Excerpt
Play You For It
Chapter OneDamp pines and petrichor ushered in basketball season at David Douglas University as if the sport relied solely on the change of seasons to arrive. Jordan inhaled the end of autumn and the approaching winter on a ride across the quad, the tires on her ten-speed crackling through sodden leaves. The clouds broke for a dry afternoon, though Oregon’s usual rain rarely deterred her from cycling to the quaint college campus nestled on the edge of the Willamette River.
Jordan biked for three reasons—fitness, the school’s abhorrent parking situation, and last but certainly not least, to clear her head. And today, she most certainly needed to clear her head. Despite leaving for work with plenty of time to spare, punctuality as second nature to her as waking before the first alarm and making her bed with tight corners—habits instilled by a man who preferred she call him sergeant instead of father—she continuously checked her watch. Because somewhere, the phone rang with her future. She wondered if it was now.
Booming laughter and the flash of a familiar letterman’s jacket across the courtyard prompted an unwelcome detour. She grumbled and rerouted toward a hulking young man lounging on the steps of the university’s brick bell tower. A girl sat behind him, rubbing his shoulders, head thrown back in a fit of overzealous giggles that Jordan cringed at.
She pumped her brakes in front of them. “Mr. Torres, this doesn’t look like study hall.”
Leon Torres groaned. “We got done early.”
The girl blushed and nodded as she straightened up. “Yeah, I’m, uh, tutoring him. Are you a professor?”
“No. This is Coach D’Amato.” He glared. “She gets sick enjoyment out of stalking me.”
“No. You’re just incredibly predictable,” Jordan said.
The basketball team’s star forward skipped class or trudged in late for practice weekly, his excuses varying as widely as the women she stumbled upon him with. Jordan long ago accepted that a job revolving around college-aged young men required she give them the occasional nudge in the right direction. Leon, however, often required a shove.
“I’m technically not doing anything wrong,” he said.
“Right. And what subject were you two studying?” Jordan rolled her eyes at Leon’s self-satisfied smirk. “Don’t say anatomy.” She held up a finger as he opened his mouth again. “Or chemistry.”
“But.”
“Get to the gym and suit up.”
“Relax, I have plenty of time. It’s only—”
The bell tower clanged above, announcing the top of the hour.
“You were saying?” She raised an eyebrow. Leon grabbed his backpack, ignored the girl asking for his phone number, and scampered off. Jordan pedaled alongside him. “You know, study hall is for your benefit.”
He shook his head. “I don’t need it.”
“Your grades suggest otherwise.”
“It won’t matter after we win a national championship and I go to the NBA.”
“You need a backup plan.” Jordan slowed and circled around him. “Less than two percent of college players get drafted.”
“Lucky me then.” He winked. “Lucky you too, if you play your cards right. Stop hounding me this season and I’ll buy you a car with my signing bonus. No more pedaling around in the rain. You forget, I’m a very, very generous person.”
“I appreciate the offer, Torres, but I have a better idea.”
“What?”
“Beat me to the gym and I won’t tell Royce you skipped study hall.” She coasted ahead and smirked over her shoulder. “I suggest you run! You’re going to be late!”
“No fair!” Leon started on a half-hearted jog. “Let me borrow that dumb bike and I’ll make it two cars!”
The clanging campus bells matched the trill in Jordan’s chest as she sped down the burgundy and gold shrouded path to the athletic facilities. The breeze flapped her windbreaker. Low-hanging clouds warned of rain. A calm before the storm and a decision she wasn’t quite ready to make.
She chained up her bike and hurried into the Walton Athletic Center. After changing into practice gear, she paced outside the men’s locker room, checking her watch so often that she counted seconds instead of minutes. When the door squealed open, she tensed, held her breath, and then let her shoulders collapse at the player who stumbled out like a lost puppy.
“Oh, Coach, thank God.” Dominic Reed was half dressed for practice as he came at her with a mess of papers.
“What’s up?” She kept her eyes on the door behind him.
“Should I take psychology or sociology next term?”
Jordan narrowed her eyes. “Don’t you have an academic advisor for this?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s easier to talk to you. So, which one? What’s the difference?”
“Well, when you have a problem, do you think it’s something wrong with you or something wrong with the system?”
Dominic’s eyes stretched wide. “What?”
“It’s a joke, Dom. Just take psychology.” Jordan pulled at the gold chain around her neck. “Have you seen Royce?”
“I think he’s on the phone in his office.”
The call. His call and, by default, her call. Jordan gulped down a wave of nausea.
“Want me to get him?” Dominic asked.
“No. It’s fine.”
Rather than pathetically continue pacing, she left for the court. When in doubt, stressed, or bored, Jordan picked up a basketball. The grooves and bumps, its distinct beat on the hardwood, never failed to soothe her.
Practice didn’t start for another fifteen minutes, but Brooks McCray Jr. was already shooting baskets. Jordan joined him, swiped a ball from the cart, and launched a shot behind the three-point line. It rattled the rim.
“Everything okay?” Brooks asked.
She grabbed another ball, dribbled between her legs, and shot again. It slipped through the net with a satisfying hiss. “Yeah, why?”
“You’re usually out here before me.”
Their shooting sessions had become near ritual. It started during Brooks’s freshman year when he struggled to stop double clutching open shots. Jordan took him on as her personal project. Now, as a senior and team captain, poised to go in the first round of the draft, Brooks didn’t need her to build his confidence on the court, but they still indulged in the one-on-one sessions.
“I was just looking for Royce,” she said.
“Does this have something to do with that trip he took?” Brooks stopped shooting.
“No.” Jordan turned away and glimpsed at the clock. Royce should have finished the call by now. Perhaps it wasn’t happening. Perhaps she worried for nothing. “How was the visit with your parents?”
Brooks grimaced. “My mom keeps asking when I’m going to bring a girlfriend home.” He fired another basket. “Dad is surprisingly supportive of my singleness, though oblivious. He keeps lecturing me about how I have to be careful now that people think I’m going to the NBA. Girls are going to be all over me. He told me these awful stories about his time on the road—how women would show up at his hotel room after games.”
Jordan cringed. “I’m sorry, Brooks.”
“It just never seems like it’s going to be the right time to tell them.” His throat bobbed as his glistening eyes met hers. “Is there ever a right time?”
She sighed. “Only you’ll know when that is.”
Jordan sank at Brooks’s frown and the burden of his secret. One she’d shed herself nearly two decades ago, though she’d argue the timing wasn’t right then either. It put the clock back in her head. The seconds she was willing away but scared to face.
“Jordan.”
Royce Ortega, head coach of the David Douglas men’s basketball team, stood at the edge of the hardwood like the towering legend he was. The former Olympian had won at nearly every level of the game, both on the court and sidelines. Along the way he’d brought Jordan with him, molding her into his assistant, advisor, and right hand.
After ten years, they communicated with simple looks, whether chalking up a play or making a gut decision mid-game. Today, he nodded to issue her fate. Without either of them saying a word, she knew he’d made his decision. He was leaving. And as she stood there, the basketball nearly dropping from her hands, she knew she had a decision to make too.
“What’s going on?” Brooks glanced between them.
“Come on.” Royce waved him over. “We need to have a team meeting.”
Jordan always knew the day would come. It was only a matter of time before the NBA called Royce’s name, and he’d already turned down multiple offers to join the big show, but this one was different. Jordan knew when he spoke to her about the interview that he wanted and needed this next chapter. She just hadn’t expected him to offer a fresh start of her own.
