Brayden hung back until the other two drifted toward the snack table. Then he came over with his hands in his pockets and his ears red again.
"You played better," he said. "That's all. You played better."
"Thanks."
"He's going to the board." Brayden stared at the Cup in her hands as if it might explain his father. "I asked him not to. He said I didn't understand legacy." He swallowed. "I think I understand it fine. I just don't like his version."
Zuri did not know what to offer him. Pity would insult him. Absolution was not hers to give. She settled for the truth. "You don't have to carry his round."
Brayden nodded. He looked younger than fifteen. "Congrats, Langston."
"You too, Haskins. For finishing."
He almost smiled. "That might be the nicest thing anyone's said to me all summer."
XVII.
Pop drove them home in the old Buick that smelled of coffee and wintergreen. The Cup sat on Zuri's lap wrapped in a towel because Pop said silver scratched if you let it roll around. For the first ten minutes neither of them spoke. The city slid past — the country club gates, the stretch of road where the houses got smaller, the turn toward their duplex with the porch light Patrice always left on when she worked late.
"You kept your head," Pop said finally.
"He tried to take the hole from me after I already played it."
"I saw." Pop's hands were steady on the wheel. "Men like that don't lose the argument they think they're having. They lose the one underneath it. Give it time. Don't give it your peace."
Zuri looked at the restored driver in the back seat, the headcover Pop had sewn himself from an old leather scrap. "He said it cost more than my whole bag."
"It did," Pop said. "Reed Callahan paid four hundred dollars for that driver in 2003. Your bag cost me twelve at a sale. Clifford wasn't wrong about the math." He glanced at her. "He was wrong about what the math meant."
"What does it mean?"
"It means somebody who had enough decided to hand something forward. It means I kept it until your hands were ready. It means price is a number, and belonging is a different language." Pop turned onto their street. "You spoke both today. He only speaks one."