Julius Randle and Alex Caruso sat a table along the wall of a Los Angeles nightclub. Both had multiple spent drink glasses in front of them, and both were keeping a keen eye on any woman that walked past. “You know what, dude?” Julius asked his teammate.
“What?”
“I don’t think any of these women realize that we play for the Lakers.” He watched as another beautiful women walked by their table without so much as a second glance at them. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have been sitting here for two hours.”
Alex munched on his fourth basket of mozzarella sticks as he contemplated his teammate’s words. “Well, we don’t really look the part. Your face is lumpy and droopy, meanwhile, I’m 23 years old and my hairline is located at magnetic north.”
Julius took a break from ogling women to stare sullenly out the window they were seated next to, one of the few windows in the whole place. A car had just pulled into the parking lot, one that looked slightly familiar. When Julius saw who stepped out of it, he immediately leapt to his feet. “Oh crap dude, it’s Larry!”
“We’re screwed,” Alex moaned through a mouthful of melted cheese, breading, and watery marinara sauce. He looked out the window as well to confirm that it was indeed Larry Nance, then slumped back in his seat. “We’re so screwed. I thought you said he liked that other club better?”
“That’s what I thought!” Julius said in a panicked voice. “I gotta run interference on him or he’ll steal all the women and we’ll never score. Yo, you stay here and hold down the fort, I paid a lot for those damn cheese sticks and don’t want nobody ganking them.” Alex, with a defeated look on his face, nodded in agreement, and Julius ran between the tables and past the dance floor to get to the entrance before their more-attractive teammate reached the bouncers.
“Oh, hey Julius, what’s up?” Larry asked Julius, who was panting and sweating from the run.
“Don’t go in there,” Julius wheezed. “Total sausage fest. Not a chick for miles. It’s not worth it, man.”
Larry raised his eyebrows. “Really? I’ve always had good luck here. Top-notch women for sure.”
Julius shook his head. “Not tonight. Not unless you like dudes.”
“Are you lying to me because I’m significantly more attractive than you and you’re jealous that I’m going to take home the hotest woman there while you sit there and get ignored?” Larry asked. “Because that definitely seems like something you would do.”
“No dude, I’m serious,” Julius repeated, doubling down on his dishonesty. “If there’s even one member of the female gender in there, I didn’t see her.”
Julius’ words were disproven when a chattering group of five or six women walked out of the club and right past where they stood. Larry took note of their presence and then pushed past his teammate. “Whatever.”
Helplessly watching his attractive, muscular teammate enter the club and immediately get approached by multiple women, Julius sadly followed Larry back in, wondering what he would tell Alex. He slowly made his way back to their table to find that Alex had ordered five baskets of buffalo wings and was playing Candy Crush on his phone.
“Did you stop him?” Alex asked when he finally realized that his teammate had returned from his mission.
Julius sat down and put his head in his hands. “Nope.”
“I ordered some wings,” Alex supplied.
Taking a chicken wing in his hand, Julius chomped down on it while staring sullenly at the wall, and every time he heard a woman’s laughter, he imagined that it was one of the women who was wooing Larry.