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CHAPTER 2

IN SPITE OF CAREFUL PLANNING

SAGE

Sage woke up to her alarm shrieking — she could never be bothered to change it from the pre-programmed sound — and the sun just barely brightening the sky. She rolled out of bed quickly, pulling on a sports bra and running shorts before putting the t-shirt she’d slept in back on again. She found a pair of socks and slipped on her running shoes. She stopped briefly in the kitchen, filling up her water bottle from the jug she kept in her fridge, and then quietly left her apartment.

The gym was only a few buildings over, and Sage had already integrated the new facility into the rhythm of her days. She climbed onto an open treadmill, upping the speed until she broke into a run, feeling her lungs expand and contract with the pounding rhythm of her steps as she found her pace.

She had to start her days like this. Even when the requirement to maintain a certain fitness level was no longer the driving force in her life, Sage still found herself drawn to both the external routine and the internal grounding that habitual exercise brought her.

It helped her maintain a clear head, and honestly just felt fucking good.

After a run and a cooldown that she knew was too short, she dismounted and went over to the free weights. She worked through a circuit of lunges, squats, arm presses and curls, lifting enough weight that her muscles shook with the effort by the time she reached her final reps.

Finally she dropped down to the wide mat set up in a corner, busting out twenty push-ups before pausing, leaning back on her knees as she watched sweat drip down to the mat below her. Her breaths were heavy, and she forced herself to fill her lungs to full capacity, overriding the burn in her core.

As she leaned forward again, she caught a glimpse of a man walking down the sidewalk. Tall, well built, and walking a tiny dog. Adorable , she thought as she watched the golden dog’s short legs working overtime to keep up with the man’s long stride. The guy’s ass was something far less wholesome than adorable, and Sage caught herself licking her lips as he disappeared from view. Damn there were some good looking men in the area.

She shook her head.

Her workout finished with a series of crunches with her legs lifted in the air above her that made her abs practically scream in pain. She pushed herself off the floor, cleaned up her area with one of the provided wipes, and then proceeded to hobble back to her apartment.

Did she stretch? Nope.

Did she know that she was supposed to stretch? Yep.

After a quick shower, Sage stood in the kitchen dressed in cut off jean shorts and a faded Fleetwood Mac shirt that had been her mom’s, tossing the chopped ingredients of her breakfast scramble into a cast iron pan and stirring them absently while she warmed tortillas on the open range.

It was the first day of classes, so she didn’t entirely know what to expect now that she was a grad student. Would there be the same endless stream of articles to read and papers to write? She had no idea.

It was going to be a good year. She’d landed her dream internship with the Southeastern Women’s Soccer team. They were dominant — they’d won their conference eight out of the last nine years — and Danika had introduced Sage to the coach at the end of last year. It was a requirement for the Sports Management graduate program that everyone needed to get a managerial internship with either a collegiate or professional team. While Southeastern was only a NCAA Division III school, they were still known for having strong sports programs.

Sage had put in hours of effort to earn the Women’s Soccer Team Manager spot. Because they were so good, it was one of the most sought after positions, and even though Sage didn’t have a soccer background, she’d studied her ass off to learn the game well enough to impress the coaches.

The team had already started practicing, but she hadn’t heard yet when she’d officially start. She supposed they wouldn’t need her until the games began.

She heated her copper kettle, making a to-go thermos of Earl Gray with milk and honey. She’d never been able to handle coffee, but the caffeine of black tea was the perfect balance for her.

Since she still had a little bit of time before she had to leave for her first class, Sage took her tea and breakfast tacos out to her small balcony. She’d set up a hammock chair and a small folding table, and along all of the edges she had potted plants in varying stages of growth. Some, like the hibiscus that was practically a tree, had been with her since her freshman year, while others, like the hanging fuschia and the window box of pansies, were new.

Done with her breakfast, she quickly hand-washed her dish and ducked into her bathroom, where she brushed her teeth and pulled her long hair back into a single braid that hung down her back. She ignored her makeup.

Moving through her apartment, she grabbed her backpack, refilled her water bottle, and then slipped her feet into the worn pair of Birkenstocks that sat beside the front door. Locking her door behind her, she ran down the stairs.

* * *

Sage jogged up the wide, stone steps toward the front entrance of the Robert D. Humphrey Athletic Center, pausing only to give a friendly slap to the tail feathers of Eckbert the Eagle, their rather unfortunately named mascot, who was captured in a ferocious bronze statue that greeted everyone who approached.

The massive, limestone building housed the natatorium, gym, and the shared basketball and volleyball practice courts, in addition to the typical things one would expect from a small college’s athletic facility: racquetball and squash courts, a weight room and fitness room, and numerous classrooms.

It was where she’d spent the majority of her time at Southeastern University, as almost all of her Sports Management classes met in the mostly windowless classrooms tucked in the lower floors of the building.

