“Make yourself at home.” Carter raised an eyebrow.

I held up my hot sauce–free cheese pizza to say I will, thank you very much.

“Should we do this thing?” said Austin.

He and Carter spun around in their hamburger and Oreo chairs, their game forgotten. Carter cracked open a pineapple juice. “What’s up, Mags?” said Carter. “Who’s got ya all stressed out?”

“Honestly girls aren’t even part of it.” That part was a lie, but if they wanted honesty, I’d give them the rest as truthfully as I could. “I’m kinda freaked out about Clarkebridge coming up and I didn’t want any distractions.”

Low country beats played from Carter’s speakers. His overhead light felt brighter than usual.

“Definitely understandable,” said Carter.

“What about it freaks you out?” asked Austin.

“The pressure, maybe. Not sure. My whole life is riding on this interview and tryout. Like I could be awesome, and still not good enough.”

My shoes had dirt on the heels, I noticed, since I couldn’t look at my friends. The three of us had never really talked like this before, though admitting this stuff helped my tense neck loosen and my breathing come a little more easily.

“The pressure on you is . . .” Carter began but wouldn’t say it. “I’d be going crazy.”

“Super unfair,” said Austin, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but your dad is kind of a dick.”

“’Cause he cares,” said Carter. “Gotta keep that in mind.”

The comforter molded against my back. Even Carter’s ceiling had basketball players on it, so every morning Carter would wake up to LeBron. On LeBron’s jersey, however, Carter had redrawn his “23” to say “OB.”

“Yeah,” I said, “It’s hard because he wants me to be him.”

“No,” said Carter, “he wants you to be better than him.”

“Right. Like I get to do the stuff he couldn’t.”

“Because you’re better than him,” said Carter. “Nick, you’re better than him, and he knows it.”

“Own it,” said Austin. “Work it, buddy. Plus, it’ll probably be easier after you get a scholarship. That’s what he really wants, right?”

“If I get a scholarship.”

“You will,” said Carter. “You’re Nick freaking Maguire.”

“Except that goes without saying,” said Austin.

“Right,” said Carter. “Plus, Clarkebridge isn’t about him, dude, it’s about you. You get to go there and play for you.”

“Tell him that,” I said. “I don’t think he knows.”

“Mags,” Carter said in his cut-it-out voice that he used when the soccer freshmen thought they were hot shit and tried to wrap each other in toilet paper for solidarity. “It’s about you.”

“Yeah.” He was right, that I’d been making soccer a lot more about my dad than about me. Maybe that was just a way to take the pressure off. Like if I failed, it wasn’t really my fault. But then if I didn’t fail, it wouldn’t be because of me either. They were both right: super unfair.

“At least your old man gives a crap,” said Austin.