Page 188 of ClickBack

“I don’t want your locker.”

“Good. Worked hard for that location.”

“You’re about to find out how hard I can make it.”

He laughs and tells me to hit him when I know what time I’m landing. I stay on long enough to hear him say it again, quieter this time.

“Glad you’re coming, Jay.”

By lunch, somebody has put the old video of Giselle under a report about the trade. Her crown photograph is back in the replies. I read enough to know I need to stop.

Tori sends a message asking whether Giselle wants anything added to the existing response. I leave it unanswered and go to the living room, where she is working with her earbuds in. She takes one out when she sees me.

“The trade has people going through that old shit again,” I tell her.

She closes her eyes, irritated. “Naturally.”

“Tori’s asking about a response. I’m expecting somebody to try it at the press conference, too.”

“What are you thinking?”

“That I’m not letting a room full of people discuss you like you aren’t a person.”

She puts the earbud beside her laptop. “Neither am I.”

I sit beside her. “I want to say your name. That we’re together. And that whoever wants a fucking explanation can find somebody else to give it.”

“That last part might need editing.”

“I’ll leave out the fuck.”

She laughs, then turns toward me. “Say that I’m with you. I don’t want you explaining my age or Rae or Zion. There’s nothing to defend.”

“Agreed.”

“And I’ll answer Tori myself.”

I send Tori a short reply, then put the phone down. Giselle has started reopening her laptop when I take her hand.

“I’m happy,” I tell her. “About Texas. About you. I want to be able to say both without some asshole making one sound like a mistake.”

She squeezes my hand. “Then say both.”

Thursday, the number three is on a Storm jersey in front of me, and somebody keeps asking me to turn a little farther toward the photographer on the left.

The physical cleared yesterday. I’ve met more staff than I can remember, sat with Parker over film, and had Von walk into a room just to grin at me and walk back out. Now Devin is talking about what the trade brings to the team. I keep looking at the jersey.

When the questions start, I can answer them. How I see myself playing beside Cole. What I want to do with the ball. Where I can help without it. I talk about the team that won two championships before I got here and the work of fitting into something that already works.

“And your brother?” a reporter asks.

“He told me not to touch his locker. So the welcome’s been mixed.”

People laugh. I look toward Von at the side of the room, and he spreads his hands. Told you.

“I’ve watched him build a life here,” I say. “I respect what he’s done. I’m looking forward to being part of it.”

A few questions later, a man near the front raises his microphone.