"Do it again," said Tommy as he tossed the basketball back to Martin. He was standing near the hoop to catch rebounds wearing his adidas shorts and matching black shoes. The sweat on his bare chest was drying up now that he was standing still, waiting for Martin to make the shot.
Martin dribbled the ball twice as he paced the three point line. He wore dark blue shorts and white runners that shone in the warm spring sun. Sweat dripped off his face and he kept needing to brush hair aside to see. His mom always told him it was getting too long, but that only made him want to avoid cutting it more. Even if it was making it impossible to sink a shot.
He dribbled and ran forward to layup into the hoop, his hair covering his eyes as he tipped the ball up off his fingers. It smacked the rim and backboard and ricocheted off.
"Fuck!" said Martin as he walked in a circle and lay down. The black asphalt was hot against his naked back, but he didn't care. He lay his arms out in defeat and stared into the empty blue sky.
Tommy walked into his eyeline holding the ball, silhouetted against the sun. "You sure you don't want to just get a haircut?"
Martin groaned and covered his eyes.
A little later they were back in Martin's room.
Tommy stood in front of the tall mirror on Martin's closet door, flexing his arms and poking at his bare chest trying to decide if the regular workouts were making a difference to his skinny body.
Martin was sitting up in his bed focused on the notebook. "What if I joined the swim team instead?" He asked.
Tommy looked at him in the mirror and replied, "I don't think they have spots open. We're more than half way through the year, dude, it's too late to switch."
"Fuck," Martin muttered. He looked down the list of options they had crossed out at the start of the year, looking for an alternative to the basketball team.
Tommy bumped his shoulder to make space and Martin moved over so Tommy could join him on the small twin bed. He tried to cheer his friend up, "You don't have to play a lot to be a part of the team, you know. It'll still count for the applications."
"I know, but I wanted that moment like in Teen Wolf when he wins the first game for them." Martin looked over at Tommy, who was looking back at him like he was an idiot. "What?"
"He was a fucking werewolf."
Martin went back to the notebook, "You know what I mean."
"There's lots of other things you're on track for, don't get hung up on the sports moment. You can still be Valedictorian or Prom King."
"Come on, you're going to be Prom King."
Tommy grinned and said, "I know," so Martin elbowed him in the ribs. It was basically an act of war, so Tommy pounced on Martin and wrestled him off the bed. They fell to the carpet in a tangle of limbs as they tried to pin each other, but they were on the basketball team, not the wrestling team, so they both fought dirty and tried to tickle or poke the other boy into submission.
In the end Martin was pinned to the ground with his face in the carpet, his hands behind his back, and Tommy straddling his ass.
"I win again," Tommy said, grinning.
"Fine! Uncle."
Tommy let go of his hands. Martin tried to get up but Tommy wouldn't move, so he got up anyway on all fours with his friend riding his back like a cowboy.
"Yeehaw!"
Martin knocked him off and got back up on the bed with the notebook.
On the carpet, Tommy stretched out and put his hands behind his head, resting his bare feet on the wall with one leg crossed over the other.
Martin flipped to the pages of tallies and asked, "How many times have you and Rebecca made out this week?"
Tommy thought back, "I think four times."
Martin added it to the tally. He scanned through the list for more stats to update, adding ticks to his column for the two music lessons he'd had that week.
The boys had been keeping records all year, getting together on Saturdays to figure out all the things they needed to do before High School was over. Everything in their lives had been building to these moments, these landmark events in their lives that would define everything for them. It had been drilled into them from a young age from teachers and parents and movies that they had to have a good job to have a good life, and to get a good job you had to go to a good university, and to get into a good university meant doing well in high school, and doing well in high school meant having good grades and a good social life, and a good social life meant having a girlfriend and going to Prom, and going to Prom meant getting the tuxedo and corsage and limo and learning how to dance, how be charming, how to kiss. It was a tonne of work, but they agreed they had to do it.
"Did Rebecca say anything about your kissing technique?" Martin asked.
Tommy thought seriously but shook his head, "No, but she left early on Thursday. She said she had something but I don't know if that's true."
