it.”

She waits until the crew gives her the signal, then asks what playing apart changed between us.

“He stopped calling after every bad game,” Von says.

“You used to call me.”

“To talk.”

“You talked about the game.”

“Because you asked.”

I look at him. He looks right back, enjoying how long it takes me to answer.

“That might be fair,” I say.

“Look at that. On camera, too.”

Bellamy turns to me. “What did you have to learn?”

“That he could lose a game without needing me to tell him how to win the next one.”

Von sits quietly beside me. I glance at him before I continue.

“He sees what I see. Sometimes he sees it sooner. I had to stop acting like knowing him longer meant I always knew better.”

“Sometimes you do,” he says.

“I’m keeping that part.”

He laughs and knocks his knee into mine. Bellamy asks whether we could play together without turning back into the men we were in those old gyms.

“He can tell me if he doesn’t like where I put the pass,” Von says.

“You better put it where I can finish.”