Page 417 of Ruthless Court

I travel twice in November.

It is strange.

Team bus.

Hotels.

Study rooms.

Road games.

I sit in the stands with my laptop and pretend to annotate anthropology readings while quietly keeping notes about possessions.

After games, the texts start.

Vale: What did you see?

Noah: Be gentle.

Eli: Don’t answer Noah first.

Kane: Ignore all of them.

Then:

Kane: Tell me mine privately.

Dating a basketball player has not removed basketball from my life.

It has changed who controls the door.

That makes all the difference.

* * *

Dad texts two weeks before Thanksgiving.

Dad: Got your flight.

I stare at the message.

Then:

Dad: Wednesday afternoon. Chicago. Your mother already bought too much food.

My chest tightens.

We’re better now.

We talk every Sunday.

He asks about my classes.

I send him clips from the boys’ games.

He occasionally disagrees with my defensive schemes and then acts shocked when I refuse to change them.

It almost feels normal.