“You’re going to love this,” Redden said, already walking, his shoes clicking against the floor. “We just finished the remodel six months ago and we were already one of the newer facilities. Steve didn’t skimp on a single thing. You’ll see.”
Keshawn nodded. Bronstein was half a step behind him, hands in his pockets. The hallway stretched out in front of them, wide and bright, the walls a clean white with the team’s logo repeated at intervals.
They passed the first set of doors. Redden was talking about the training staff, the sports science lab they’d built out on the second floor. Keshawn’s eyes drifted to the walls.
The first poster was small. He almost missed it. Set low on the wall, framed in what looked like black metal, the glass catching a little glare from the overhead lights. A kid in a Thornwood Prep jersey, number fifteen, mid jump, his arm extended. The kid’s face was younger, rounder, the baby fat still sitting in his cheeks.
Keshawn looked at it. The kid in the poster looked back.
Redden kept walking.
The next poster was a few feet down. Hamilton green. He was driving left, his defender’s hand at his wrist, the ball pinned against his hip. He remembered that game against Westchester. The photo was grainy, the colors a bit washed out. Someone had blown it up and framed it anyway.
The hallway kept going. UCLA now. The posters multiplied. One of him at Pauley Pavilion, arms raised after a three, the crowd behind him a blur of blue and gold. Another of him mid-block, his hand swatting a ball into the stands. The Big Ten Championship, the confetti falling, his jersey soaked through.
Keshawn’s feet kept moving but his eyes stayed on the walls. The posters were everywhere now. They lined both sides of the hallway, floor to ceiling, spaced maybe three feet apart. The UCLA ones took up the most real estate, the Final Four run, the semifinal against Villanova, the championship game against Kansas. The assist on the buzzer beater to win everything.
Redden was still talking.
Then the hallway opened up.
The last poster was at the far end, before the hallway turned toward the offices. It was bigger than the others. Maybe eight feet tall, six feet wide. It was the only photo he didn’t recognize.
He was wearing a Clippers jersey. The red and blue. Forty-four jersey. His arms were raised, one hand gripping the bottom of the Larry O’Brien trophy, the other balled into a fist. Confetti fell from somewhere above the frame.
Keshawn stood in front of it.
Redden had stopped talking. He was standing at the turn in the hallway, one hand resting on the wall, watching. Bronstein stood a few feet back.
Keshawn looked at the photo one more time. Redden pushed off the wall.
“Right through here,” he said, and turned the corner.
…
The apartment was small enough that Angela could hear the shower running from the desk. The bathroom door sat at the end of the short hallway that separated their bedroom from the kitchen, and the pipes in the wall groaned every time someone turned the knob.
She had her laptop open, a spreadsheet pulled up on one half of the screen and a PDF of the event permit application on the other. The numbers weren’t adding up the way she needed them to. The vendor fees alone had already eaten through what she’d budgeted for entertainment, and she still needed to confirm the sound system rental and the insurance rider. Her pen moved across the legal pad beside the laptop, crossing out one number, writing another, crossing that one out too.
The shower stopped. The pipes groaned again. A few seconds later, the door to their room opened and Ronnie came out with a towel wrapped around his waist.
“You eat yet?” he said.
Angela didn’t look up from the spreadsheet. “No.”
“Let’s go out. I’m starving.”
“We got food in the fridge.”
Ronnie leaned against the door frame of their bedroom. She could feel him standing there without turning around.
“Devon and Deja are in the kitchen,” he said. “Four is a crowd in that little ass kitchen.
“Too bad.”
“Come on, Ang."
“We’re already over budget this month and we’ve still got bills."
Ronnie pushed off the doorframe. He walked past her desk toward the closet on the far wall. She heard him pull the door open, the hangers scraping against the rod.
“Maybe you should ask Keshawn for a pay bump,” he said.
Angela kept typing. The numbers on the screen blurred for a second and she blinked them back into focus.
“Oh yeah,” Ronnie said, pulling a shirt off a hanger. “You’d need to get paid first.”
She set her hands on the keyboard and stopped typing.
“You go ahead,” she said. “I got work to catch up on.”
Ronnie didn’t say anything back. She heard the towel hit the floor, then the sound of him pulling on jeans, the zipper, the belt buckle. He moved around the room behind her, opening drawers, closing them. She kept her eyes on the spreadsheet. The numbers still weren’t right.
The bedroom door opened and closed. His footsteps moved down the hallway, past the kitchen, and then the front door opened and shut. The apartment settled.
Angela sat there for a moment. The spreadsheet stared back at her. She picked up her pen, wrote a number in the margin, and started typing again.
