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“Hey, look who decided to show up!”
Archer hadn’t even noticed Jayden appear behind him or heard him bouncing the basketball down the sidewalk. He’d passed the parking lot Jayden and most of the guys usually used since few lived so conveniently close. He patted his hands against his wheels hard for good measure. He had to get his head in the game—in more ways than one. “Someone had to stop you from sending my mom into a tizzy, right? Had to get here plenty early this time.”
Jayden twirled the ball on his fingers.Show off, thought Archer. “Hey, I said I was sorry about that, man.” He looked over his shoulder to nod and shout “hey” at a few more guys who walked past them.
Archer sighed. “I know you are. I just…” He clapped his hands together once loudly. “I just wish I didn’t have to overthink everything, have to basically get permission to do anything not planned in my day.”
“I feel you. If anyone else hadn’t showed up, I’d have texted him once and that would have been the end of it, whether he responded or not.” Jayden shrugged. “Life happens and all that.”
Archer smirked. “But with me, you decide it’s necessary to call in the bomb squad?”
“You, you’re…” He nodded at him and looked him once over, as if taking in his form in the chair for the first time.
“I have a disability; I’m not dying.”
“Yeah, yeah, my bad.” Jayden cocked his head and stopped the ball from spinning by gripping it tight with both hands. “She really that bad?”
Archer nodded. “She’s really that bad.”
“Sorry.” He tossed the ball in the air a few times and caught it each time. “I would have checked on you myself, but I forgot where you live.”
“Right back that way!” Archer gestured at the sidewalk behind him with both hands, like he was an air traffic controller showing a plane where to land. “Straight down this sidewalk. Like ten minutes. You can’t miss it.”
Jayden shrugged. “I knew it was in those condos, but I didn’t knowwhich one. You’ve only had me over like once, dude.”
Archer leaned over just as Jayden went to catch the ball again and snatched it out from under him. “Fine. My bad. Just… Next time, it’s preferable you go from door to door knocking in lieu of calling my mom, okay?”
“Roger, roger.” Jayden grinned and nodded toward the court. “Ready?”
Archer spun the ball over his fingers—perhaps not as adeptly as Jayden had, but at least the ball didn’t go rolling off elsewhere—and then dropped it onto his lap, his hands on his wheels. “Areyou?” He took off toward the court.
Jayden had to jog to catch up. “So whywereyou gone Tuesday? You never said.”
Archer finished saying “hey” to the rest of the guys and passed the ball to their friend Lawrence before peeling his shirt off and tossing it onto one of the benches on the side of the court. “I wasn’t aware you were my keeper, man.”
The game started and Jayden, Team Shirts today, guarded Archer so there was no escaping him. Jayden spoke between looking over his shoulder to see if the ball was in danger of getting to Archer and shuffling around the court to make sure it never became a possibility. “I’m not. I’m just… curious. You were sick?”
“No.” Archer leaned around Jayden’s torso to track the movement of the ball, trying to subtly edge his way toward the opposing basket.
“You had a deadline?”
“Always.” Archer made a sharp turn with his wheel, jutting out just enough beyond Jayden’s range of grasp. “But I’ve been making good progress this week.”
“Okay, then I’m about stumped. I know you have no social life, so…No.” Jayden actually stopped in place, a look of astonishment on his face. Archer wondered if he’d given something—not that therewasmuch there—away, some quick flit of the truth of his thoughts, considering the way that girl wouldn’t get out of his mind. “You had a date!” shrieked Jayden. “That’s why you didn’t want your mom involved—”
“Nope.” Archer used Jayden’s utter distraction to lean out and catch a pass from Darrin. He grinned and dodged away from Jayden, using his chair to block him as he wheeled with one hand and dribbled with the other. “I don’t need to have a date to not want my mom involved, and I promise I’d send a text if I was canceling because of a girl.”
It’d taken Jayden an extra beat to get back into the game and that was all Archer needed to make the shot.
Jayden jumped, but he wasn’t quite close enough to make a difference.
The ball hit the rim and rotated all the way around… And rolled right off. So much for an epic rim shot.
Jayden laughed and did a little victory dance, like he had anything to do with it. “So close.So close.”
Archer groaned and dismissed him, digging into the bag that hung on the back of his chair for his bottle of water. He took a sip as Scott dribbled, knowing he’d probably have to step in any minute to guard Jayden. He quickly popped the spout of the bottle back in place, his last sip still swishing in his mouth, and turned around to drop the bottle back in the bag.
He dropped it right onto the court floor. And he practically spit his water out to boot. He had not expected to seeher.
