Deal With It Read Online Free

Forest Hill two Fridays before. He wore the Grambling team colors—a gold cap with a black G in the center of it and a black-and-gold polo underneath a blazer.
    He sat in the bleachers, his legs propped up, crossed and resting on the bleacher in front of him. Relaxed and leaning back on his elbows, he didn’t even flinch when I hit my famous three-pointer. And I tried not to even look his way as I jogged backward down the court to post up for defense. The next time I took the ball down court, I caught the guy pulling a pen and a small notepad out of the pocket of his blazer, writing some notes and then stuffing the pen and pad back into his pocket. I knew then that he was definitely a scout. And pretty soon he quietly eased out of the doors of the gym,like Clark Kent did when he was about to change into Superman. Smooth.
    I wasn’t sure if he was interested in me, but I was definitely interested in a free ride at Grambling State University. It wasn’t my father’s school choice for me, but it was definitely mine. He wanted me to be a Duke man like him. I wanted to explore my options, check out some of the historically black colleges, like FAMU, Howard University or Grambling State. Some of dad’s old college buddies were now professors at Duke. And his ex-roommate was one of the head basketball coaches. He’d been watching my game since I was in middle school, and had already promised me a free ride, with all the perks. But attending a school where all of Daddy’s buddies were my professors and basketball coaches meant twenty-four-hour surveillance, and I wasn’t having that. But I wasn’t sure how I was going to break the news to Dad that I had my eye on Grambling.
    When I mentioned it before, he’d said, “Now why in the world would you even consider that little country school in Louisiana? You gotta think bigger than that, son! Grambling’s too small for you.”
    “I haven’t settled on Duke yet, Dad,” I’d said to him at the beginning of basketball season. “I’m exploring my options.”
    He hadn’t been happy with that comment. He’d frowned, raised the Atlanta Journal-Constitution up to his nose and begun reading. He was done talking to me, and I felt dismissed. I never brought the conversation up again. Instead, I continued to give my game the best I could, and hoped for other offers.
    I tried to keep my focus on school and on my game, but it was hard to focus when girls were constantly jocking you. They showed up at practice, they lingered after the games, they called your house at ungodly hours of the night and they stalked you at school. There was nowhere to turn, even when you told them that you had a girlfriend. That only made them want you more,which made my current girlfriend, Tameka, want to fight the entire female population.
    Tameka had been my girl since the beginning of basketball season. We had chorus together during the first semester, and since she was on the dance team, we would see each other after school a lot. I never really paid much attention to her until she asked me for a piece of gum one day.
    “You got some gum?” she’d asked, a pair of leotards hugging her hips as we both sat in the bleachers.
    “I got Trident.” I smiled.
    “Trident?” She frowned. “You ain’t got no Bubblicious or Bubble Yum?”
    “No. I chew Trident. It’s sugar free. Better for your teeth,” I told her as I pulled the package out of my pocket. “You want one or not?”
    “Yeah, I’ll take one. It’s better than nothing.” She pulled a piece of Trident out of the package and popped it into her mouth. “Thanks.”
    “You’re a pretty good dancer. I saw you out there practicing earlier,” I told her. “You been dancing long?”
    “Forever,” she said. “What about you? Can you dance?”
    “I can get down a little bit.” I’d smiled. She had my attention immediately, and I wasn’t sure why. I guessed it was her straightforward attitude, or maybe it was the way she wore those