Fadeaway by E. Vickers (sight word readers TXT) 📕

of ball on net. Those little hits of adrenaline, better than any drug. Or that’s what Jenna told me, anyway.

“I’ve sampled it all,” she said on the first day of tryouts. We were leaned over, nearly puking after running twelve suicides. “And none of it makes you feel this good.” She was grinning so hard I had to believe her.

Even though tryouts had me feeling high too, my shot had been off all day. So after everybody else had packed up, I rolled the rack back out and started shooting threes, one after another. When I’d shot them all, I reloaded the rack and moved to a new spot. No way would I go home until I made it all the way around the arc, until it felt natural and they started falling.

“It’s going to take forever if you do it like that.”

I spun around to find the source of the voice, and there he was, leaning against the doorway. Hair a mess, a deep V of sweat down his T-shirt, holding a beat-up ball against his hip. Everything inside me prickled alive.

“Plus, it’s not the same motion as in a game,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “Thanks for mansplaining that. I hadn’t realized they don’t push these metal racks around during the game.”

“Well, back in the old days, they did,” he said, dribbling as he walked toward me. “When the baskets were peach buckets and the jerseys were still made of wool.”

“Wow,” I said. “I’m so lucky to have you here to teach me all this.” I grabbed a ball from the rack and drained a three. Thank goodness.

Jake caught it with his free hand before it even had a chance to hit the ground. I expected him to make some showboat shot of his own, but he fired it back at me, and there was the sting in my palms again.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll feed you. But you gotta stay on the move.”

I sent the rack and the rest of the balls rolling for the bleachers, then dribbled toward the baseline, pulled up, and took the shot—totally aware that his eyes were on me.

Air ball, straight over the rim.

He didn’t laugh, though. Just grabbed the ball and gave it back with a quick bounce pass. Not to where I was, though—to the next spot on the arc.

Keep moving, I reminded myself.

Another miss, but closer this time.

“Use your legs,” he said.

“I thought we talked about the mansplaining,” I shot back.

“Holy crap, Sharp,” he said, putting a little more heat on his next pass. “It’s not because you’re a girl. It’s because you know how your shot feels, but I know how it looks. We’re switching, by the way, once you get to the baseline. And you can give me all the feedback you want.”

So I did. We did. We alternated between three-pointers and ten-footers (jump shots for me, fadeaways for Jake) until Mr. Caruso came and turned off the lights.

“Looking good out there, Foster,” he said.

Jake gave him an up-nod but kept his eyes on me. “You’re going to make the team, you know. They’d be crazy to cut you.” He stood there, dribbling between his legs and behind his back so naturally that I wasn’t even sure he realized he was doing it.

“Can I tell you a secret?” I asked. I hadn’t said the words out loud, even to my dad, but it felt safer to say now that the bright lights were gone and I could only see Jake’s silhouette in the glow of the one small bulb by the door.

He picked up his dribble and stepped toward me, close enough I could have touched the soft hem of his T-shirt. “Spill it, Sharp,” he said.

“I don’t want to make the sophomore team,” I confessed. “I want to make varsity.”

He stepped even closer, and suddenly we were face to face, his arms around me, holding the ball as it curved into the small of my back. He leaned in to whisper into my right ear.

“Secret number one: me too. That’s half the reason I stayed after.”

And then into my left.

“Secret number two: you will.”

Then he walked away, putting the ball in the rack and wheeling it back to the equipment room for me. “Get some rest, Sharp,” he called over his shoulder. “Tomorrow’s going to hurt.”

He was right. The next day at tryouts, every muscle in me screamed, “Didn’t we do this yesterday?” But my shots fell, again and again, and I saw the head coach point at me as the assistant scribbled something on her clipboard. And by the end of the week, when the rosters were posted, our secrets had turned into promises kept.

I made varsity.

And so did he.

I was the only sophomore on the girls’ varsity roster, but Jake wasn’t the only boy. Seth and Kolt got called up too. Everybody knew exactly what Coach Cooper was doing: giving the sophomores varsity experience, going all in on a chance at a championship his son’s senior year. And Jake was as smart a bet as you could make on the basketball court.

The lists were posted together, boys and girls, on the bulletin board outside the gym. I wandered back for one more look before I headed home, just to make sure I hadn’t imagined it.

Jake was there, bag slung over his shoulder, staring at it too.

“Congratulations,” I said.

“Hey, you too,” he said. “It was probably all that extra shooting practice, huh?”

“Oh, yeah,” I agreed. “You would’ve been cut otherwise.”

He laughed, and I felt something slide into place inside me, like two magnets finally close enough to click together. He’d made me laugh the very first time he’d spoken to me, back in the courtroom, and now I’d finally returned the favor. It was an easy, low laugh, and already I wanted to hear it again.

I shifted my gym bag to the other shoulder, and as my free hand fell back, Jake locked a finger around my pinkie.

“We should probably keep staying after, then,” he