Bounce Back

Chapter 8

Ryan's POV

Tyler and I decided to go over the basketball stats after his training later. I joined my friends in the library right after school knowing that I had a couple of hours before we were meeting up. I pulled out my latest report and started to write.

We mostly worked in silence until Morgan pulled out his latest art project.

"Do you need more help with your art work?" Jordan teased.

"No way, you guys are all terrible artists," Morgan complained.

We all laughed as he started to draw. We all returned to what we were doing and I was pleased to get my whole report done in under an hour and once I read it back I was pleased with it. The only other thing to do was some maths questions.

I flew through them and spent the rest of my time talking to Jordan and offering to help Morgan with his art work that he kept turning down. I headed into the gym a couple of minutes early and stood unnoticed in the doorway.

They were starting to slow down. A couple of the players were taking shots at one end but most of the players were gathered around the Coach and were listening to him. I silently moved into the stands and took a seat.

They packed up and were talking among themselves as they headed into the locker room. The Coach headed out as well so I climbed down the stairs and settled on the floor. Tyler joined me five minutes later and stretched out on the floor beside me.

"Let's look at these stats," he said.

I lay down beside him and pulled my laptop out. I decided to pull up his stats first so I could show him what I was talking about.

"So, this your stats," I said.

We started to talk about just the numbers for a minute before I started to show him what it told me about him playing. I started to tell him what shots that I knew that he preferred to take and how he played.

"How do you know this?" he asked.

"I take stats for every game that you play and make the notes about the shots that you take and from where-ish and that sort of thing," I said.

We kept going through his games.

"So, this is so cool. So, you can predict what players are going to do?" he asked.

"Not all the time but you can tell what they are likely to do and what they like to do."

"How many players do you have stats for?" he asked.

"The whole team here and a lot of the players that you play against. Obviously I have more deep stats from your team because I'm at every game but I still have a lot of stats on a lot of players," I said.

He nodded and I scrolled through to find one of the top players that he played against and we started to look at them.

I showed him some of the videos that I had saved as well to show him what I meant.

"This is so cool. Have you shown Coach?" he asked.

"Yeah and he tells me that I'm not a basketball player and don't know what I'm talking about," I said bitterly.

"What the hell?"

"That's pretty much what I said."

"What about you just show me then? Show me the stats for the players that I'm going to be playing next so I can use it," he suggested.

I nodded and glanced at the time, quickly realising that we didn't have much time to start now. Instead we spent a bit more time looking at his own play and how he could improve his play.

"I should probably go," I said.

"Same"

It took another couple of minutes before we actually stood up and headed out of the gym. My back was slightly sore back from being stretched out on the floor but I wasn't going to regret it. I liked having someone to share my stats with and someone that appreciated them.

"I'll see you tomorrow then?" he asked.

"Yeah, so how about we spend a while on maths work and then go over some basketball stuff?" I suggested.

He nodded and we headed our separate ways. It was starting to get colder and was regretting not grabbing a warmer jacket this morning. Mom was in the kitchen when I walked in the door and I could see that she was stressed.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I've got to get this baking done for tomorrow and nothing is going right," she said.

I nodded because I wasn't going to be any help in this situation. I could sort of cook but I couldn't help Mom bake. Instead I moved around her and grabbed dinner. I found Dad in the lounge so I sat down beside him.

"Wisely staying out of the kitchen?" I asked.

"Yeah, your Mom is a little stressed in there are the moment so I thought that I would stay out of that," he smiled.

I didn't have any more homework to do so I stayed in the lounge. Mom collapsed beside me and sighed.

"Thank God that is done," she complained.

I didn't hang around much longer because I was tired and it felt like Mom and Dad wanted to talk without me. I found a couple of texts from Jordan that I hadn't bothered opening before and it pretty much just told me to call him.

"How come you wanted me to call?" I asked.

"I just didn't get much a chance to talk to you earlier," he said.

We talked for quite a while but I could feel that Jordan had something else that he wanted to say. I didn't push him and we didn't even end up talking about it. I knew that it would come up at some point though.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he said.

"Yeah, see you then."

He hung up so I never did hear exactly what Jordan wanted to talk to me about and it worried me slightly. Jordan and I had been close for years and I didn't want him to be scared to talk to me.

I just wanted to know what it was but I couldn't push him to talk. I just had to wait.

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The Wise One