wickerpark | [David & Izak] The Basketball Diaries

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[David & Izak] The Basketball Diaries

Dad had texted just before practice that he was going to be late again - and Mom was in London tonight, anyway, sleeping off her last international flight - so David hadn't seen much point in going home. Probably would have just been Rosa's enchiladas, he thought. Not that it was a bad thing, but sitting at the kitchen island in their silent apartment wasn't exactly his idea of a good time.

Of course, the problem with going to school where he did was that everyone else he knew - even the other guys on the team - were too worried about whether they'd get into Notre Dame or Stanford or wherever to do anything that might approach fun. Never mind they'd all been admitted now. Hell, he was even admitted now, even if his five acceptances didn't have Ivy cachet. They were all stuck in the habit, even now that grades didn't matter anymore.

Well, whatever, he thought as he sacked out on a bench and glanced in all directions before he slipped a joint out of his pocket. Just a few more months of this, then they'd all be away. It probably didn't much matter now.

He barely saw the shadow of someone coming by him as he was lighting up, and David's eyes flashed upwards, uncharacteristically sharp and incisive for a moment. Then he saw who it was, and he grinned.

"Hey, Kagan. You're out late. Riding herd on your baby sis?"

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David chuckled a little. "Caro was friends with my sister before she went off to boarding school," he said. "Ty's lucky he escaped alive. She's, uh, tenacious." He did look amused, though, at the idea of torturing the school soccer star with girls. Rivalries were rivalries, even when they were friendly.

"You kind of sound like the back of the romance novels I think they read," he said. "Could she, the third cheerleader in the basketball pyramid, take the wild heart of the school's brooding soccer star? Or would their separate sports keep them star-crossed?"

"She was determined to make him smile more than once a day." Izak said with a laugh before he shook his head. "And dude, seriously? Ty is that guy in those romance novels. Sarah and I have discussed this extensively."

Ty's issues were not painted on walls or anything, but it did make him very much the subject of budding romance novels. There was no doubt in that. "It is what he gets for not smiling, I think. Not trying to be 'happy'."

"Yeah, sounds like Caro." She'd used to try the same on Adam and David, though probably with slightly more success.

"Maybe it feels like he'd be pretending," David offered, leaning back a little. "Pretending to be something you're not really can suck. Especially in the long-term."

"There....is a lot more to it. More than you probably want to hear." Definitely more than Ty ever wanted to talk about when it came to people. "Ty's just.....fighting a curious mix of biology and hormones. Honestly, trying to be happy couldn't hurt that much."

Well, maybe. In his opinion it couldn't hurt at all.

David figured that if you were fighting biology and hormones, trying to be happy was probably just one more thing on a pile of things. He could sympathize, in a small way.

He shrugged. "Well, we're teenagers," he said lightly. "I've heard that our hormones are supposed to be out of control. That's what Granma keeps telling Dad when he whines, at least."

"Yeah, I know." Except it didn't stop Izak from worrying over people like his brother. It was a little ironic, too, that Ty was one of Elisha's and yet it was Hadyn he seemed most like at times. Mood wise. Izak had to worry about Hadyn too, and his somewhat unpredictable moods that crept up at times.

But that was not what having pizza with one of the hottest jocks was all about.

"Though, if we are gonna focus on hormones, it should probably be mine. And yours. Together."

"I can't argue with that," David said. He wasn't much interested in psychoanalyzing...anyone, but especially not Izak's kid brother.

"Got enough sustenance to focus?"

"Yeah. Yeah I think I'll get through some adventures." He said, licking his lips before waved down the waitress for a box. They hadn't finished the whole pizza.

"For the road and all." He said, before pulling out his wallet and handing over a card to pay for the food.

Slightly different world, David thought. Sure, he knew most of his classmates were on the ridiculously rich side - while he was on the upper echelons of the middle class side - but there was knowing that, and then there was an American Express with Izak's name on it. He only blinked once.

"I'll get it next time," he said lazily. "We can heat up the leftovers after some...adventures."

"Huh?" Izak blinked at that, not really sure why it mattered. He'd never really thought about not paying- he always did when it came to his friends. Of course, he was pretty much oblivious to the idea that others wanted to pay for things at times and what have you.

