Chapter Text
Maxine Loreto did not lose pickup games at the village covered court.
That was not arrogance. That was just what happened after years of cracked cement, summer heat, and boys from the neighboring streets learning that a girl in basketball shorts could take their pride apart before merienda.
So when the ball hit the back rim, bounced high, and dropped into Gian’s hands instead of through the net, Max stood for half a second and stared at it like the rim had personally betrayed her.
Gian didn't hesitate. One look, then the ball swung back out to Seb at the top of the arc.
Max was already moving, closing the distance, but Seb had a half-step on her and he knew it. He squared up, pulled, and released before she could get a hand in his face.
The ball rattled in.
“Uy,” Jams said from the corner. “Historic moment.”
Gab, sitting on the bleachers with one leg folded under her, lifted two fingers in a lazy peace sign. “Documented. Max Loreto loses in pick-up game. The nation mourns.”
Max turned slowly. “You’re all very brave for people who still need me to drive you home.”
Cols tucked her hair behind both ears, curls escaping from the bandana tied around her head. Her shirt had the faded logo of some band Max did not recognize and had no intention of pretending to recognize. “Technically, Gian got the rebound, so your failure became his shining moment.”
Gian looked offended. “Bakit naman ako nadamay?”
“Because you caught evidence,” Cols said.
Seb laughed from the free throw line. Jake bent forward with both hands on his knees, still catching his breath and pretending Max did not break his ankles on a cross-over before her last shot attempt.
The village clubhouse court looked the way it always looked in April: too bright, too clean around the edges, with old acacia trees shading the parking area and the painted lines on the cement floor beginning to fade near the corners. The clubhouse itself sat beyond the court, white walls, clay roof, glass doors, the kind of place parents rented for baptism lunches, milestone birthdays, and homeowners’ meetings where people argued about security guards and garbage collection..
Past the fence, the pool was full of younger kids shrieking over nothing. A yaya in a pressed house dress sat near the steps fanning herself with a folded newspaper. Somewhere else in the vicinity, someone was grilling hotdogs.
Summer after graduation should have felt different.
It didn’t.
She walked to the sideline, grabbed her towel from the bench, and wiped her face. Her white shirt was stuck to her back. Her knees were dusty. Her Jordan 11s looked too good for this court, which was exactly why Cols had called her maarte before the game started. Max bent down, untied them, and slipped them off.
Jams checked her watch. “Pupunta pa ako’ng youth meeting in twenty minutes.”
Max slid her feet into her Birks and flexed her toes. “Summer na and you’re still voluntarily attending meetings.”
“I have range.”
“You have a disease.”
Jams threw a rolled-up face towel at her. Max caught it easily.
Everything had gotten serious lately.
Everything had gotten serious lately, a slow accumulation of college applications, scholarship deadlines, and enrollment forms. Even the relatives had started in, asking about her course as if the answer alone could reveal the quality of her soul. DLSU had already sent the athletic scholarship documents. Her father had read everything twice. Her mother had placed the envelope in a plastic folder, as if plastic could protect their future from bad luck.
Max was going to La Salle.
Quinn Alvarez was going to Ateneo.
Of course she was.
Even their college choices had found a way to sit across Manila from each other and argue.
“Game pa?” Seb asked.
“No,” Jake said immediately, still breathing hard. “Ayoko na. She’s angry when she loses.”
“I’m not angry,” Max said. “Nice shot, Seb.”
Gian bounced the ball once. “You look angry.”
“This is my resting face.”
Cols looked at her. “Your resting face is a warning sign.”
Max was about to answer when the ball slipped from Gian’s hand, rolled past the sideline, and kept going toward the edge of the court.
A boy stopped it with the side of one shoe.
Not one of the usual village boys, Max knew that immediately. She knew the village kids. Knew the ones who had grown up there, the ones who had moved in after their parents got promoted, the ones who only showed up during summer because their grandparents lived in Phase Two. This one did not fit any category.
