Bounce Back

Chapter 26

Ryan's POV

Christmas day was freezing cold and I didn't want to get out of bed. I could hear my parents and Jason downstairs already and I knew that Dan was going to be coming around in a few minutes since the Wizards were in town and they would be playing each other today.

I already had a message from Tyler wishing me a Merry Christmas and I remember how he told me that with Lisa he was going to be dragged out of bed really early. I replied to him before dragging myself out of bed.

"Merry Christmas, Ry," Jason said when I made it into the lounge.

"Merry Christmas," I mumbled slightly.

He laughed at me and handed me cup of hot chocolate. I sipped it slowly as I settled on the couch. Our presents were already divided into piles so I settled in front of mine. Mom started Christmas carols playing in the background as we started to open presents.

There wasn't anything in particular that I had asked for for Christmas so I didn't know what to expect. Dan walked in a couple of minutes later and we started opening presents.

I got a few books that I had been looking at for a while as well as a new laptop so that I could download better software onto it. I only had a couple of things to open when I heard my phone ring and I asked to leave the room when I saw that it was Tyler.

"Its fine,' Mom smiled.

"As long as you go far away that we can't hear you haven't phone sex," Jason smirked.

I scowled as my family laughed and I tossed a pillow at the offending brother which he ducked easily. I wisely left the room before I answered the call and instead settled on my bed.

"Merry Christmas," I said.

"Merry Christmas to you too," he smiled.

"How has your morning been?" I asked.

"I feel like I've been awake for hours already. Lisa dragged me out of bed around six," he complained.

"Don't front, you love it just as much," I teased.

"Yeah I do. What are you doing today?"

"Once we've finished opening presents we will probably laze around before going to the basketball game. What about you?"

"I think that we might have a bit of family coming for lunch but I'm not completely sure."

We continued to talk about other things until I realised that I should probably get back to my family. We talked for a couple more minutes before I wished him Merry Christmas once more before hanging up and heading back to my family.

"How is Tyler?" Mom asked.

"Not too bad. Complaining that his sister got him up too early," I laughed.

My parents laughed and my two brothers teased me about me doing that to them years ago. I didn't say anything to them, instead focused on opening my last presents. Jason and Dan couldn't stay much longer because they had to get ready for the upcoming game leaving me with our parents.

We didn't really have a lot of time before the game and it didn't take long before we had to leave after I called the rest of my friends and set up my new laptop. Traffic was bad heading to the arena and we barely made it in time for the start of the game.

Jason had made sure to get us really good seats and I wished that I was about to take stats for the game. Mom would have glared at me for the whole game if I had my laptop here. Both the Moore siblings had good games but the Celtics won the game.

I couldn't help but think about how at some point it could be my job to come to games like this and just record stats. For a minute I let myself indulge in how amazing that would be but then I pushed it out of my head. I had a long way to go before that could be possible.

We hung around until we were pretty much the last people in the arena since we were waiting for players. Mom hugged both my brothers when they came out. Despite losing Dan didn't seem that upset and he had permission to stay with us since they were flying out tomorrow.

We talked as Mom drove and I could feel myself drifting off to sleep and I just shut my eyes. I was still half listening to the conversation going on the car.

"How is Ryan going?" Dan asked.

"Pretty well at the moment. I keep meaning to get him to invite Tyler around for dinner because he sounds like a nice guy," Mom said.

"What do you think of what he is applying for?" Jason asked.

"I'm not convinced by it. It seems a little weird and I'm not sure of the benefits of it. I think that he would be better off doing something else," Dad said.

I then heard Mom agreed with him and I could feel my breaths getting shorter. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. That they couldn't just say it to me. I was glad when we pulled up because it meant that I could get out of the car.

No one questioned it when I scrambled out of the car and headed straight to my room. I said goodnight to all of them and pretended to be going straight to bed. I shut the door behind me and sat down on the floor.

I couldn't hear my family downstairs so I picked my phone up and called Tyler. He picked up after a couple of rings and I could hear other people talking in the background.

"Hey, Ryan," he said.

"I wasn't interrupting anything, was I?" I asked.

"Nah, I wanted to get out of there for a few minutes as it is too loud. How was your day?" he asked.

"It was pretty good. The basketball game was really good as well but I wished that I could take stats for it."

"Of course you do. Do you know how to watch a game without looking at the numbers?" he teased

"Ha, ha, ha."

Talking to Tyler calmed me down a lot and could feel my breaths evening out and not being so frantic. We continued to talk for a while until I could hear someone calling to Tyler in the background and I knew that he had to go.

"I'll talk to you later," I said softly.

"Yeah," he echoed.

We paused for a moment as neither of us wanted to hang up quite yet.

"Ry, you'd tell me if something was wrong," he asked.

"Of course," I assured him.

He hung up moments later and I continued to sit on the floor. I was still calmer than I was before but I still wished that Tyler was here with me but I could do this. I would try and talk to my parents tomorrow and to hear them out. Hopefully it wouldn't be a difficult conversation.

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The Wise One