“But I think my shooting arm was tired after I made that absolute bomb at the end against the Bulls,” Ryan said.

“Well, now you can rest it,” Lucas said, “because of those two absolute bombs I just made.”

By the time Lucas walked up the street from Ryan’s house to his own, Gramps was waiting for him. It meant he was waiting to talk about the game they’d won. If practice was his favorite thing about coaching, breaking down a game after it had been played was his next favorite.

Then came actually coaching the game.

Lucas pointed that out to him while they ate turkey meatloaf and mashed potatoes and green beans.

“That press changed everything today,” Lucas said.

“Even I picked up on that,” Julia said. “The poor boys on the other team looked as if they’d been attacked by a swarm of bees.”

Gramps smiled. “Well, maybe that decision did tilt the game slightly toward us at that point,” he said.

“You think?” his grandson said.

Gramps picked up his water glass. As always, Lucas couldn’t believe how big his hands were, and how long his fingers were. They were old hands, and there were a lot of dark spots on them. But these were great, big basketball hands. When the old man was feeling frisky, he would palm a ball with one hand after he got one spinning on the index finger of the other.

“You boys still had to execute the press properly,” Gramps said.

“Yeah,” Lucas said, smiling. “I heard somewhere it’s a player’s game.”

“Well, it sure as heck isn’t a coach’s game,” Gramps said, “even though there’s a whole lot of coaches who act as if they invented basketball, instead of just putting their players in the best position to win the game.”

“Which is what you did today,” Lucas said.

“Eat your beans,” his grandfather said, “even though you’re pretty much full of beans already.”

“Wonder who he gets that from?” Lucas’s mom said.

“Must be your side of the family,” Gramps said.

After Lucas had finished his apple pie, he said to Gramps, “Hey, we’ve been talking so much about the game I forgot to tell you guys about this cool writing project Mr. Collins gave us in English.”

He explained it, and how it couldn’t be a parent.

“Good!” Lucas’s mom said, sounding so relieved that she wasn’t going to be his subject that they all laughed.

Then she said, “Even though I sort of know what the answer to this question is going to be, gonna ask it anyway: Whose life story are you going to write?”

“Gramps,” Lucas said.

“Oh, come on,” Gramps said. “Can’t you find somebody more interesting than an old man?”

“First of all, you’re not old,” Lucas said.

Gramps turned to Lucas’s mom.

“When was the last time the boy’s eyes were checked?” he said.

“I want to write about you,” Lucas said. “I want to know more about your life. There’s got to be stuff you never told me.”