He looked around their age, maybe younger. Tall enough, but still with that teenage looseness in his shoulders, like his body had gotten ahead of him and he was still figuring out what to do with it. His face was the kind that had not fully settled yet, good-looking in a way that was still becoming something. Clear skin. Hair cut short and brushed back in a way that looked effortless but probably wasn't. His shirt was plain and expensive-looking in that quiet way rich kids liked pretending was simple. His Chucks were worn in properly, black canvas, white laces..
He looked like money that had learned to dress down.
Not the annoying kind yet. But there was potential.
He looked at the ball, then at them.
Then he smiled.
“Yours?” he asked, nudging the ball lightly with his shoe.
Cols glanced at Max. Jams glanced at Gab. Gab, already delighted by the possibility of new village gossip, smiled back from the wall.
Max held out one hand. “Obviously.”
The boy picked up the ball and walked toward them.
“Sorry,” he said, passing it to Gian first because Gian was closest. “I was going to borrow it sana if tapos na kayo.”
“We are,” Jams said. “Unless Max wants a rematch to process her grief.”
“I missed one shot.”
“One historically important shot,” Gab said.
The boy laughed.
Max did not know why that annoyed her. Maybe because he laughed like he had joined too quickly.
Cols, who had never met a stranger she did not immediately want to study like an album insert, tilted her head. “You new here?”
The boy blinked once. “Kind of.”
“What does ‘kind of’ mean?” Jams asked.
“Moved in recently.”
“Which street?”
He pointed vaguely past the clubhouse, toward the quieter side of the village where the older, bigger houses sat behind taller gates and better hedges.
“Acacia side,” he said.
Max narrowed her eyes. “You don’t know the street?”
“I know it,” he smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. Acacia Lane.”
“There are only six houses there,” Max said.
“I know.”
She stared at him.
He stared back, still smiling a little.
There was something off about him. Not scary. Not exactly. Just off in the way someone entered a room too comfortably before anyone had invited him in.
Gab slid off the bleachers and dusted off her shorts. “Name?”
“AJ.”
“Initials?” Cols asked.
“Nickname.”
“For what?”
AJ opened his mouth, closed it, then shrugged. “Long story.”
Gab gasped softly. “Mysteryoso.”
Jams pointed at her. “Do not start.”
“I’m not starting. I’m appreciating the form.” Gab smirked and offered a small wave. "Gab. The loud one's Cols and si Jams yung mukhang terror na teacher."
Cols snorted and gestured at the three boys. "Itong tatlong tukmol, 'wag mo na kilalanin."
Max took the ball from Gian and bounced it once. “Do you play?”
AJ looked at the court, then at her. “A little.”
That answer, in Max’s experience, meant one of two things. Either he was terrible and had enough self-awareness to warn them early, or he was good and pretending not to be annoying about it.
Max tossed him the ball.
AJ caught it cleanly.
“Shoot,” she said.
“Now?”
“No, next year.”
Cols snorted. Jams covered a smile. Gab made a small approving sound.
AJ looked at the rim. He took one dribble, took a side-step, and pulled up.
The ball went in clean.
No rim.
Gab whistled.
Cols clapped once. “Okay, mystery boy.”
Jams looked at Max. “Nice shot.”
Max took the ball after it bounced back and threw it to AJ again. “Again.”
AJ caught it, laughing now. “Initiation ba’to?”
“No. It’s a background check.”
He shot again.
This time the ball hit the front rim, bounced once, and dropped in.
Jake straightened. “Uy, pwede, pwede.”
Seb pointed at AJ. “Three-on-three next time. You’re with us.”
“Excuse me,” Cols said. “Recruitment agad?”
Gian shrugged. “We need height.”
“You need actual skills,” Max said.
AJ handed the ball back, still smiling. “Lucky lang.”
“Obviously,” Max said.
Cols narrowed her eyes at him. “Where’d you study?”
AJ rubbed the back of his neck. “Uh. Abroad.”
“Of course,” Gab said. “Village boy lore.”
“What school abroad?” Jams asked.
“Small one.”
“Very informative,” Gab said.
AJ smiled sheepishly. “Complicated.”
Max tucked the ball against her hip. “You keep saying that.”
