#rivervale_lodge

She rolls her eyes

"Girls mature faster anyway"

"Whatever." He is back doing drills. "I need to focus."

"He's got to concentrate ...concentrate concentrate..." She begins to chant "he's got to concentrate concentrate concentrate..."

He spins on her and lunges with the ball as if he's about to pass HARD to her face.

(He does not, however, actually release the ball.)

"Eeek!" She nearly falls backward

Spin back, jump, release..... net. He catches the ball. "Beat it."

"It's my yard too"

"Go find another part of it then."

"Jerk" she says and goes off.

out of the corner of his eye, just a for a moment, he thought he saw a glow

He sm8les smugly to himself and lines up a shot... then turns to look. What was that?

He shrugs. Nothing. Back to practice.

He shoots the ball, it bounds off the board... and heads back towards him....

and heading towards his FACE!

"Aaaahhhhh!!!!" Adam protects his face and tries to bolt/tuck/roll away.

The ball lands next to him.

What the...

He struggles to bring his breath under control, wiping the sweat from his eyes. .....fuck.....

Geez, it's a good thing he's not old. Freaking heart attackk

"What are you doing on the ground?" His sister says confused "Why did you scream?"

"Uh, rolled my ankle." He lies. "Need to go ice it." He staggers up and limps heavily into the house.

"Okay..." she grabs the basketball, "I'll just practice."

Somewhere a snake is sniggering.

"Whatever. Don't lose my ball." He gets an ice bag and flips onto his bed, icing and ankle for the look of it while he composes himself.

Composed, cool, collected

And she grabs the ball and dribbles it.

Lily is clearly an ameature

Having convinced himself it was.... A heat-vision, or overactive imagination, or.... something.... Adam hits the shower to get ready for work.

He showers, and heads off to work.

Greely greets him as he shows up early "mm good work ethic. I need you to do inventory" He hands him a ledger

"Sure thing." He takes it and goes to get started. Joy. Counting.

The mundane nature of work is what it is, and by now he's almost forgotten about that spider thing. One nice thing about working inventory is that he sees some choice looking stuff back here, sports wise.

He blinks as he finds a basketball that appears to have an autograph of Michael Jordan. That's got to be a gag... otherwise even though he's like from forever ago, it's worth a fortune

"Huh." He sets it aside to show Greely and keeps counting, making a hashmark for the Jordan ball.

Time flies and later.."Hey," The door opens "by law I owe you a fifteen minute break. How's it going?"

"Not bad.... take a look at this, though?" He turns to the Jordan ball.

"yeeah. Wish it were legit. I could make a fortune. " A smile, "Good on you"

It was a test? It was a test

I don't do well on tests...

A part of him is proud. A part of him is relieved the ball still looks like Jordan.

"Don't ffeel singled out. I've done this test with almost everyone... here... " He hands over a dollar "While you're on your break enjoy a soda on me... or keep the dollar, whatever" There is a vending machine near the store in this plaza.

A grin. "Thanks, Mr. Greely."

And off someone goes for a well deserved teenage appropriate cold one.

(end scene)

*************************************
Later..................

FREEDOM! Out from work, no school yet, the evening in front of him and a CAR!