The wall of freezing air hit her as soon as she walked into the high-ceilinged atrium. Mindlessly, she unzipped her backpack and grabbed the crewneck sweatshirt she carried with her everywhere. Sure, it was hot in Charleston, but did everyone have to have the air conditioning so fucking cold?

She barely took in the trophy cases and dark green and gold accents that covered the walls around her, and resolutely ignored the wide bank of doors that led into the gymnasium, instead turning to the staircase that led to the lower floors of the building. She went down two flights, before following a hallway that led to one of the many classrooms tucked away into a corner.

The class, Sports Revenue Strategies and Analysis, was taught by the assistant athletic director, an ex-baseball player who’d spent some years in pro sports. He went by Coach Smith, even though Sage wasn’t sure he’d ever actually been a coach in all of his professional years. He was well-liked by the students in the program, as he walked the fine line between being casual and easy-going while still commanding the respect of those in his classroom. He also happened to be Sage’s advisor.

The class passed by quickly, with Coach Smith moving through slide after slide giving an overview of the course and the content they’d be covering. It was genuinely interesting, but was definitely geared toward those who were looking to pursue a career in sports marketing. Sage wasn’t entirely sure what she was going to do with her degree yet, but was pretty certain that marketing wasn’t where she wanted to end up.

“Sage, hang back a minute,” Coach Smith called as everyone was packing up to leave.

Shoving her laptop into her bag, she walked over to the front of the classroom. Once they were alone, Coach Smith rubbed a hand over his thinning hair.

“Well, I’ve got some bad news,” he started, not looking directly at her. “I just got a call from Coach Rivera, and they’ve decided to go with someone else for the Team Manager spot.”

Sage stilled. Coach Rivera was the head coach of the Women’s soccer team. “What?”

“I’m sorry,” Coach Smith said, finally looking her in the eye. “She said that one of their seniors had a season-ending injury during pre-season, and since she’s also in the Sports Management program, Rivera is doing her a solid and letting her complete her internship requirement a year early.” He gave her a sad smile. “She said to offer her apologies to you.”

Sage couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “But I need the internship to graduate!”

Coach Smith held up a hand. “I know, Sage. And I’ve already got another team lined up.”

“Who?”

“Men’s basketball.”

Sage froze. “No.”

Fuck no .

“No?” Coach Smith raised his brows at her, shaking his head. “Sage, you need this job. I know it’s not what you want —”

“Coach, it’s the worst program in the entire school.” Sure. Let him think that was why she couldn’t work with the team.

He at least had the decency to wince at that. “The new coach is good. He’s an alum. Has real potential to turn it all around.”

Panic clawed its way up her throat. What was happening? It was all planned out. Everything was going to go according to plan . “Isn’t there someone else?” She was trying to keep her voice even. “Racquetball? Pickleball?”

“Not real teams and no,” Coach Smith replied. “At this point there’s no one else.”

Fuck .

Sage took a slow, deep breath, her body completely still as her mind raced, running through every possible scenario, seeking any alternative solution to the problem currently facing her.

She had to graduate after this year. She needed the internship for that to happen, and couldn't put it off until later.

There was no other way.

“Okay,” she finally said, trying to force a smile onto her face. “I guess I’m in, then.”

She barely registered the goodbye she and Coach Smith exchanged, walking on autopilot out of the classroom. Rather than turning right, the direction she needed to go to get to her next class, her feet carried her left, winding down the carpeted hallway. She walked past the workout room that catered to the general student population and a few of the team locker rooms. She continued on, not really seeing what was in front of her, until she reached a set of wooden double doors at the end of a hallway. She pulled on the brushed metal handles, immediately hit with the familiar smell of industrial cleaners, a hint of sweat, and the faintest scent of leather. Four open courts stretched before her, the hoops lowered on two of them, while volleyball nets stretched across the other two.

The Southeastern practice gym was a beautiful space. A line of windows bathed the wooden floors with sunlight, while light stone pillars that stretched up to the high ceiling cast dramatic shadows against the walls.

She didn’t normally see the practice gym bright with natural light that brought out the warm, golden streaks in the wooden floors. She couldn’t normally tell that the lines that delineated the basketball court were painted burnt orange and not red, and that the volleyball lines that bisected the other court boundaries were dark navy rather than black.

She dropped down onto the bleachers that stood along the wall closest to the door. The cold metal bit against the bare skin on her thighs, but she barely noticed.

All of her attention was caught up in a silent storm in her head.

She’d had a plan. A good plan. She was going to work for the soccer team, learn from a coach with a winning pedigree, support women in sports, and somehow, through that, she was going to figure out how to turn her degree into a paying career.

But now?

Basketball.

She’d made such a conscious effort to put some distance between herself and the teams here. She’d avoided the games, the players, and even carefully navigated away from any news or articles about them.

She’d maintained her relationship with the sport. But that was personal. It was an agreement between herself, the ball, and the basket, and even then, she was only able to do it in the privacy provided by the silence of the night when the court around her was empty.

