“Fine by me,” Ryan said. “Sometimes I think it’s okay to celebrate the beginning of something the way you do the ending.”

“I thought you were just thinking about your first slice,” Lucas said.

“That too,” Ryan said. “Like you’re not?”

“What I’ve been thinking about is the way you waited until the exact right moment to pop out for that three-pointer,” Lucas said.

“You know I saw you give me the nod,” he said.

“And I knew you knew,” Lucas said.

“Gotta admit, though, the play was pretty chill,” Ryan said. “But if you really think about it, I was only open that much because of you.”

“How do you figure?”

“Zim decided he wasn’t going to let you beat them with a drive,” Ryan said. “So he overplayed right away. And then you beat them with the dish.”

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t make the shot,” Lucas said. “Plus, you’re a better shooter than I am.”

“In today’s game maybe,” Ryan said.

“Only game that matters right now,” Lucas said.

Lucas’s mom and Ryan’s mom were at a table against the wall. Lucas heard his mom say, “Is there anything better than watching hungry boys eat pizza?”

“But aren’t they always hungry?” Ryan’s mom said.

“Even when they’re sleeping, pretty sure.”

Gramps wasn’t sitting with Lucas and Ryan. He was at the head of the other table, his slice of plain pizza untouched in front of him. He was hunched over his napkin, smiling as he scribbled on it.

Ryan followed Lucas’s eyes over to where Gramps sat.

“What’s he doing?” Ryan said.

“I’ll bet you my allowance and yours that he’s diagramming a new play because of something that happened in the game today,” Lucas said.

“Not taking that bet,” Ryan said.

“Chicken?”

“We both know you’re right,” Ryan said. “I’m surprised that Xs and Os don’t come spilling out of his ear sometimes.”

Lucas grinned. “I think his hearing aid keeps them trapped inside,” he said.

Everything felt right today. They hadn’t just won their opener, they’d won a rivalry game. They’d beaten a team they knew they might face for the championship—again—if the season went the way they thought it would go, and hoped it would go. Had they played their best game? No one expected that in their first game. They sure hadn’t looked like much of a championship team in the first quarter. But they had fought their way out of that ten-point hole. Sometimes what mattered most in sports was overcoming something. It brought out the best in you.

When the game had ended Gramps had said, “Anybody can get knocked down. Heck, I used to do it all the time. There’s no trick in that. Any old crumbum can do that.”

It was one of his favorite words: crumbum.