He let go of Neil and held up five fingers, smiling at Neil through them. "You have five days to meet the others. Five days of practices and all of Coach's ridiculous bonding nonsense. Then it's our turn on Friday. You can get to know us off the court."

"We'll take you out to dinner," Nicky said over his shoulder. "We used to live in Columbia, so we know all the best spots. Even better, we've got a free place to crash so we don't have to worry about driving back drunk or exhausted. It'll be a blast."

"I don't drink or dance," Neil said.

"That's all right," Andrew said. "Kevin doesn't dance anymore and I never do. You can drink soda and talk to us while the others make fools of themselves. We can't get through this year with this little misunderstanding between us, so we'll take a night off and fix it."

'Fix' was a strange choice of words. Neil knew one of them would have to break for them to get along, and he was pretty sure Andrew understood that too. It was obvious Andrew expected him to be the first to give ground.

Neil knew he should. It was past time to concede. But Neil wanted to prove him wrong, no matter how stupid it was. "If I go, promise me you'll never touch anything of mine ever again."

"So possessive," Andrew said.

"Of course I am," Neil said. "Everything I own fits in one bag."

Andrew considered that, then answered with a mad grin. "Okay. One night with us, and no more break-ins. Friday night will be fun."

Neil highly doubted that.

They reached the stadium a full minute ahead of their more law-abiding teammates and waited on the curb for Matt's truck to arrive. As soon as the upperclassmen parked and got out, Andrew pointed at Neil.

"Look, one piece."

"Are you bleeding anywhere?" Matt asked.

"Nowhere vital," Neil said.

Renee intervened before her friends could react. "Why don't we wait inside for Seth and Allison? We've got a while and it's a little warm out here."

"Maybe they'll get in a crash and won't make it," Nicky said hopefully.

"Really, Nicky," Renee said. "That's a little inappropriate, don't you think?"

She said it gently, with the hint of a smile on her face, but Neil still felt the rebuke. It was subtler but somehow deadlier than the dirty looks Matt and Dan were sending Nicky, maybe because she was so sweetly disappointed in Nicky's attitude. Nicky dropped his gaze from hers and gave an uncomfortable shrug.

"Let's go," Dan said, and led the way into the locker room.