The Perfect Shot: A Friends to Lovers Romance Read online

  The screen door burst open with such force that the clang of the door hitting the wall reverberated through the neighborhood. Two kids playing on their front lawn across the street looked up to see what the sudden commotion was.

  “Jared Reed.” She wrapped me in a tight hug, one that I was almost too scared to return as if it would remind her of just who I was and what I had done. "I heard music coming down the street, and I just hoped it was you."

  I didn't know what to say, but luckily, she was always a woman that filled the silence. I could tell right away that she wasn't' going to be the one to bring up the past.

  “What are you doing here?” She asked in a way that wasn’t accusatory, but more so just in awe that she was actually seeing me in the flesh.

  “I brought tacos.”

  She was silent for a moment before she laughed. "Oh, child. Bring that inside, then."

  I coughed as I followed her into the kitchen of the house. She was still smoking in the house, but since she lived alone, it wasn't my place to tell her what she should and shouldn't be doing.

  “Now, let me get a good look at you.”

  I had my back against her fridge, something I was easily taller than. I was waiting for her to nitpick something, yell at me, and chastise me for house hopping my senior year in high school.

  “My baby.” Instead, her face broke into a smile as she nodded her head, her curly grey hair bobbing with her. “You look good. Getting out of here did you good.”

  I was surprised by her words. Yellow was her favorite color, and it just so happened to be the only color of my button-up shirt. She'd always compliment me – saying it did wonders for making my hazel eyes pop even more than they already did against my dark skin tone which I had inherited from her.

  And hey, I would have to get used to that fancy part. Woodbridge was nice, and I'd be staying in a dorm. An actual place to call my own. I was leaving tomorrow morning, and all I wanted to take with me was my granny's smile and the tattooed reminder on my chest.

  “Enough about me, though.” I was uncomfortable and began fixing her a plate of tacos. “House looks good.”

  "Oh, I've been managing." I couldn't help but notice the way she gripped the table, and her legs wobbled as she lowered herself into the chair. "It's been hard around here trying to keep up with everything."

  I let my eyes wander over the peeling wallpaper and tattered curtains which barely concealed the afternoon sun. Dishes had piled up in the sink, and I didn't even have the heart to look out at the uncut grass in the backyard.

  Honestly, the house didn't look right.

  I had failed her, I thought as she began to cough after a bite of tacos.

  I searched the cabinets to find her a glass for water, but there were no glasses.

  I rinsed out one of the many plastic fast food cups I found on the counter and sat it next to her. We sat in silence while she drank. When she had regained composure, she studied me once more.

  “Look.” I finally said, shuffling my feet under her gaze. “I’m here. Let me help out before I leave for school tomorrow.”

  I wanted to do this as much as she probably needed me to do this – maybe it was what I needed to better handle all this guilt that consistently followed me around.

  I think she knew that too, and that's why she agreed.

  “Now, let’s eat.” She smiled as she gestured for me to sit across from her.

  I didn’t have much of an appetite, especially since the house was so stuffy, but I picked away at the tortilla until I could excuse myself to get some stuff done.

  I made my way down the back steps 15 minutes later with a bag of trash I had collected while she ate. I couldn't get outside, however.

  The backdoor had been kicked in several times and was jammed shut. I rammed my side into it, careful not to hit the side with my fresh tattoo.

  It wouldn’t budge.

  I tried again and again until I finally slammed myself against it full force.

  "Fuck," I yelled as I fell forward, hitting the pavement. My hands broke my fall for the most part. Unfortunately, trash was now everywhere, mixed in with the weeds and grass that had grown well past my knees.

  You couldn’t see shit or even walk back here. I had no idea where to even begin.

  "Fuck," I yelled again out of frustration this time. My hands were red and raw. Hands that I needed. This was bullshit. No good deed goes unpunished.

  “Are you okay?” I heard a female’s voice call from somewhere across the fence -- coming from somewhere near the community basketball courts. I didn’t realize my shouting had carried that far, the long grass doing nothing to muffle it.

  I scooped up the trash and opened the bin to toss it inside, but there was no room. Trash was piled up everywhere.

  “Fucking great,” I muttered as I kicked the garbage bin, hard. It toppled over. I needed to get control of my temper before granny came back here yelling.

  “Hey.” The voice was right behind me now, and I turned to tell whoever it was to fuck off. I had enough bullshit going on.

  But I couldn't. My voice was stuck in my throat. I was all too aware that I had a grease stain on my shirt, a blood spot forming from where my tattoo was from smashing into the door, and hands full of trash.

  The woman was staring at me, through the metal rings of the fence with a facial expression somewhere between shock and concern.

  It was the exact expression I recognized from my youth. Gone were the baggy boys’ basketball shorts and hair in a frizzy ponytail. Instead, she was wearing an army green jumpsuit and round hoops. Her jet-black hair fell in loose waves around her bony shoulders.

  I couldn’t believe it. Standing in front of me was the little girl from my childhood who would always watch my basketball games from the sidelines.

  I hadn't seen Michelle in a year, but here she was. Her expression had changed when it registered who I was, and she looked like she wanted to hit me.

