“No,” he said. “I can’t. I thought I was being a good friend and a good teammate before. But all that did was get us both into trouble.”

Ryan stood up. So did Lucas. They were only a couple feet away from each other, neither willing to back up.

“Fine,” Ryan said. “Start getting used to the idea of passing somebody else the ball when we get back from break.”

“You don’t know that’s going to happen,” Lucas said.

“Yeah, I do,” Ryan said. “I might not be much of a writer. But I can still read. I read my own paper before I came over here. And it still stinks.”

“Maybe you should do a different paper,” Lucas said. “There’s still time.”

“That’s your brilliant idea?” Ryan said. “I should start all over again, with a different subject, with a little over a day to go? Yeah, that’s gonna work.”

Ryan shook his head. His face was red.

“This is your idea of being my friend?” Ryan said. “Seriously?”

And suddenly Gramps’s voice was inside Lucas’s head, telling him that character was something you showed even in an empty room. His bedroom wasn’t empty, but in this moment he understood what Gramps had meant.

“I am your friend,” Lucas said.

“You’ve got a funny way of showing it,” Ryan said.

He turned and walked out of the room. Lucas heard Ryan saying good-bye to his mom. Then the sound of the front door closing.

Now he was alone in his bedroom. He was the one making a choice that affected somebody else. He just hoped it didn’t cost him a friend. And a teammate.

But if he’d acted differently, he would have lost a lot more.

THIRTY

To Lucas’s great surprise, after having not heard from him since the Wolves’ last game, Gramps did show up at practice the next night.

He was moving slowly. He seemed to be limping even more than usual. He didn’t joke around as much with the guys while they were shooting around, and said nothing at all to Lucas.

But he was there.

When they were finished with their warm-ups, he called the players out to where he was standing at mid court.

“Pretty sure you boys are old enough to have heard the expression about an elephant in the room,” he said. “Well, guess what? Tonight I’m that elephant. Except I’m not invisible, much as I’d like to be these days. I’m standing right here in front of you.”

Neil was the one who spoke up first.

“Is it true about you, Mr. Winston?” he said. “What we read?”

“Yes, it is,” Gramps said without hesitation. “That boy they wrote about in the newspaper, I used to be that boy.”

“So you did those things?” Sharif said.