"Yeah, sure." Pay, what was that?

Moving out of the shop with the pizza box in hand, he looked back at David. "So....next time?"

David gave him a crooked smile, though it wasn't clear if it was over the whole paying thing or the comment about next time.

"Why not?" He said. "Unless you've been miserable so far."

"Uh, not even close to being miserable." He said with a snort that was rather like Ty's snort. "Just processing. Processing you know- hanging out. Or...a date. Is it a date?" Because he needed to know these things in advance.

"Sure, why not?" David wasn't the type to need to know these things in advance - going with the flow had always worked for him to the point that his own family wished he wouldn't...flow quite as much. "It can be a date."

"Cool." He decided as they walked on. Probably not how he would have imagined his first date, so to speak, but it would be fine. Sarah would be proud of herself.

"So....besides the weed, and basketball....what else are you into?"

"What else?" David asked, blinking a little. What else was there? Basketball was basically his king, though he wasn't good enough to play when he went to college. He'd have to find something else. "Uh, I like history, I guess. Probably going to major in that when I go off to college. Superhero movies are pretty much awesome. I've got a massive comic book collection, but don't tell the dudes. You know how guys get."

Nerd stuff and all. "What about you? Deepest, innermost secrets?"

"Oh yeah? Me...I'm totally going the science or math road. Of course, I think everyone knows that. I was thinking Biochemistry, Genetics, I might do a Computer Science degree though. I can't decide, I mean there are so many fields of interest, and then you start down one and boom- holy shit there is a holy other branch of study you can go down that is related and totally different at the same time." He paused, staring ahead with a bit of wide eyed wonderment.

"I don't think I can decide."

"Uh-huh." David's mind spun a little just trying to parse all of Izak's words, and he shrugged. It seemed like the thing to do. He liked Izak's enthusiasm, he just hadn't really ever felt it for anything academic himself. Even remotely; school was just something to get through.

"Well...since none of those things are electives at school, except the one biochem class and computer science...you'll probably be better able to figure it all out after you start taking classes." Or he could just go to school forever. David could honestly see that happening.

Izak might, actually, have considered the idea of getting three or four degrees. It wasn't like he couldn't afford them, really. And he certainly know how to work his ass off at things (a by product of being Hadyn's son, Elisha said.)

"Yeah, I know. And it sucks major balls. I'm in BioChem right now, but the Dean told me I couldn't take the computer science course because it conflicted with my required courses. Well, I could have, I guess, but then I'd have had to given up BioChem. And frankly, BioChem is more or less my leaning at the moment."

David, on the other hand, could see himself getting one degree - he was thinking Spanish and European history - and then making like his mother. Airline pilot or something. Travel the world and let Leigh carry the torch of being impressive. She was better at it than he was.

"You could probably take it at DePaul or Loyola as an auditor or something." Uncle Charlie's wife Rachel worked in the bursar's office at DePaul, so David had heard the ins and outs more than once. "Circumvent the Dean. Personally his argument with me was getting me to pick two electives in the first place. I ended up stuck in a philosophy and ethics class." Which wasn't all that bad, really, but that wasn't the sort of thing you could admit out loud.

"Nah, man. Even I know when I'm over doing it. I have a full schedule, I probably don't even have time for it. Just sort of sucked the way the class schedules worked out, you know?" He said, with a shrug as they walked on. "It's cool, anyway. I mean, I can take a course in college, and maybe go down that road. Who knows. Heck, I might just take a gap year, anyway, and like...travel. Maybe something out there will catch my interest even more."

Because he'd lived a somewhat sheltered life if he were honest with himself. "Sorry....My extreme nerd is showing."

"A gap year sounds awesome," David said, slightly relieved to get off the subject of college and career paths. Both subjects tended to make his skin crawl a little bit. "Dad's pretty insistent I go straight off to college. The sigh of relief was immense when I got the magic letters back from Dartmouth and USC. I think probably I'll be heading off to New Hampshire in the fall. Haven't decided for sure yet, though."

L.A. sounded like it would be his kind of place, really, as much as Adam wanted him to go Ivy.

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[David & Izak] The Basketball Diaries

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