Edward had
played baseball for almost as long as the game had existed. Okay, that was an
exaggeration, but still, he’d played a lot of baseball. Unfortunately, the
baseball tryouts weren’t until spring, and Edward couldn’t imagine playing the
game with anyone other than his family.
He didn’t
quite know why he tried out for basketball. If pressed, he would have said that
he was in the standing in the front of McCarthey Athletic Center, checking out
posters put up by the various intramurals groups and sports teams and…before he
knew it he was in line to sign up for the tryouts.
The coaches
were more than a little dubious, and he guessed he didn’t blame them. The
problem with being superhumanly strong is that the physical world leaves very
little for your body to work hard against. I mean, unless you were Emmett and
you threw trees and rocks around for fun. Compared to the other players, he was
on the shortish side, on the scrawnyish side, and—due to being a sophomore and
admitting that he had never played basketball before—was more than a bit on the
inexperienced side.
His
vampiric powers, even consciously dialed back to almost nothing, gave him at
least the appearance of natural skill, however. He was fast, agile, and never
seemed to get tired. The coaches also seemed to appreciate that he did all the
drills, came to all of the practices, didn’t give anyone any lip, and was
pretty good about working with his teammates.
He knew
that he could be even better than this. His telepathy would always put him one
step ahead of his opponents. His was literally so fast that he could do easy
layups while the other players on the court seemed to literally be standing
still. But that was no fun. Like baseball with the family, playing basketball
was more about doing things with people. Of sharing a common interest. Of working
to a common goal. You didn’t just do that by being an unstoppable, godlike,
ballhog.
Edward wasn’t
sure that his teammates liked him either, and it took all of his willpower for
him not to use his mental abilities to check. But soon, he started receiving
friendly slaps after a good play (although he was always worried that someone
was going to break their hand on his flawless chest), and good-natured ribbing
in the locker room. This latter was a new sensation, and it was difficult for
him to adjust to it. Edward knew they weren’t actually making fun of him, but
the old, protective rage proved to be a beast that was hard to kill. He tried to
smile, to laugh it off, hoping that his return barbs weren’t too envenomed and
that they didn’t drive too deep.
The season
started and Edward, despite being a seemingly respectable member of the team,
sat on the bench. He seethed inside, but less so than he would have back in
Forks. He wanted to play, but he was competent
enough at math to know that the team had a lot of players, and they could only
play five of them at a time.
The coaches
finally started putting him in at the end of games, when Gonzaga’s victory was
almost assured. He showboated a bit more than he promised himself he would, but
there was something about the energy on the court, the surging scream of the
crowd, that got his venom pumping much more than mere bloodlust ever could. In
his first two outings he left the other teams flatfooted and sank a half-dozen
seemingly impossible shots.
Gonzaga
decided to have him start shortly thereafter.
#
Edward had
dialed it back as much as he could when he started playing regularly. He had
come to respect and really enjoy the camaraderie of his teammates, and he wants
to make sure they had a chance to shine as well. So he passed the ball, set up
shots so his teammates could score, screened the other team, and even fouled
and got fouled a time or two, crashing theatrically to the boards, acting, what
he hoped, was the part of a fragile, moderately injured human.
Back in
Forks, his family had started watching the game, sending IMs and emails from
their Apple products whenever Gonzaga won. They were all convinced that he was
the lynchpin of the team, and Edward could not convince them otherwise, no
matter how strongly he argued the point. He guessed that they were just proud
of him that he was doing so well—and Jasper was impressed he hadn’t eaten that
Israeli player from UCONN yet.
All of that
led them up to this night—the big game in the Final Four against the Tar Heels.
Only one of them would advance. Edward, of course, hoped that it would be the
Bulldogs. There was no way of knowing, though, especially considering that the
Huskies’ women’s team (lady Huskies? Edward wasn’t sure) just had their more
than 100 game winning streak broken. Freakish, but anything could happen.
He did not,
however, realize that anything included a slender, dark-haired girl wearing
street clothes walking out with four of the Tar Heels. About the only thing
that looked even remotely athletic on her were the broken-in Converse on her
feet. She played idly with a necklace that was obviously homemade and strung
with junk—something that would no doubt cause someone an eye injury over the
course of the game.
The girl
squared off with Edward as the first half began. He looked around frantically—at
the refs, at the coaches, at the other players—but no one else seemed to notice
or care how out of place she was.
“Hey,” she
said, speaking in the low, honeyed drawl of the Deep South. “Get your head in
the game, Cullen.”
“But…you…”
he said. “How?”
“I’m a
Caster, you filthy blood incubus,” said the girl, breaking into a radiant
smile. “And all these guys think I’m Isaiah Hicks. You don’t, though, because
you’ve got powers and you’re cheating.”
The whistle
blew. Edward moved to cover the girl, listening to the omnipresent roar of the
crowd, the high-pitched squealing of sneakers on wax. All of a sudden, the ball
was in the girl’s hands.
“Well, I’m
Lena Duchannes, bitchbag, and if you
can cheat, so can I.”
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