He pushes his arms toward the sky, flicks his right wrist, and I see it. The follow-through. The invisible basketball. I don’t know why I didn’t see it sooner. Jordon’s always playing with hers.

“And forget about any of my new teammates.”

“So, who do you hang with then?” I ask, hoping he’s had somebody before me. Everybody needs somebody.

But his feet have already hit the court. A huge smile flashes across his face before he turns around and takes off running, dribbling his invisible ball. Approaching the goal, he crosses over left, dribbles between his legs, and goes up for a windmill dunk—head almost hitting the rim. When he lands, he shouts, “What! These fools can’t hold me . . . they can’t stop me!”

REX

Carli’s walking up to the three-point line, looking at me like I’m half-crazy. Okay, maybe the yelling was a little much. But when it comes to basketball, I go straight beast mode. I can’t help myself.

“Carli Alexander has the ball,” I say in my commentator voice, trying to take the attention off me, and chest pass her the invisible ball.

Her arms stay by her sides. She doesn’t even try to catch it.

“Oh, so you’re not playing with me?” I ask, standing underneath the rim, dramatically throwing up my hands.

She cracks a small smile, playfully rolls her eyes, runs to get the ball, and dribbles it back toward me. “Happy now?”

“Yes,” I answer, mostly because it’s good to see her run. I knew she was feeling better, but not that much better.

She bounce passes the ball back to me.

“That’s all you got?”

“Yep.”

“What about that behind-the-back move you did with all those ponytails? Man, that was sick.” I bounce pass the ball back to her.

She catches it. “Ugh, I’d almost forgotten about that. I can’t believe my dad. I’m so sorry. He’s a bit of a basketball freak and he’s—”

“Are you kidding me? I loved it!” I say, walking toward her. “Seeing you ball way back in the day and the old footage of me was everything. I swear your dad is the best. My father would never.” And I stop right there. Not about to give her two sob stories in one day.

She dribbles toward me. “Seriously? My dad makes videos like that all the time. So annoying. But I must admit, I liked seeing you when you were little. Too cute.” She backs into me, still dribbling.

Behind her, I swipe like I’m trying to steal the ball.

“I can send you the video if you want,” she says before dribbling left.