Free True Legend by Mike Lupica Page A

Gilbert, who at least added, “You shot it tonight the way this guy was supposed to,” giving his head a little jerk in Drew’s direction.
    Drew said, “Lee’s having the team over to his house. Just to chill. I was gonna ride over with him.”
    â€œYou can catch up with them later,” Mr. Gilbert said. “I’ll get Eddie to drive you over there.”
    It was his normal way when he wanted something, Drew knew, telling him what he was going to do, not asking.
    Drew wasn’t getting a vote on it, and neither did Lee, who’d been a better friend than ever to Drew tonight, letting him off the hook in the locker room the way he had. “Win as a team, lose as a team,” he’d said.
    Mr. Gilbert didn’t even make a show of inviting Lee along, not that Lee would have wanted to go.
    â€œCome on, we better get going,” Mr. Gilbert said.
    â€œThese people you want me to meet,” Drew said, “who are they?” He didn’t mean anything by it, he was just asking.
    Mr. Gilbert gave him a look, then answered as if Drew had just talked back to him. Giving him a fake smile.
    â€œPeople . . . you . . . need . . . to . . . meet,”
he repeated.
    Seth Gilbert started toward the exit that led to the parking lot. Walking away from Drew for the second time tonight. But expecting him to follow this time.
    â€œYou coming?” he said, giving a quick look over his shoulder, checking his BlackBerry again, as he did about every ten seconds.
    Drew said to Lee, “I better do this. He is my mom’s boss and all.”
    â€œYours, too, sometimes.”
    â€œWhat’s that mean?”
    â€œNo worries,” Lee said. “Just kidding, dude.”
    â€œI’ll catch you later, I promise.”
    â€œSure,” Lee said.
    Drew walked fast to catch up with Mr. Gilbert. When he was the one looking back over his shoulder, he saw that Lee Atkins hadn’t moved, he was standing exactly where Drew had left him.
    Like he was still waiting for the ball.
    Drew felt a little bad, leaving him. But it was like Mr. Gilbert said sometimes: where he was going, his buddies couldn’t come.

ELEVEN
    M r. Gilbert made it clear, as the two of them walked through the front door, that there was nothing for him to worry about. Nothing that was going to happen at the party was a violation of NCAA rules, even if there were a couple of what he called “Nike guys” in the house.
    â€œBut I’m not even in college yet,” Drew said.
    â€œYou’re the most famous high school basketball player in the country. In the eyes of the NCAA suits, you might as well be playing by their rules already.”
    â€œWish I’d played better tonight.”
    â€œTell me about it,” Mr. Gilbert said, but even as he did, he pulled Drew closer to him and said, “Who’s got your back?”
    â€œYou do.”
    â€œWho’s like your personal GPS, keeping us pointed where we want to go?”
    â€œYou are,” Drew said.
    It was always like that, almost from the first night they met back at the AAU tournament in New York. We. Us. Mr. Gilbert wanted the team at Oakley to do well. Obviously he had a lot invested in the school and the coach. And Mr. Gilbert was the one who’d picked the school out for Drew before his mom even made it official that they were moving.
    All part of the
mi casa es su casa
deal, the house in this case being a high school.
    But in the end, the only team Mr. Gilbert really cared about—even more than the college team Drew would be playing for in a year and a half—was him and Drew.
    As they moved out into the pool area, music playing, waiters serving food and drinks, Drew immediately spotted a tall guy with a shaved head, a crowd of people around him, laughing loudly at something somebody had just said. It was Stu Jarvis, who’d played college ball with Mr. Gilbert at USC