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“Is that why you were staring at me while I was dancing with those girls?”
I rolled my eyes, even though I had, in fact, been staring. “You’re trippin’.”
“I know I’m better than you on the football field, but you don’t have to pretend you hate me.”
He winked, and again, why couldn’t I punch him? Why wasn’t that a thing I could do? Besides the fact that, really, I was a lover and not a fighter…and his rich daddy would likely sue me or get me thrown in jail. At the very least, I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to go to Football Plus Camp anymore, and as much as I hated being there with him, it was the best chance I had of improving my skill even more so I could play college football and ultimately go into the NFL. “Fuck you,” I replied again, because what else could I say to him? Even if I won this round, people like Whitt always won in the long run.
I walked away.
It wasn’t the last time I ran into him that night. Later, he was sitting at the table, talking about his dad and how much he wanted to nurture Whitt’s career and how proud his family was of the fact that they just knew he would make it to the NFL one day. They must have been really close because Whitt was always talking him up, bragging about how much his dad supported him and how there was nothing he wouldn’t do for Whitt when it came to football.
It must be nice to have the perfect fucking life.
I left the party after that, walking two miles to the nearest bus station and then taking the bus back to my neighborhood. D hadn’t fucked up with Shondra, so he was staying there.
Even though it was after midnight, my mom was sitting in the kitchen, wearing her uniform from the restaurant. She worked Monday through Friday in an office and then evenings and weekends waitressing, just to make ends meet. It’s what she’d done when my real dad bailed. Then she’d met Steven. He’d been great—treating me and Kayla as if we were his own, even after they had Zuri and Savanna. She’d been able to quit the restaurant, too, but then a heart attack had taken him away from us.
“I thought you were staying at Dimitri’s?” Mama asked before giving me a kiss.
“It didn’t work out.”
“You smell like beer. Boy, you know how I feel about drinking!” Mom gave me that look that said I was fucked.
“I only had one. The other someone spilled on me.”
“You’re sixteen. You don’t need to be drinking at all…or at a party where there’s drinking. You’re gonna get yourself into trouble.”
“I’ll be careful,” I told her, but we both knew it didn’t always matter how careful we were. Trouble could still find people like us.
“I just love you so much…and I want what’s best for you. You got a bright future ahead of you, Malik, and I don’t want to see you mess it up.”
“I know, Mama,” I replied before sitting at the small table across from her.
“I’m sorry. I just want you to have it easier. You’re so damn talented, and I’m so proud of you…Steven was, too. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for you.”
All she wanted was for her kids to be happy. I was second out of four, Kayla being the oldest. She would graduate high school this year and would be going to community college and staying home. I wanted a better life for them, wanted to play the sport I loved and to support my mom so she didn’t ever have to work again.
“The NFL, baby,” I said, making her laugh. “You hungry? I’ll make something for you to eat, and then you should get to bed.”
Mom grabbed my hand and squeezed, her brown skin darker than mine since Kayla’s and my biological dad had been white. “How about we make it together?”
“Deal,” I told her. And that’s exactly what we did.
* * *
A year and a half later
It was the first day of another year at camp. We had an NFL player coming to spend a day with us toward the end of the two weeks, and I was fucking stoked. This year was the first one I’d feared I wouldn’t be accepted, that they’d found another low-income center who deserved the scholarship more than me. Maybe they had and that person had changed their mind since the letter, which usually came several weeks before camp, had come just a few days ago.
Mom moved heaven and earth to change plans to make sure she could get me here since she hadn’t scheduled any time off, and we had to be dropped off by a parent or guardian.
Parents always stayed for most of the first day. Mom had just left a little while ago, and I was sitting under the bleachers they kept close to the field for parents and sometimes scouts who came to watch. I liked to go under here to chill, only this time, I was wondering where Whitt was. Not a year went by that I’d come to Football Plus and he hadn’t been here, but I hadn’t seen him or his dad all day. He still played, that much I knew. At least he had during football season because, even though our school didn’t play his, Whitt’s name was in every article and on every fucking local news channel when he played.
But he wasn’t at camp…and I was still thinking about the motherfucking guy I hated. I had no idea why he messed with my brain so much, and I didn’t like it at all.
It was only a few minutes later when I heard the voice that haunted my nightmares—Patrick Whitt.
“Dad…people are going to wonder why we came so late…”