  I wouldn’t blame her if she did.

  CHAPTER 4

  "Shoooooot your shot," Michelle yelled as she jumped up from the grass nearby. She carefully brushed the dirt off her knees as she clapped her hands together, excitedly. It didn't matter what neighborhood team I played on, she was always on my side – like having a personal cheerleader.

  “Stop it." I laughed as I sunk a basket cleanly in from the three-point line. As a 10-year-old point guard in the making, I was nailing shots that men twice my age struggled to make, and that was even with neighborhood boys twice my size, blocking me.

  "See." She said proudly as if it were her words and not my talent that caused me to make the shot. She was cute, I couldn’t help but think as she sat back down and turned back her attention to the community garden. I studied her as the game picked back up around me. She now had a notebook open in her lap, studying the flowers as she took notes.

  "Oof." A ball was tossed at me, hard, knocking the wind right out of me.

  "That's what you get." Trell, who lived three houses down, had whipped the ball at me. “Get your head out of your ass.”

  When I looked back over at Michelle, her high ponytail was blocking half her face, but I could still see the smile underneath.

  “Jared?” Michelle had unlatched the gate, causing my attention to jump back to the present time. She was trying to make her way through the tall grass towards me. She was pushing an unruly patch of dandelion weeds, taller than her, out of her face. I still couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

  When she was right next to me, she stopped. Her eyes lingered on the trash in my hands, and I wished that she had caught me 30 minutes earlier.

  She bent down and began putting garbage back into the bag. She was all dolled up and yet at that moment – helping me seemed more important to her than her appearance.

  I felt something stir inside me, but I pushed it down.

  “Look.” My voice cracked. Shit, I looked a mess. “You don’t have to be doing all that.”

  "Well. I
t looks like you've got your hands pretty full." She winked, and I realized I was still holding onto the garbage.

  “Hey, Miss Ruby.” She suddenly yelled out, causing me to jump.

  There was a shuffle inside, and a moment later granny appeared with a broom and a few extra garbage bags.

  "You read my mind," Michelle said, taking the items from her.

  “No problem, baby.” She winked and headed back inside. “Imma scoot back in and pretend like I wasn’t just eavesdropping on your whole conversation.”

  She began whistling to herself as she let the screen door shut behind her.

  “And, boy.” She suddenly called out sternly to me. “What the hell did you do to this back door?”

  Michelle laughed – a sound I hadn’t heard in over a year.

  “I didn’t realize y’all were friendly like that.” I began picking up the garbage as Michelle swept the rest into a pile.

  There it was, that sense of familiarity that we’ve always had. I didn’t know what to say and for the first time – since I was waiting to hear back on my acceptance to Westbridge -- I was nervous.

  "So why are you back?" Her voice was quiet, and she was deliberately avoiding my gaze. The hot sun was beating down on us and without thinking; I unbuttoned my shirt and stuffed it into the garbage bag. It was ruined anyways.

  I must have done something right because she was now staring at me.

  I had been hitting the gym extra hard -- a training program gifted to me by my high school coach, but it wasn't my body she was staring out. I watched almost in slow motion as she reached out and touched the area near my tattoo. The bandage had slipped off, and I had never felt so exposed.

  My pops name was there for her to see. I didn't want anyone to see it, which is why I got it on my chest. I turned away, avoiding the brush of her fingertips even though a small voice in the back of my head told me it was okay.

  I couldn't have granny see it either -- now that I knew would break her heart.

  "It's his name." She whispered to my back. She was closer now than ever before as I busied myself picking up the garbage. She was the only person from my past who truly knew my history. As I started this new chapter, it was important to keep both those things behind me.

  "Yeah." I shrugged. I didn't know what else to say, and so we busied ourselves with cleaning up. When we were done, we surveyed the lawn in unison. I left both her question and her statement alone -- her words floating open-ended in the air between us.

  "I should mow." I finally said at the same time, she responded with, "I should get going."

  “You still live around here?” I was a bit surprised that she never left – knowing how hard shit was at her own home this past year too.

  Her eyes narrowed, and I remembered her look all too well. It was the one I had seen from her when things had gotten rowdy on the courts – fights breaking out which would result in those damn plants she loved being trampled.

  This time, her features were all narrowly angled in a way that made me see her in an attractive light. She had changed this past year from a dorky little teen into a beautiful yet angry 18-year-old woman.

  “I do. Same house.”

  “Wow.” I gazed across the lawn to the courts. Just beyond the other side was the two-story yellow house that she had lived in. I had walked her home many times as an underclassman in the same high school.

  But when I switched schools and eventually neighborhoods, all of that came to an abrupt halt.

  “Well, it was nice seeing you.” She tossed the last bag of trash on top of the overflowing bin and began to walk back through the jungle. I knew she’d soon disappear and who knew if I’d see her again.

  "Hey, wait for a second," I called out, and she turned back around, pushing yet another weed out of her face so she could study me. "I'm leaving for college in a week."

  "I know," she said. "Despite you being gone, the rest of us here still talk."

  She was making things rather difficult. I remembered all those late-night walks we'd have – talking about what we'd do if we ever got out of here. We both wanted to be somebody.