“Because it is.”
“Everything is complicated if you refuse to explain.”
AJ looked at her then.
For a second his smile slipped into something less polished.
Then Cols made a sound. “Ay, interrogation.”
“These are normal questions.”
“Para kang barangay captain,” Gab said.
Jams started walking out of the court. “Come on. If I’m late, Tita Marge will make me lead opening prayer again.”
Cols grabbed her bag. “Music committee?”
“You say that like it’s fake.”
“It sounds fake.”
“It is very real and deeply underfunded.”
Gab slung her tote over one shoulder and turned to AJ. “There’s a youth thing tomorrow at the clubhouse. Horrible name. Probably snacks. Punta ka.”
“What kind of youth thing?” AJ asked.
“Post-graduation summer fellowship something,” Gab said. “HOA wants us wholesome and supervised before college corrupts us.”
“Too late,” Cols said.
Gab smiled. “There may be spaghetti.”
AJ looked from one girl to another. “Are all of you going?”
Cols made a tiny choking sound.
Jams looked up at the roof like patience was being tested.
Gab’s grin turned dangerous.
Max stared at AJ. “Why?”
AJ blinked. “I just meant, like, is it a group thing?”
“Smooth recovery,” Gab murmured.
Max should have said no.
She had no real reason to go. Village activities were usually full of aunties pretending not to monitor crushes, boys trying to look useful by carrying monobloc chairs, and somebody’s younger sibling running into everyone’s knees.
But Cols was already looking at her like she had decided something. Jams needed help because the youth group always needed free labor. Gab would go anywhere with food.
And AJ, boy from Acacia Lane, was watching all of them with that careful, too-alert face.
“Maybe,” Max said.
AJ nodded. “Cool.”
Cols still narrowed her eyes. “Para kang galing international school.”
AJ’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second, his posture stiffening before he could catch himself. “Is that bad?”
“No. Just trackable.”
“I told you. Abroad.”
Gab pointed at him. “Convenient.”
Jams had already started down the walkway. “Move. Now. I refuse to be spiritually responsible for this village.”
Cols and Gab followed, still tossing comments over their shoulders. Max stayed long enough to put her Concords back in her gym bag and pick up her water bottle.
When she straightened, AJ was still there.
“You really live on Acacia?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Which house?”
AJ hesitated.
“The empty one,” he said finally.
Max’s grip tightened around the strap of her bag.
The empty house on Acacia had been empty for years.
Not abandoned, exactly. Maintained enough that the grass never got wild, but quiet. Its owners lived overseas, according to her mother. The curtains were always drawn. The driveway was always empty. As kids, Max and Cols used to dare each other to ring the doorbell and run, until Max’s father caught them and made them apologize to a caretaker who had not even known they were there.
“Nobody lives there,” Max said.
“We do now.”
“We?”
“My family.”
“Your parents?”
AJ looked away first.
“Sort of,” he said.
Max did not like answers that avoided being answers.
Before she could push, Cols shouted from the steps, “Max! If you flirt any longer, Jams will become a saint against her will!”
“I’m not flirting!” Max shouted back.
Gab cupped both hands around her mouth. “That's exactly what flirts say!”
AJ laughed, startled and bright.
Max glared at all of them because it was the only useful thing to do.
Then, because she refused to give anyone the satisfaction of rushing, she turned back to AJ.
“See you tomorrow, Acacia.”
AJ blinked. “Acacia?”
“You gave incomplete information. That’s your assigned name until further notice.”
He looked down, smiling like he was trying not to.
“Okay,” he said. “See you tomorrow.”
Max walked away before he could say anything else.
By the time she reached the parking lot, Cols had already linked arms with Gab and was humming something dramatic. Jams was rushing them to Max’s car. The late afternoon sun caught on the clubhouse windows and threw bright rectangles across the court.
Behind her, the boys had started shooting around again.
Max didn't turn back. A new boy in the empty house on Acacia Lane was interesting enough for village gossip, sure, but as the late afternoon sun threw long rectangles across the court, she decided it definitely wasn't her problem.