For the second time that day Justin was stuck being the last person to walk into a room. The team was already there and Coach Daniels waved him over as he cautiously stepped further into the gym.
He glanced at the team seated on or around the benches in front of him. He’d been right when he’d thought that they weren’t going to be happy to have him there. They definitely weren’t writing him songs or anything. In fact, he could just feel the resentment filling the room as he stood beside Coach Daniels, who was introducing him to the team.
He didn’t really pay much attention to what the Coach was saying; he was too busy scanning the group for a friendly face. Any friendly face. His gaze paused on one player. The guy was watching him in amusement and he smirked when their eyes met. Justin knew he was probably being laughed at but he couldn’t help give a small smile back; which had more to do with the goofy looking white band-aid the guy had on his face than anything else.
He turned his attention back to the coach who was just turning to him. “Do you want to say a few words?”
It was a question but it came out sounding like an order and Justin knew better than to say no. He nodded and looked at the faces before him not knowing what to say. “Uh...” He cleared his throat. “I just want to…” His voice drifted off as a few people snickered in the group.
They weren’t taking him seriously and he couldn’t really blame them. All they saw was a lean, curly haired, white boy having a whole lot of trouble trying to say hello.
He contemplated actually saying what he was really thinking. After briefly mulling it over, he decided he might as well. They already hated him, how much worse could it get from there?
He cleared his throat again and faced his new teammates. “You probably don’t like me right now and I don’t blame you. I’m coming in here as a kid that you’ve never met or played with.” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jogging pants and continued. “The reality is that I’m on this team now and I’m not going to apologize for that. I love this game, I love playing it and nobody’s going to change that,” he looked around the room and met a few gazes. “So, you can make this easy or you can make it hard, either way it won’t change the fact that at the end of the day, I’ll still be here.”
It hadn’t been the most eloquent speech but he’d said what he’d felt. He looked back at Coach Daniels who had an arrested expression on his face and then glanced at the guys. Some looked distinctly more pissed off but most seemed to be looking at him with, if not approval, lukewarm interest. Justin would take it, lukewarm interest was far better than outright hate. Now all he had to do was show them that he had skills and maybe then they’d start treating him like a teammate.
“Uh, right.” Coach Daniels put his clipboard under his arm and started barking at the team. “All right, get up off your asses folks! We have three weeks until the season starts and we’ve got a lot of work to do if we’re going to make it to the championship.” He looked at Justin who was still standing beside him. “What are you standing here for? Go join your team mates!”
Justin dropped his bag on the floor and jogged over to the group.
As soon as Justin joined the other guys, the coach blew his whistle. “Give me five laps around the gym. After that get into groups of four, grab a ball, and go into your first drill.”
Running around the gym didn’t take very long and when everyone had finished, they started getting into groups and doing a well-practiced drill.
He didn’t know how to join any of these groups. His bravado was now replete after that little speech. Suddenly he felt an arm grasping his shoulder and he turned to see the guy with the band-aid looking at him. “We got three. You gonna play?” He asked, his voice a scratchy, southern drawl.
Justin almost sighed in relief. “Yeah. Thanks.”
The boy jerked his head. “Nelly. That’s Kyjuan and that’s Tohry but we call him Murphy Lee.” He said pointing to the guys behind him. The guys nodded at him in greeting and he nodded back.
The four worked well together. Drills bored him senseless so Justin amused himself by watching the way the other guys interacted with each other; they weren’t anything like the folks he knew back home which he found appealing.
They finished practice without playing any real ball just doing a number of drills, which left Justin a little frustrated because he’d wanted to show the other guys that he could play.
As the other guys made their way to the locker rooms, Justin didn’t follow them. The day was finally catching up with him and he just wanted to go home and sleep. Coach Daniels stopped him before he left and gave him the basketball schedule. Justin thanked him before he stuffed it into his bag and walked outside into the parking lot.
He was making his way to his car when he heard the hard sound of a basketball hitting concrete. He looked over and saw Nelly, Murphy Lee and a few other guys from the basketball team hanging out on the courtyard in front of the school.
Justin looked at his car and then back at the courtyard. Fuck it. He was tired of dicking around. He would join them and see if they’d let him play.
Nelly raised both brows when he saw Justin walk onto the concrete park. “You lost?” He asked with more curiosity than derision. The guys all followed his glance and they had varying degrees of irritation on their faces as they saw who it was.
“Nah. Just saw you guys were going to start a game and I’m still juiced up from earlier. I thought we could play.”
The other guys snickered and Nelly looked at him in amusement. “Juiced up, huh? Aiight if you got game, prove it.”
He shoved the basketball at Justin’s chest and tossed the rules over his shoulder to his friends. “Street. Five on five. Me, Murphy Lee, Lakan, Ceno, and Juice against the rest of you.” They all shrugged resigned to the idea of playing with Timberlake and got ready to play the game.
Justin, ball in hand, waited for someone to signal that the game had started but none came so he began to dribble the ball only to be caught off-guard by Kyjuan who checked him and grabbed the ball.
“What the fuck? That’s a foul,” Justin yelled.
“No fouls in street ball, bitch,” Kyjuan broke away and made an easy two. He grabbed the ball and started singing loudly, “Move bitch. Get out tha way. Get out tha way, bitch. Get out tha way.”
Nelly snorted. “Shit. Can we play?”
Kyjuan tossed the ball to Nelly in response. Justin looked at Kyjuan in annoyance. Fucker. No fouls? Fine. Justin was open so Nelly tossed him the ball. Before he knew it, Kyjuan was on him again and Justin shouldered him, spun around and made a shot; it swished neatly into the basket. When Justin stole the ball from Kyjuan again and made a second basket, they all looked at each other and really started to play.
They played hard, both teams well matched but Justin’s team was just a little bit better. Justin played with finesse, even when he charged he looked like he was performing some choreographed dance move. He’d already made a third of his teams baskets and he noticed that the other guys were starting to look at him with respect in their eyes.
By the time they finished the game the sun was setting and Justin’s team had won thirty-seven to thirty two.
Lakan punched Justin on the shoulder. “That was cool, Juice.”
“That’s fo ‘sho, dirrty,” Nelly said grinning broadly.
The other guys nodded in agreement and they showed their approval by pounding him on the back or tapping his palm a couple times, as they got ready to leave.
Justin wasn’t sure if he liked this Juice or dirrty business but if it meant acceptance he could get used to it. He smiled back easily, trying not to show how happy he was at their approval.
Since they were all going different ways, they quickly dispersed and Justin started walking back to the parking lot.
“Yo, Juice!” Justin was halfway to his car when Nelly jogged up to him. “We play ball at lunch sometimes. Show up!” He didn’t wait for a response, just grinned and headed back to Kyjuan and Murphy Lee who were both waiting for him.
Justin watched them leave before starting again to his car. When he finally got inside, he laughed in relief.
Fitting in wasn’t hard at all.
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