He made himself knock down ten free throws in a row, as usual. So far this season all the work he’d done was paying off, because his free-throw shooting had been pretty solid. He still wanted to be ready when a game was on the line.

He stepped to the line and proceeded to make his first eight.

Then he missed.

He started all over again.

He was stubborn, and wasn’t ever going to cheat himself.

I’ll never cheat the game.

He got to nine in a row.

Missed the tenth, feeling like a choker.

Started all over again.

He looked at the clock as he did. Five minutes to five. But he pretended it was a game clock. Told himself he wasn’t trying to make ten in a row in the next five minutes.

Told himself that every shot he knocked down was with a game on the line.

He got to nine again.

Lucas went through his routine. Took one last look at the rim after one last bounce of the ball. Took a deep breath.

Knocked it down like a champ.

“Ten for ten,” the voice behind him said.

He didn’t have to turn around to know it was Gramps.

He was limping in Lucas’s direction from the other end of the court. He wore his faded black Celtics cap with the shamrock on the front.

He walked all the way to where Lucas stood at the free-throw line, ball on his hip.

“I let your mother know I’d pick you up and give you a ride home when she told me where you were,” he said. “Told her we needed to talk. All of us need to talk, now that I think about it. But first you and me.”

“Mom told you that we know about you?” Lucas said.

“She did,” Gramps said. “And you do know. Just not all of it.”

“You lied to me!” Lucas said, unable to control himself. “Everything I thought is a big fat lie!”

“No, son, it’s not,” Gramps said.

Even trying to keep his voice low, it sounded loud in the empty gym. Just not as loud as Lucas’s had been.

“I don’t even know you!” Lucas yelled.

He could never remember raising his voice to his grandfather, not one time. But he’d never had a reason, until now.

“You do know me,” Gramps said. “Just not who I used to be. Even if that dumb boy made me the man I am now.”

“You took money to cheat the game,” Lucas said.

“The person I really cheated was myself,” he said. “Now come sit down so we can have a talk we should have had a long time ago.”

There were two folding chairs set up at one of the corners of the court. Gramps walked toward them. Lucas followed.