Hot Hand Read Free

said in a loud voice, “you’re lucky I left you in this long.”
    Billy stood where he was, still a few feet on the court, feeling everybody else in the game and the crowd staring at him, like he was out in the open in paintball.
    “We’re waiting,” his dad said.
    Billy looked over at Lenny, standing in front of their bench, Lenny somehow begging just with his eyes for Billy to get off the court, not make things worse than they already were.
    Finally Billy went and sat down as far away from where his dad sat as he could.
    Yet when the game started back up, his dad wouldn’t drop it. His face was red as he yelled down to Billy, “When you’re ready to be part of the group again, you can go back in.”
    The next thing just came out of Billy, like a button popping off a shirt, even though it was like he was saying it to the floor, his head down.
    “What do you know about being part of the group?” he said.
    His dad ran to Billy at superhero speed, standing over him, not seeming to care who could hear what they were saying to each other.
    “What is that supposed to mean?”
    “Nothing,” Billy said.
    “It didn’t sound like nothing to me,” his dad said. Still not letting this go. “If you’ve got something you want to say to me, go ahead and say it,” Joe Raynor said.
    For one quick second, Billy felt that burn you get inside your eyes when you think you might start crying, but he put his head down so nobody could see him, squeezed his eyes shut until the feeling went away.
    When he was positive he wasn’t going to cry, he looked up at his dad. Usually when he was in trouble about something, his dad would have to order Billy to look him in the eyes.
    Not today.
    “I guess I just need to know something,” Billy said. “Are you my coach today or my dad?”

FOUR
    They were back at Billy’s house in the late afternoon, shooting baskets in the driveway after playing 2006 FIFA World Cup on Xbox 360 for a couple of hours at Lenny’s.
    It was still the middle of winter and pretty cold, even with the sun out, but Billy and Lenny didn’t care how cold it was. There were times when they came out here and shot around even when it was snowing.
    Lenny was like a friend and an older brother all at the same time. Lenny’s brother was a lot older than they were, already a sophomore in college. So it worked out great, almost like they’d planned it this way. Billy was like the younger brother Lenny didn’t have. Lenny? He was like the older brother Billy sort of wished he had—more than an older sister from Mars.
    Billy loved Ben, who in that quiet way of his was one of the coolest people he knew.
    He just had more in common with Lenny.
    And more fun.
    Lenny was saying now, “I didn’t know whether your dad was going to ground you for life or just make you run laps forever.”
    Billy, even with his hands starting to get a little colder now, made another shot from the outside and motioned for Lenny to pass him the ball back.
    “Don’t worry,” Billy said. “I’m not letting him mess up my whole day.”
    “Just don’t let it mess up your whole season, ” Lenny said. “You know you wait all year for basketball, just like I do.”
    “I won’t, don’t worry,” Billy said. “We made a deal, remember?”
    “Deal?” Lenny said. “You did everything except make me take one of those blood oaths.”
    Their deal, one they never even talked about with the other guys on the team, was that they were not just going to win the championship of their age division, they were going to go undefeated.
    Billy made another one from outside their three-point line, the one they’d drawn in chalk, the ball hitting nothing but net. The swish sound of the ball going through the net reminded him of a big gust of wind.
    “Least I can still shoot,” Billy said. “Even if somebody acts like I’m the biggest gunner in the world.”
    “You and your dad just had a bad day,” Lenny said.
    Like every other day this week, Billy