…
The private room at n/naka sat at the back of the restaurant, behind a sliding door made of dark wood. The first course came without anyone asking for it. A small ceramic plate with something on it that looked like a flower. The server set it in front of each of them with the same quiet precision, bowed slightly, and left. The door slid shut behind her.
Keshawn picked up his chopsticks. The flower turned out to be a piece of fish, sliced thin enough to see through, arranged in overlapping petals. He ate it. It didn't really taste like anything.
Steve Ballmer, the team owner, sat to his left, Bronstein to his right. Across the table, Clippers’ head coach Ty Lue had his elbows on the table, his hands clasped in front of him. Redden sat between Lue and Ballmer, his chair pulled back a few inches from the table, his body angled toward both conversations at once. Ballmer had been talking to Bronstein since they had sat down. Keshawn had only caught pieces of it whenever he would turn his head.
"I think you’ve heard it all by now," Lue was telling him, "Point forward. Space out the floor. More pick and roll. Less pick and roll. More pick and pop."
Keshawn quietly laughed to himself, "Yeah, something like that."
"Basketball is basketball," Lue shrugged, "Put the ball in the hands of the best motherfucker and start out from there."
Keshawn nodded. The server came back with the second course, a small bowl of something clear with a piece of something white at the bottom. She set it down and left. Keshawn didn’t touch it yet.
"Don’t get me wrong, Portland did a lot of good things with you," Lue continued, "Nick’s a hell of a coach. I just think, in certain situations, you have to touch the ball. Not at the eight-second mark either. Get you a touch early, get you a touch late. I lose in the playoffs because my star player made a bad decision, miss a shot? I sleep like a baby that night. Roll that motherfucker out the next game and we do it again."
Keshawn picked up the bowl. The broth was warm against his lips. He took a sip and set it back down.
"I saw it up close in the playoffs so I know what you’re capable of," Lue told him, "This is the Keshawn Chase Show. Make no doubt about what our team is going to look like. I know you saw Bron in those playoffs run with me. I ain’t drawing up shit just to draw up shit."
Redden had been listening, his head turning between the two conversations like someone watching a tennis match. He leaned in now.
“We’re not bringing you into a situation where you’re fitting into something that already exists,” Redden said. “I think we can speak candidly. Trae is probably signing with New Orleans. He’s off the books. We love Big Zu, but he’s probably gone if you’re here. Same with a lot of other guys."
Keshawn looked at him.
“We gut the roster and build it back up with you and Keyonte. Just like the Blazers did last year,” Redden said. “Except you’re living in LA and not Portland.”
He winked.
Keshawn laughed.
The third course arrived then the fourth, then the fifth, then the sixth. Each one arrived without ceremony, the server sliding the door open, setting the plates down, sliding it shut. The conversation found its rhythm in the gaps between courses, the pauses where everyone ate and nobody talked, the natural breaks that the omakase format built into the evening.
Redden had moved closer to Ballmer and Bronstein now, his chair pulled into their orbit, his voice dropping to match theirs. They must have been talking numbers beyond his basketball salary. Keshawn purposefully turned away.
The private room door slid open.
Keshawn looked up. Kawhi Leonard stood in the doorway, his frame filling most of it, his expression the same one Keshawn had seen on TV a hundred times, flat, unreadable, like he was waiting for someone to tell him why he was there. James Harden stood behind him, one hand on Kawhi’s shoulder, a little more expression and life on his face.
Everyone at the table stood up.
Ballmer was on his feet first, moving around the table. He reached Kawhi and pulled him into a hug that Kawhi tolerated for exactly the right amount of time before stepping back. Harden got the same treatment, Ballmer’s hand on the back of his neck, the two of them exchanging words.
Redden was next, shaking both their hands. Lue followed, dapping Kawhi, then Harden.
Keshawn stood where he was. Bronstein had moved to his side.
Ballmer turned back to the table. He had his hand on Bronstein’s elbow.
“Alon,” Ballmer said. “I’ve got something I want to show you. Some bottles I think you’ll appreciate.”
Bronstein looked at Keshawn. Keshawn gave a small nod.
“Lead the way,” Bronstein said.
Ballmer guided him toward the door. Lue and Redden were already saying their goodbyes, Lue clapped Keshawn on the shoulder, wished him best of luck with his decision and said he was confident that Keshawn would make the right one, and followed Redden out. The door slid shut behind them.
The room was quiet.
Harden sat down first. He pulled a cushion closer to the table and settled into it like he’d been there all night. Kawhi sat across from Keshawn, his movements slow and deliberate, his hands resting on the table in front of him.
The server appeared with two more place settings. She set them down and disappeared.
“So,” Harden said. “You ready to come home, big fella?"