  “So, then you know that I made it.” I immediately cringed. I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.

  “Congratulations.” She let go of the weeds, letting them fall back into place, creating a barrier between us. “You made it.”

  “Wait. That came out wrong." I yelled, but she was walking away. Damnit. I made my way after her, swatting at bugs which were now after my sweaty torso. “Would you just stop for a minute? Jesus Christ.”

  It worked. Michelle froze but didn't make any move to face me.

  “Why are you like this?” I asked.

  “Like what?” She turned ever so slightly towards me. "During that conversation, did you ever once ask me how I've been since you left?"

  "What effect of me leaving has anything to do with you?" I was getting heated, and for a moment, I felt terrible. We were friends, and friendships ended. I didn't need to explain it to her. She, after all, knew what had happened better than anyone, and she of all people should understand why I needed to get out.

  “Right.” She shook her head in exasperation. “Nothing. It has absolutely nothing to do with me. Enjoy your new life at Woodbridge. I hope you continue to make it right into the NB-fucking A.” And with that, she jogged off, the metal gate clanging behind her.

  "Jared," Granny called out. “Are you going to get to work out there or just stare at it -- hoping it will fix itself?”

  I knew she was watching from her chair beside the window. What I didn’t know is if her question was referring to Michelle or the lawn.

  CHAPTER 5

  "Take your palm off the ball." Coach Irving yelled, his voice was deep like thunder, and when he was yelling at me, the rumble was even more profound.

  I ignored him; the squeaking of shoes filled my ears as I went up for the shot.

  "Gap," he screamed. Blood was pulsing in my ears. It was a practice, just like the five other ones we had already had during the second week of college, but this time we had an audience.

  Coach had allowed the practice to be open. Half of the game would come down to talent and hard work, he said, and the other half would come down to the pressure we faced when a crowd was roaring in our ears.

  Some crowd. There were roughly 20 or so people in the crowd -- a good chunk of them were parents. I couldn’t lose focus now. I went up, ignored the block, shot, and heard the satisfying swish.

  It went in.

  “Damnit, Reed.” I jogged over to Coach upon hearing my last name. “Can you tell me what you did wrong?”

  Nothing, but you're going to tell me, aren't you, is what I wanted to say.

  “What’s that, coach?” As a freshman, I was just as good as everyone else on the team and unrivaled when it came to shooting.

  Coach was big on attitude, which although seemed very high school to me. It wasn't something I was going to let get me kicked off the team either.

  "You didn't have full control over that one."

  What did he know? He was talking to the assistant coach the whole time on the sideline anyway.

  These were all words I had heard before.

  “And your feet shouldn’t have been squared on that last play.”

  “Okay, coach.”

  Irving gave me a dismissive head nod, and I joined everyone else. He wasn't targeting me, and I had to remind myself of that. Nearly everyone on the team got marked down for something -- elbows, knees, anything that could have the slightest domino effect on a player's shot.

  It was all marked down on a clipboard we weren’t allowed to see. These methods, all of them added up to make Irving one of the best coaches at a Division 2 school.

  I, for one, was excited to see the progress I would make as a player and that we would make as a team.

  "Alright, that's enough." Irving blew his whistle, and the squeaking of shoes on the court stopped as abruptly as they began.


  “Alright, huddle up.”

  I dribbled the ball over, the rest of the team still down on the other end of the court, grabbing their towels and water bottles.

  My foot scuffed the floor, nearly causing me to fall. Coach looked up from his clipboard and studied me as I caught myself, which resulted in a travel.

  “Don’t do things in two dribbles that you can do in one.” He scribbled a note on that dumb clipboard.

  I opened my mouth to defend myself. My dribble was always on point, and I had just kept the ball while keeping myself from falling. My shoes, a size too tight, were the same ones I had all throughout high school. I didn't have the luxury that many of these other players had, and these shoes made it harder to practice in.

  "That was a good practice." Coach addressed us all when we were gathered. "I want to talk to you all for a minute man to men."

  I couldn’t look at Laz who just last week had me dying when he was mimicking Coach’s tip of “hand in, hand out the cookie jar” when it came to shooting.

  "We've been going at this pretty hard, and I want you all to know tomorrow, we're going to do something a little different. We're going to talk."

  "Talk?" Said Bryant, who easily towered over the rest of them at an impressive 6'6. "About basketball?"

  I again held back the urge to laugh. Bryant was someone who reminded us of a caveman. Take away his basketball and give him a club and we’d probably be none the wiser. He was fast though, I’d give him that.

  “About culture. And I’ll leave you all with that.”

  The team gathered up their supplies and headed out as Coach yelled one more tip. "And go to class tomorrow morning.”

  He wasn’t yelling at anyone in particular, but he very well could have been talking to me with the way those 8 a.m. classes had been kicking my ass. I had gone to the first one last week, but I was finding it hard to care about the Communications degree I was supposed to be pursuing. Basketball was my path, not some office job.

  “You okay, bro?” Laz caught up with me as I grabbed my bag out of my locker and slung it over my right shoulder.