His free throws were still the worst part of his game, the one area where he wasn’t confident, where his nerves would often get the best of him. Lucas loved being in motion, whether he had the ball or not. Then he’d get to the line and be standing still, and it was like he felt frozen. But Gramps told him that the more confident he got with his outside shot, the more that would translate to his free throws. If you could do one, he said, you could do the other.

It had to get better, or he couldn’t have the ball in his hands at the end of a close game. He would be worrying about getting fouled and going to the line and maybe having to decide the game there.

Tonight he felt good from the line, hot on the cold night, making eight of his last ten.

But they weren’t quite finished.

“Okay,” Gramps said. “Down one. You just got fouled trying to make a layup. Ended up on your butt. Two shots to win the game.”

Lucas took the ball, stepped to the line, and went through the new pre-shot routine they were trying this season: ball on his left hip to start. Three dribbles, looking at the basket the whole time. Breathe in, breathe out. Bend the knees. Let it go.

Swish.

“Tie game,” Gramps said, grabbing the ball after it went through the net. He bounce-passed it back to Lucas, smiling the Santa Claus smile again. “Did I mention that it’s the championship game and there’s only one second showing on the clock?”

Lucas smiled back.

“I felt as if that was one of your implied-type things,” he said.

Put the ball on his hip. Three dribbles. Breathe. Bend. Shoot.

Swish.

Gramps came over and put his arm around him.

“Ball don’t lie,” he said.

Others in Lucas Winston’s life would lie before the season was over. He just didn’t know that at Westley Park. Not yet.

TWO

Lucas invited Gramps in for homemade apple pie left over from dinner when they pulled up in front of the house on Cypress Lane. It was the only house Lucas had ever known.

“Doc says I have to cut down on the sweets,” Gramps said. “More old man stuff.”

“You keep talking about how old you are,” Lucas said. “But we were talking after practice the other day, and we all wish we had as much energy as you do.”

“All I can do now is talk a good game,” he said.

His grandfather leaned over from behind the wheel, kissed Lucas on the cheek, and told him he’d see him tomorrow night at practice.

Lucas asked what he was going to do when he got home.

“Watch a game,” he said.

“Which one?”

“Any one,” Gramps said.