Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 163209 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 816(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163209 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 816(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Jean interrupted before Shawn could get involved. “You aren’t going. Maybe if you hadn’t allowed yourself to get so distracted by outside interests you would’ve fixed your stance years ago. Why are you allowing this behavior?” he demanded of Derek. “He is your partner. Why can’t you corral him?”
“Hey, hey,” Derrick said, even as Derek held up his hands in self-defense. “What’s wrong with my stance?”
“Why are you always moving?”
“Oh, easy. I’m jamming to the tunes.” Derrick smiled, like that was at all a legitimate response. Jean stared him down a minute, waiting for something more, before turning his attention back on the saner of the two. Derek only shrugged expansively and refused to elaborate. Derrick took the incredulous silence as some sort of permission and began air drumming with enthusiastic sound effects.
Jean could have—should have—left it at that, but a name finally sank through his annoyance. “Cherise is not a Trojan.”
“Oh, she’s Derek’s cousin,” Derrick said. “I’m going to marry her one day.”
“Keep dreaming,” Derek said. “She is never gonna marry a white boy.”
“I’ll change her mind yet.” Derrick nudged Jean. “You’ve got to see the rack on—”
Derek swung half-heartedly at him, and Derrick took off toward the front of the line with a shout. Derek gave chase, hollering for Derrick to come back so they could “just talk”. The breeze carried Derrick’s boisterous cackle back to Jean, and Jean dug a thumb into his temple to ward off a burgeoning headache.
Lisinski let Jean try the weights both with and without his brace but said nothing about his chances of participating in drills that day. Jean nearly bit his tongue to bleeding to keep from asking her. Surely Jeremy could find out, using his authority as captain, but Jean wouldn’t catch up with him until they were back at the stadium.
Jean didn’t look for his peach until he finished his rinse-off shower. It was right where he’d left it, so he dressed for lunch and settled on the strikers’ bench with it cupped between his hands. Ananya was often amongst the last back to the row, as the women generally chose to dress in the restroom. Somehow she still beat Jeremy to the lockers, and she smiled at the sight of the fruit cradled in Jean’s hands.
“If you like peaches, you should try Cat’s tarts,” she said. “They’re fantastic.”
Jean closed his fingers protectively around his snack. “An unnecessary embellishment.”
She nodded in the face of his rejection and went looking for Cody and Pat. Jeremy appeared almost as soon as she’d left, with Cat and Laila on his heels, and the four of them made their way up the street once more.
Cat dug into her lunch as she chatted about a new exhibit at the nearby museum. Laila was an easy enough sell on the idea; if Cat was that excited to see the exhibit, then of course Laila would be happy to take her. Jeremy seemed oblivious to the chatter going on overhead, as he was sprawled on his stomach with one of the LSAT guides he’d brought home Friday. Neither Cat nor Laila had seen fit to comment on their sudden appearance, an unexpected bit of self-control for such an opinionated pair.
“We could go Saturday,” Cat said, then realization had her tilting toward Jean. “Oh, no, wait. My uncle’s dealership is getting a shipment out of San Francisco this week, and his driver’s gonna detour through Daly City to get the starter bike. You and I can go pick it up Friday after practice, okay? Saturday we’ll have to get you a permit.”
Jean still wasn’t sure which way to swing on that decision, so he stalled with: “I don’t know where Daly City is.”
Cat contemplated the surrounding buildings before pointing over her right shoulder. “About six hours that direction. Most of my fam’s in the bay area, actually! Have you ever been? Really?” She clasped her chest dramatically when he shook his head. “Well, it’s a quick flight from here if you ever wanna pop up there for a weekend. I can find us some cheap tickets, I bet.”
Jean wasn’t sure what constituted as “cheap” but decided not to ask. He’d gone from his parents’ tight grip to the Nest’s suffocating control. He understood capitalism and economics in theory, thanks to tremendously boring business classes and conversations with the Ravens, but money was not something he was used to needing or having. That first visit to Fox Hills in May had been a rude awakening. Laila nearly had a meltdown when she realized how out of his depth he was, though she’d repeatedly reassured him it wasn’t him she was so upset with. He hadn’t really understood until he saw how quickly everything added up at the register.
Laila and Cat had shouldered most of his expenses since then, allowing him to chip in only for the occasional forgotten ingredient or the new sheets for his smaller bed. Leaning on them meant Jean wasn’t getting any better at understanding how to manage cash, but he had no idea how to change the situation. He knew he’d get a salary after graduation—twenty percent of one, anyway—but what was he supposed to do between now and then? He’d come to Los Angeles with only the four hundred dollars Coach Wymack slipped in his suitcase.