Interlude – The Bro

"George get over here! Hurry!"

Hearing his mom's call, George puts the sponge and half-scrubbed plate down and heads towards the living room. Wiping his wet hands on the side of his pants as he goes.

It's okay, his pants are dark so she won't be able to tell he used them rather than the dishcloth she keeps in the kitchen for that specific reason.

"What happened?" He asks before she even comes into sight. It better not be because she needs someone to grab the remote for her. He's lost count of the number of times she's called him from his room to grab it off the tv stand and bring it to her on the couch. And his dad would be sitting right there next to her sometimes!

Kids really are just free labor.

"Look!" She gestures when he finally comes around the corner. So George turns to the tv and sees just what caught her attention.

"Well damn…"

"Your boy's on tv." His dad confirms.

Together they watch as the news anchor covers Lucio's perfect SAT score on the community spotlight segment. Lucio was right; this is the first time a student from their school aced that test.

"Wait, 1600? Wasn't the max like, 2400, last I checked?" George hears his dad wonder.

"They must have changed it." His mom answers.

"1600 is the max now." George tells them absentmindedly as he takes a picture of the tv showing Lucio's face and the headline before messaging the group chat.

George: [image]

George: yo check out this loser

Not even a minute goes by before he gets a response.

Trent: what a nerd

JJ: they actually put that pic on tv?

Mac: I think I go to school with that menace

JJ: I feel sorry for the poor innocent kids seeing that

Ernie: lowkey thought it was another school shooter at first

Trent: lol its that messy ass hair

Trent: a man treats his hair like that you can just tell he has no regard for human life

George most certainly does not laugh at the roast fest he'd mistakenly – as if – initiated and he certainly doesn't continue to throw fuel into the fire until Lucio hops on. They mess around a bit longer, throw some shots at the new celebrity, but once that phase is over they congratulate the guy. It's only on the local news but it's still media coverage, something none of them have ever gotten before. At this rate, this year really will go down as the year of the Lucio.

Becoming completely honest, George hadn't thought much of the changes visible on Lucio after the summer vacation. Simply assumed the dude worked out and that was that. Then Lucio would follow that up with doing better in classes, trying and making it onto the basketball team, and then getting a 1600 on the SAT. Bit by bit, George came to realize that this Lucio was different from the old one. This one was more motivated and taking care of business.

And once he realized that, George decided he wouldn't be left in the dust either. It was time to get his shit together.

George was a pretty smart guy. Not a genius or a 4.0 GPA student but even without studying too much, school came easy to him. He could learn pretty quickly, memorize stuff long enough to get tested on it, and standardized tests were his bread and butter. Maybe as a result of this, he'd kinda just coasted along throughout much of his time in high school figuring that his good grades and volunteer hours would be enough. To be fair, he technically was in the top ten percent of his class and him and the boys had accumulated a decent number of service hours together but it was clear he could do better so with his bro raising the bar, George wasn't backing down.

The first – and easiest – change had been to study a bit more. Not to the level of studying during lunch but he'd sacrificed thirty minutes of personal time per day to look over his notes and stuff. Even met up with Lucio on nights before chem tests to really drive things home. Actually, he probably would have dedicated extra study time for AP chem anyways; that shit is tough bro.

The next step had been to return to the robotics club. He'd done that his freshman year before joining the 'go home' club for the next two years. Since it was too late to join a sports team now, he figured having a techy extra-curricular would work. It's actually pretty fun working with the team to continuously design and build their models. It would be even more fun if their robot could fight others Real Steel style at competitions but that's probably asking for too much. Looking back, he must have been going through some angsty teenage phase because he has no other explanation for why he dropped robotics. Probably something along the lines of robot nerds get no bitches.

He was a dumbass back then.

Having much more common sense now a days, he went to his guidance counselor a couple weeks back for advice. In summary he needed to keep up the good work with his grades, look into the scholarships he qualified for as a smart, African American in his economic standing, and start building solid applications for his target schools. Personally, he's also considering taking the SAT again next month and maybe even the ACT in December. The different layout might work better for him.

So that's what he had to do. In comparison, Lucio was told to apply for every scholarship he could find and to focus hard on his college essays like his life depends on it. Not those exact words but that's the gist of it. And after seeing the schools Lucio is applying for and the average competition he's facing, George had to admit the counselor had a point. Those essays needed to be clutch.

With all this prep stuff, it's been a busy semester. And not just for him, the other guys were stepping up their games too. Everyone was trying to be better and despite what the frequent roasts would suggest to a casual, it was all lighthearted and served to motivate everyone. Plus, cracking jokes amongst the group had always been a custom of theirs so continuing to do so despite the changes going on and graduation peaking around the corner made it feel like everything was fine.

Yeah, that's what the roast fests were, a bonding experience. Especially when he wasn't the target.

…

"I have less than two months to become a basketball prodigy." Lucio explains, lining up another free throw and banking it in.

"One." George counts. They'd been doing this exercise for a while now but every miss meant restarting the count. Highest so far is seven. Seven out of the target ten in a row. "It's that serious?"

"You've seen the stats man, there are people out there who's whole lives were structured in a way to have the best odds of getting accepted. If I want to take their spot then I have to prove I'm worth it and basketball could give me that leg up. Gotta show out for recruiters and stuff."

George grabs another rebound and passes it back, "Two. I get that part, just wondering how much time you have to invest in this and how far you plan to take it."

"Far. If I can get this down, get consistent with it, it'll be huge. And time really is the ultimate factor; I started way behind these other ballers and everything, but honestly? I think I got this, especially with how fast it's all coming together."

"Right? I'm not even sure this shit should be possible, not this quickly." He agrees, "Three."

He'd heard stories about this; guy injures his dominant arm and while it recovers he uses his other arm until it's at the level of his dominant one. Months later he'd have two good arms that can perform almost to the same level so it would be like he was ambidextrous. George had never actually read up on the topic but it sounds familiar enough that it's probably a true story.

Either that or it's from some anime or comic. Which, actually might be the case now that he thinks about it. That's definitely the type of thing a creator would include in some fictional character's training montage. And here was Lucio actually training and succeeding at becoming ambidextrous. Wait, did that make him a character in someone's story?

Seeing no response from the universe, George mentally shrugs.

"I'm just that good." Lucio brags. And makes another free throw using his left hand. Technically both hands but he's shooting like a lefty. That's the whole purpose behind this Saturday morning practice session: to diversify his bag of tricks when it comes to scoring. Any decent hooper can dribble and finish at the rim with both hands, from what he's seen and heard so far, Lucio's got that down. What he's trying to do now is score from range using his left and right hands. Becoming good at shooting left-handed would mean more ways to score and another area for defenders to guard.

"Four." It really is coming along fast. He'd tried it, shooting a ball normally and then switching to his left hand. Wonky as fuck. Makes no sense how Lucio could land a basket even once. Maybe the month he spend taking notes in class with his left hand helped. "So, how are the essays coming along?"

His friend pauses for a moment and then shrugs, "Work in progress. I'm trying to improve my writing skills first and look around for advice before creating a rough draft. After that I'll have different people look at it."

"Huh, smart. Want me to take a crack at it? And maybe you can help me with my stuff too?"

"Yeah. I'll have you read over the rough draft. And I'll help with whatever you need, just let me know."

"Cool… and we're starting over now."

Lucio curses.

A little bit of insight from another perspective.