I've Changed

5. I'm late

~~~~

Jae's pov

"I really want you to go to this party. It's the first one ever since what happened. I'm so confused as to why my parents would blame me for such a thing. If you tell me, it's pretty reasonable." Theo rambles on about his party tomorrow night.

After my meeting with Coach, I hurried myself to one of our conference rooms. I thought I'd be late and make an awful impression but I arrived just in time as well with my teammates.

Through our practices and trainings, I get to know more of who I'll be playing alongside with. I'm getting a hang of their names but I lose track of who's who sometimes. Especially today since groups of people continue to pile into the room. I assume them to be our staff such as trainers, managers, therapists, and so on. As well, not too many occupy the space so they all must be a representative from their department.

"Theo you sold your goldfish to trick or treaters." I tell him where his party went wrong and he offers me the smuggest smile.

I recall that specific night. During my first year, I visited because Theo had begged me to. I was hesitant at first, but I had a less of a busy week for Halloween weekend and didn't want to disappoint my friend most of all. Regardless, I won't forget when Theo willingly handed out his pet gold fishes to trick or treaters. He'd ask them "trick or treat". If they said trick, he'd give him a treat. If they said treat, he'd give an Oranda.

I have no idea what his thought process is like. But it doesn't make me not like the guy either.

"Bro, where's coach?" Aaron interrupts the party convo with a groan.

Obviously the first being Theo, Aaron follows second on the team who I know 'most'...barely.

I met him at one of Everton's basketball tournament in which Cassidy introduced us to each other. I remember her mentioning that they both attended the same high school and they've been close friends since elementary so I know how special Aaron is to her. But that's about it with all I know since Cassidy rarely talks about him. It can be a touchy subject so I never mention anything to prevent her from being upset.

Oh, there's another thing I've forgotten. Recently, I found out that he's Sofie's boyfriend hence, it gets awkward between us. Since I'm dating Cassidy and he's dating Ellie's best friend, we choose to keep our distance for the sake of not complicating things.

In the beginning of the season, I tried to cooperate with him in hopes of separating our personal lives with basketball. Yeah...that didn't work out because ever since then, he has been nonchalant and ignores me. To be fair, it is not his fault. He perhaps knows what happened between me and Ellie and wants to respect that, or this is just how he is as a person. As long as it doesn't interfere with me, school, and basketball. These are what's most important to me as of now.

No distractions.

"Sorry," Coach runs in all while putting his phone in his back pocket. "The wife calls."

"What's up coach?" One of our team captains speaks for the rest of us.

"Let's do this quickly. First off, let's give a round of applause for finally getting this team back together. Our exchange students, athletes—whatever—are back from their program." Coach Hale starts a chain of claps and yells. "If you haven't met Jae, he returned from Alberta. I'm looking forward to his skills what he has to offer for this team, am I right?" The room erupts in even more cheering.

"Hey," I wave around, shaking my head and laughing at their enthusiasm.

"I'm excited to see this season play out. I have good feeling about this boys. Let's get to work!" He rubs his hands together in serious. He replaces a grin with a void expression that has all of us fidgeting in our seats out of anticipation.