producers on the planet, and somehow he’d miss every one of them and end up talking to a sound guy all night. But put a ball in his hands and he could bring home a state championship.
Such was Mike’s luck. And at his rate he would be making wedding videos and dating flirty blondes until he died. It was all he had been able to accomplish to date, so why should he imagine that any of that would miraculously change in the future? If you kept doing what you’ve always done, you’d keep getting what you always got. And while Mike could get plenty of girls, it now seemed that rotten timing would keep him from getting the girl.
It sucked.
His next shot banked and went in. Of course. Such was his curse. Everything he cared about air-balled, while everything everyone else cared about was a synch.
“It’s easy to make shots when no one’s guarding you,” his dad said from the porch, pulling Mike from his thoughts. He hadn’t even known his father was home. “You up for some one-on-one?”
“Sure,” Mike said, lobbing the ball in one-handed. Swish. “First to twenty, and old dudes get spotted ten points.”
His dad shook his head. “I really did praise you too much as a child, didn’t I?”
Mike smiled and tossed his dad the rebound. “I dunno. Why don’t we find out?”
His dad didn’t hesitate, moving to the court and dribbling up the side for a layup. It was tempting to let his dad score, but at the last second Mike changed his mind, stuffing him and claiming the ball.
“Gosh, Dad. What do you do all day?” he asked, back courting it. “Sit at a desk?”
“Ha-ha,” his dad said. “Come talk to me in thirty years, son. We’ll see how spry you are then.”
“Excuses, excuses.”
That got his dad riled up a little bit more, and the game was on. It felt good to be good at something. But in the end, when he won 20-16, Mike felt even more empty than when they’d started.
“You ready to talk yet?” his dad said, tossing him the ball after a rebound.
Mike shrugged, catching the ball and immediately shooting.
“And what I mean when I ask you if you’re ready to talk is, what’s bothering you, Mike? You’re making your mom frown. And I don’t like it when your mom frowns. It makes my life harder.”
That got a smile out of Mike. “Yeah? Then why isn’t she out here?”
His dad grabbed the rebound, this time keeping it for himself and dribbling it out. “Oh, I’m sure that’s her next step. But for now she’s sending me out here as a scout. You know, in case it’s a guy thing.”
“She told you that?”
His dad shrugged, then shot. “Well, her exact words were ‘You should go out there and shoot some hoops with Mike’ but I’ve been married long enough to know what she really means.”
“I’ll bet,” Mike laughed, angling for the rebound.
“So say something meaningful, will you? Something I can report back to her that will make her give a meaningful nod of understanding.”
“Wow. So much pressure.” Shoot and swish. The rebound came Mike’s way, so he grabbed it.
“I know,” his dad sighed before getting a little serious. “Is it the whole Luke-Kris thing? You okay with that?”
Mike grimaced, spinning the ball in his hands as he considered them. “I’m getting used to it. They’re just so different.”
“But in a good way,” his dad said, before holding his hands up defensively. “Trust me, I’ve had my fair share of freak outs about the two of them over the years, but your mom got me to see the light… or at least enough to get me to put down the lynching rope. Our Kris needs to calm down, and Luke needs someone to crack a whip on him every once in a while. He’s complacent and she’s an overachiever. If the two of them rub off on each other enough, they both might end up balanced people. Plus, Luke knows how to love, and that’s more than I can say for most the guys her age. Most of your generation are boys who have no idea how to be men and, hence, will forever be guys.”
Mike considered that as he ran a layup and missed. His dad caught it and watched him for a moment.
“You think Luke knows how to love?” Mike finally asked.
His dad nodded. “And don’t take this the wrong way, but I think he picked up from you a