Page 75 of His Reckless Freshman

“Who’s Jolie?” Sawyer ties up his wayward curls into a stubby top knot.

My insides clench as I realize how easily I just dropped her name… like I know her.

Because you do!

No, not really.

Shit.

I swallow and quickly cover. “She wrote that article about us in the school paper. And she’s right, we’re a good team. We just have to start believing it. We play better at practice than we do at games. We’ve got to stop choking when it matters and just relax.” My speech seems to be turning heads, and I glance around, squirming a little at all the attention but deciding to just fucking finish anyway. “Let’s just pretend that this is a practice game. There are no stakes. No pressure. We’re just out there having fun.”

“This isn’t an official game, so there are no stakes,” Darian tells us.

“It’s Lennox. They beat us every fucking year.” Mac’s blue gaze is piercing, daring me to disagree with him.

So I do. “Not this year, man. Let’s go win this thing.”

“Okay.” Jimmy nods, turning abruptly and heading out to the court.

We all follow him with Coach bringing up the rear. He doesn’t give us any special directions and takes his usual seat, ready to sit back and endure the game.

Although, there’s definitely something different about him tonight.

He doesn’t lounge back like usual—he’s sitting forward.

As I catch the ball, dribbling it a few steps before passing it off to Sawyer, I notice out of the corner of my eye that Coach is actually following our moves, perched on the front of his seat like he actually might stand up and pace a bit.

So weird. I have no idea what’s up with the guy, but I can’t focus on him right now. The referee calls our attention, and we set up for the tip-off.

“Let’s play some fuckin’ ball.” Mac smirks, then laughs when the ball is thrown into the air and play begins.

The Lennox crowd is loud and obnoxious, booing when we score, cheering when the home team gets the ball through the hoop.

I manage to tune out most of it, focusing on playing. Just having fun with my basketball bros.

And Jimmy obviously is too, because he’s on fucking fire tonight.

The minutes tick by in a rush, and the points tick over in the right direction.

I’m a sweaty mess by the time we reach the fourth quarter. We’ve been playing like warriors, Jimmy shining brightest of all. It’s like he’s just let all his inhibitions go and is out there doing what he does best. The crowd suddenly doesn’t exist, and he’s going for it.

“Nice!” I slap him on the shoulder when he runs past me.

He just made a slam-dunk that even had the Lennox crowd cheering for a second.

Yes, it was impressive.

Tonight, we’re seeing something from Jimmy Li that the public have never witnessed before. I don’t know why he keeps his skills on lockdown so much. It pisses Darian off, but the guy is smiling tonight.

“Yes, we’ve got this!” Sawyer’s clapping, hyping us up as we near the end of the game.

It’s close.

63 Lennox, 61 us.

We actually have a chance of winning this thing. The tension in the air is electric. The Lennox crowd is holding its breath. I rest my hands on my knees for a second, catching mine while we reset.

Sawyer’s right.