Eric Bledsoe peeked his head into the storage closet. “Brandon? What are you doing in here? It’s game time man, get going!”
Brandon Knight, knees pulled up to his chest, was huddling in a corner next to some jugs of cleaning solution. An extension cable dangled from the ceiling, with a crude circular knot tied at the end of it.
“I’m not going. Not after what I did. It would be better for everyone, I think, if I just stayed here until I died.” He muttered, not opening his eyes.
“Whoa, whoa, what the hell? You goin’ all emo on me all of a sudden? What happened, you kill a dude or something?”
“I’m far too deep in the pits of shame to ever share what I have done.”
Eric walked over to the huddled teammate and crouched down next to him. “Spit it out man, it can’t be that bad. I’m your bro, remember? And this is what bros do, they help each other through problems and stuff in a non-homo way. Make it quick, though, cause the game starts in like fifteen minutes.”
Brandon took a shuddering breath and opened his eyes. “Fine. You’ll find out soon enough as it is. The whole organization will know by tomorrow morning.”
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Brandon Knight lay in bed, browsing Facebook on his phone. His feed, as usual, was full of hangers-on and non-friends posting inanity from their daily lives. His chat, again as usual, was turned off. He knew from experience that the second he turned it on, he would be flooded with messages, many shamelessly begging him for money.
After a cursory glance through the endless minutiae cluttering his phone, he turned his attention to more important matters. Mainly, the pictures of one Shayleea Murphy, Suns cheerleader. The hottest cheerleader of them all, in Brandon’s opinion.
The pictures and albums that Shayleea had made visible to friends were very familiar to Brandon. He had a mental database of which albums could be safely skipped over, containing nothing but boring pics of family get-togethers, and which were of a more titillating variety, featuring trips to the beach or nightlife excursions.
There was recent album, however, that Brandon had been saving for a special occasion: “Getting ready for the game LOL ;p”. What hidden treasures could be waiting inside? Tonight was the night to find out. Grabbing his vaseline, he began perusing the pictures.
It was better than he could have ever imagined. A treasure-trove of scintillating delights, laid bare before his willing eyes.
As he navigated through the last half of the album, his finger slipped, grazing the “like” button on a picture caption with “LMAO me and the gang bein sassy!”. He gasped, abandoning his work to stare dumbfounded at the screen. Reflexively, he closed the app and threw his phone across the room. But it was too late. He had liked the picture, and soon, Shayleea would know what he had been up to. What a creep he was.
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Eric tried to hold back laughter as Brandon, now curled up in a ball beneath the extension cord, sobbed uncontrollably.
“That’s it man? You liked a picture of some cheerleader? She ain’t even know that you was gettin’ off to it!”
“Yes she does!” Brandon wailed. “This happened to me in Milwaukee, and see what they did? They traded me! Traded me because I’m too much of a creepy creeper creep!”
“No she don’t. No one does. No one but you and me. You say that the picture was only a few days old? You’re in the clear, maybe if it was like a year old you’d be in trouble. Hell, I liked a picture of one of my side-bitches friends with her tits just straight up hanging out, and I been seeing her too now. We’re NBA players dude, Shayleeas’s probably flattered if anything.”
“Your lies won’t work on me, I still am not going out there. Not tonight, not ever. Shayleea, as soon as she sees me, you know what she’ll say?” Brandon put on a high-pitched voice. “Oh look, it’s creepy Brandon! What a weirdo! I would never get with a stupid loser like him, not after what he did!”.
“Have it your way. We have to be out for warmups now, coach is gonna chew me out for being late. Come along when you want. I’m taking this extension cord, though, not like this crappy knot would’ve held your neck anyway.” Eric left, taking the dangling cord with him.
Brandon lay in silence for a while, before sitting up. So what if he was a creep? So what if he had desires like every man? Was that so wrong? He also was an NBA player, dammit! He stoop up, wiping his reddened eyes on his sleeve. He would show Shayleea what she was missing out on.