For the third time that day, Luka Doncic got up to answer his ringing doorbell. What was waiting for him on the other side of the door wasn’t a GrubHub delivery person bearing a monstrous Taco Bell order; it was his teammate Dorian Finney-Smith, the one who had been responsible for introducing Luka to Taco Bell all those months ago.
Dorian stepped inside the condo and sniffed the air. “Yep. that’s Taco Bell.”
“I eat in my office,” Luka said. “This way.”
When the two Mavericks teammates walked into the room, Dorian’s eyes grew wide. “Man, you want me to eat half of all this?” He walked over to the pile of still-wrapped food and picked an item off the top at random. “Not like I couldn’t totally go for a Crunchwrap Supreme right now.” He ripped off the wrapper and took a large bite.
Luka sat down heavily in his chair, which made a distressed sound. “Yeah, I totally ordered more than I needed. I already ate, like, fifteen things.” He pointed towards a pile of discarded boxes and wrappers that was overflowing the room’s too-small trash can. “That’s why I invited you over.”
Dorian looked confused. “You know, you could just order less food. There’s not, like, a minimum order or anything. I’m totally not complaining though.” He grabbed an order of Nacho Fries next.
“That’s the thing,” Luka replied after he had swallowed his bite of burrito. “I don’t remember making the second order. It just showed up without warning.”
“Let me see your phone,” Dorian said, and Luka complied by entering the PIN and handing it to him. After a few quick taps and swipes, Dorian shook his head. “It says here you only placed one order today. But you got two?”
Now Luka shared in Dorian’s confusion. “Yeah. That’s weird.”
Dorian took a second to think while he chewed on a Doritos Locos taco. “So somebody else ordered this for you, to your address, but on their own credit card. I wish people would do that for me.” They ate in silence for a bit, the conundrum stumping them, until Dorian exclaimed, “Hey, I just saw something out the window.”
“Hope it’s not the paparazzi,” Luka replied tiredly, feeling lethargic after his overconsumption of the approximately Mexican food. Needing a break from his lunch, he followed Dorian out the back door of the condo and into the small back yard.
A quick glance revealed that there was, indeed, somebody very obviously hiding in the thick bushes underneath Luka’s office window. “Hey! This is private property!” Luka said, roughly grabbing the unknown trespasser’s shoulder and shoving him out onto the grass.
“Don’t hurt me!” Trae Young pleaded, pocketing his phone and putting up his hands in surrender. “It’s not what it looks like!”
Discovering the man’s identity did not clear up the situation for Luka “You ordered that food for me?” he asked. But as Trae was about to answer, they could faintly hear the doorbell ring again, providing all the confirmation that Luka needed. “Why?”
Trae looked like he was about to cry. “Because I deserve to be Rookie of the Year, and I thought that if I could leak photos of you being an overweight, uncontrolled glutton to the press, the voters would see that you weren’t deserving of the award.”
Dorian was looking like he wanted to beat Trae up, but Luka felt a pang of guilt at Trae’s words. He was, in fact, an overweight, uncontrolled glutton. Trae wouldn’t have needed to provide extra food for that to be the case.
But there was a clear flaw in Trae’s plan. “Uh, I think the votes are already in,” Luka said. “We just don’t find out until that awards ceremony or whatever. So they’re not going to care that I have a bit of a Taco Bell problem.”
“Oh,” Trae replied. “I guess I can stop wasting money on these huge Taco Bell orders then.”
“Yeah, and you can get out of here before I kick your raggedy-hair ass,” Dorian said menacingly.
“Can I at least have some of those chalupas?” Trae asked, pointing inside the window to the desk where a considerable amount of chalupas and other items were still waiting for consumption.
Dorian took a single aggressive step towards Trae. “No, you cannot.”
Trae took the hint. “Okay, got it. Sorry. I’ll leave now.” Instead of going back to the front of the condo, he got a running start towards the back fence and vaulted over it. Footsteps could be heard running away.
“Let’s go back in and finish up that food,” Dorian suggested.
Luka shook his head. For some reason, the ever-present cravings he had for Taco Bell food had vanished. “You know what? I don’t think I like Taco Bell anymore.” He patted his flabby gut. “Back to the Mavs’ meal plans for me. This got way out of hand.”
Luka’s phone went off with a text message. It was from Dirk. He opened and read it.
“You did the right thing, rook.”