Page 10 of It’s All in How You Fall
Alex shrugs. “Shirts versus skins. He insisted. Despite the fact that there are two of us, which makes the team breakdown pretty easy. Very worried about a farmer’s tan from the Northfield uniform, that one.”
Have I mentioned that my brother is five feet four inches of vain? He also doesn’t burn like me, thanks to inheriting Mom’s olive complexion. “What’s he doing?”
“Filibuster flirting. He’s supposedly inviting Ryan Rodinsky to our stadium stairs session tomorrow, but what he’s actually doing is hoping that his crush on Liv Rodinsky might pan out if he talks her ear off long enough…”
“While shirtless.” Confidence can only get you so far before it veers into arrogance. “Her boyfriend’s graduated, not dead. Nat doesn’t have a shot.”
Alex laughs. “Grey Worthington is totally going to roll up any second now in all his toothpaste commercial glory. And Nat’s only going to fall over himself to try harder.”
“Ugh, you’re right. I can’t watch.”
“Me either.” Alex holds up the ball as an invitation. “Horse? I’ll let you go first.”
He flicks the ball my way and I get my hands in front of me just soon enough that it doesn’t rebound off my collarbone. The ball thuds to the court and sort of meanders back toward Alex. “You don’t want me to play.”
“Yes I do.”
I squint at him. “Did my dad put you up to this?”
He squints back. “Up to what? Beating you at horse?”
“How do you know you’ll beat me?”
“The way you didn’t catch that ball is a good indication, I think.”
“Shut up.”
He tosses the ball to me again. This time I catch it. My back tenses on impact, but so does the rest of me. And it doesn’t hurt.
Alex nods a go-ahead. “Put up, Flip.”
I hesitate for a moment at the use of my nickname—nearly as old as his friendship with Nat itself. I don’t know what Nat has or hasn’t said to his friends about the end of my life via my stupid awful back, but I doubt Alex would ever try to intentionally burn me. Finally, because he’s smiling at me and his tall form blocks Nat’s one-man show, I say, “Ugh, fine.”
I set my feet and line up my shot, imitating what I’ve seen Nat do on the court a bazillion times. When the ball leaves my hands, my attempt at imitation fails me—the shot is hard and flat, its arc nonexistent before it smacks off the rim with an audible crack.
Alex rebounds and makes an easy floating basket. My shot looked like a cannon blast, and his just hangs there like it has wings.
“Okay, so what, now I shoot from where you are?”
Alex arches an incredulous brow. “Caroline, have you never played horse before?”
“It’s been a while.”
“Yeah, you shoot it from here.” He palms my shoulder and sweeps me into the spot on the pitted concrete where his Jordans just were. Not a single whiff of anything unpleasant as he moves, despite how sweaty he is. If I hadn’t known him the majority of my life, I’d say this confirms that Alex Zavala is basically too perfect to be human.
I set my feet, bend my knees, and zero in on the rim, line up my shot… and completely miss. Again. The ball clangs off the backboard and boomerangs right back to me. I raise my hand just fast enough to avoid being smacked in the face, my wrist awkwardly knocking the ball away.
Three minutes later and the game is over, Alex sprinting his way to HORS before I finally get a letter on the board with a fluke bank shot from the corner of the three-point line. The final score, if you can call it that, is HORSE to H.
Of course, when the E drops in, Alex doesn’t gloat—Nat would totally gloat and squeeze in a flex—rather, he simply tucks the ball to his hip and holds out a fist for me to bump. “Good game.”
“Game? I have no game.” I tap his fist anyway, but that wasn’t a game so much as it was a massacre. Dad may think I can trade one sport for another, but hand-and-eye coordination for gymnastics is completely different from anything with throwing or catching. Exhibit A: that massacre from literally five seconds ago.
My skills do not compute.
Still, Alex is nice about it. “You have more game than your brother.”
We both check, and yep, Nat’s still there, gesturing wildly. At least it looks like Liv is laughing.
