Page 16 of High Baller

“You like Queen?” I ask as I join in the conversation.

She looks at me and squints her eyes. “Why else would I be this excited to watch the film?” She turns back to Calvin. “So, you’re watching it, and we’ve agreed to a chilled out birthday.”

“We've not agreed to anything, so stop moaning and do as you’re told for a change.” Calvin walks away before Sky gets the chance to say anything back.

“Looks like I get to see you for your birthday.” I wink at her just before she walks away from us. I turn to Derek. “Find out if she has a Facebook page, Instagram, something that tells me what she likes. She'll take some time to persuade.” I just need to find out what she likes and how I can win her over.

“Already done it,” he replies, then shows me his phone. “No Facebook page. She has Instagram, though, but it’s set to private, and she has a shit ton of followers.”

“Calvin, can I check Sky’s Instagram on your phone?” I ask him as he walks over to us.

“Sure. Do you want to get her to go on a date with you?” Calvin hands me his phone as he tends to the other passengers.

As I through her page, I see she likes to take a lot of pictures of her vacation. She drinks a lot of tea, loves wine and house pictures or fashion items she'd love, her dream house. I spend the rest of the flight looking through her Instagram page to get a better feel for her. If I wasn’t hard on her before, I am now. She had a dream of being a flight attendant, and now she’s living it.

The captain’s voice comes over the intercom telling us that we’ll be landing in twenty minutes and to take our seats and put our belts on to prepare.

As the passengers get off the plane, I go to the food area where I saw Sky walking in.

“Hey, shorty, can you give this to Calvin?” I hand her his phone.

She looks at the phone for a second, then back at me. “How have you got this? Oh, I don’t think I want to know so, sure, I’ll pass it back to him,” she says as she squints her eyes and shakes her head as though wondering why or even how I had it.

“I thought maybe we could go to dinner tonight? You know I won’t stop until I get my date.” I smile at her as her eyes search my face for something. I’m an open book, and if she thinks that I’m hiding something, she's wrong. I live in the spotlight, what the hell can I hide?

She shakes her head again.“Sorry, but no. It can take more than a day to get over jet lag, so after a long flight, I need to sleep to get back on UK time. I hope you enjoy your stay here in England.” She smiles once, then turns back around to continue what she was doing.

“Oh, I will. See you around, shorty.” I lean down to give her a kiss on the cheek, but she moves her head, and in doing so, our lips brush over each other. I move back and leave before she can say anything.

Before I go back to LA, I'll get my date one way or the other.

***

I’ve been talking to Sky through message all week. My plan to get a date with her was messed up when I asked her to dinner and she replied with, ‘I’m sorry I have to fly out to Chicago because one of the crew got sick. I won’t be back until Sunday night.’ Now, that wasn’t in my plan, but I made it work.

After sending message after message, she caved—I have breakfast with her in the morning. I found out that her favorite flowers are Tulips, so I've ordered a dozen of them to be delivered to her house tonight.

This week has been fun. I never thought England liked Basketball, but when I visited the schools on my itinerary, the boys were watching and listening to everything I was doing. One boy asked if I'd ever think about opening up a basketball academy here for them, somewhere that they can learn to study and play the game and have someone to help them. I’d never thought about it before. So, when I go back to LA, I'll talk to coach about it and see what he thinks.

“You want to order food?” Derek asks as he sits on the couch with me.

“Sure, what’re you thinking?”

“Dunno, I’ll have what you have—makes life easy,” Derek replies as he walks over to the table to collect the menus.

“How’s Ariel?” I ask. He’s been on the phone every day to her, and I can see that not seeing her this week has gotten to him. There's no way he'll last the season.

“She’s good” he replies. “I’m looking forward to seeing her tomorrow night.” He brings over a few of the takeout menu’s. The hotel’s food is great, but I just want a burger, a huge burger.

“It’s only been a week, how the hell are—”

“I’ll make it work between me and Ariel. You don’t need to worry yourself about my relationship when you have your own to think about. If this things between you and Sky somehow works, how are you going to handle the time apart? You may laugh at me all you want, but you just watch… The tables might be turned soon.” Derek looks through the menu, and I have to say, I've thought about it a lot. I've no idea how I'll see Sky all the time, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. “I'll see if they have the burger special.” He gets up and walks to the other side of the room.

“Get two, the burgers in that place are nice,” I yell.

I flick through channels to find the sports shows that are on, and I find the one I want—soccer. Meeting the England squad this week was cool, which has now gotten me into the sport. That and the fact Sky supports a London team, which I looked up so that I have something to talk about tomorrow.

“Are you taking breakfast to her tomorrow, or is she making something?” Derek asks me.