And now, in spite of years of running and careful planning, there she was: the new team manager for the Southeastern Men’s Basketball team.

* * *

Her phone rang as she sat on her couch reading a handout for her Baseball Analytics class. While she didn’t necessarily have a burning passion for the sport, it was an elective that worked with her schedule and, based on the first class, was going to be interesting enough.

She grabbed her phone and put it on speaker. “Hello?”

“Hey you.”

Sage immediately relaxed at the sound of her sister’s voice. “Hey Brin,” she said, smiling. “What’s up?”

Her older sister, Brinley, lived in Thousand Oaks, in the San Fernando Valley just north of Los Angeles, and about an hour drive from where their mom lived in Santa Barbara. Brinley worked as a lawyer in the entertainment industry, doing something relating to contract negotiations. It was fancy and paid a shit ton of money.

“Wanted to see how your first week is going and check in about Alumni Weekend.” There was the sudden screech of brakes and the honking of a horn in the background. “I hate humans,” she snapped. “Have I told you that recently?”

Sage laughed. “Only every time we talk.” She got up from the couch, walking over to the kitchen to refill her water. “First week is fine. My internship got fucked up though.”

“What? What happened?” Concern was evident in Brinley’s tone.

“Soccer found someone else who actually knew the sport,” Sage said, pausing to take a long drink from her bottle. “So now I’m stuck with Men’s Basketball.”

It was silent over the line for a long moment. “Are you okay?” Brinley finally asked.

“Fine,” Sage said. She started walking through her apartment, her phone gripped in one hand while her toes brushed over the soft carpet. “I don’t have a choice if I want to complete my program, Brin.”

“I’m so sorry,” Brinley’s voice was soft. “We’ll have to drink about it when I’m down there.”

“Right!” Bless her sister for the seamless topic change. “You’re still coming?”

Brinley laughed, her giggle light and feminine. “Like I’d miss the chance to see my friends from college and hang with my little sister?”

“What day do you get in?” Sage gently pressed her finger into the dirt in one of her bright ceramic pots that sat on the top of a bookshelf that she’d set up in her living room. When she couldn’t feel any moisture, she went to the kitchen and grabbed the watering can she kept on her counter. Filling it, she moved methodically from plant to plant, checking each one before sprinkling the dirt with water.

“I fly in on Thursday around noon, and then leave late Sunday morning,” Brinley was saying. “I’m going to stay with McKenna at her place, but you’ll be around to hang, right?”

“Of course.”

Sage missed her sister, and genuinely looked forward to hanging with her and her friends throughout the weekend. They were wild when they were together — something about the sorority bond that got them all worked up, even though Brinley and her friends were now in their early thirties.

“How’s mom?”

Brinley hesitated before responding. “She’s fine. I was home last weekend. The garden looks amazing, as usual. She was canning tomatoes and making pickled jalapenos. She’ll probably send some with me when I come to visit.” There was a slight pause. “She was going on about good marketing jobs in LA. She had a whole folder on her desktop of saved job postings with the Kings and Dodgers.”

Sage let out a groan.

Cheryl Fogerty was, in most ways, a quintessential hippie: hated war, only ate real food that was either grown by herself or someone she knew, and was a feminist to her very core. However, after their dad left them for his secretary when Sage was a kid, their mom had gone from being an easy-going stay-at-home mom to suddenly being saddled with the full financial responsibility for two kids and their household. She’d had to take the first job she could find, which was a substitute teaching position at the local high school. Somehow, she’d juggled raising two kids on her own and getting a teaching certificate, and had worked hard ever since.

She was undeniably a badass. Sage was forever impressed by what she’d accomplished, infinitely grateful for what she’d sacrificed to give her and Brinley a comfortable life.

But a bitterness had gripped Cheryl Fogerty when her husband left. She told her daughters over and over again that their primary mission in life should be finding independence — financial and emotional — and that putting themselves in positions where men were in power over them was the ultimate act of betrayal to the women who’d fought for their rights.

Brinley, for her part, was crushing it. A female lawyer taking the world by storm, working at a firm where her boss was a woman. Her income was more than Sage could imagine, and in their mom’s eyes, being in a position of never having to rely on a man was the definition of success.

Hence their mother’s obsession with trying to figure out how to turn Sage’s sports management degree into something lucrative. And the unfortunate reality was that, at the moment, the positions with the most potential upward mobility and earning potential in sports were in social media and marketing. Especially for women.

There was also the added piece that their mom assumed that Sage would be moving home to California after graduation. Brinley had, so of course it was presumed that Sage would follow.

But Sage didn’t want to work in social media, and she definitely didn’t want to move home to Santa Barbara.

“You there?” Brinley asked, and Sage realized she’d gone quiet, lost in her thoughts.

“Sorry. Yeah. Just trying to grapple with the existential dread that comes with thinking about what happens after graduation.”

Another laugh from Brinley. “You’ll be incredible no matter what you decide to do, Sage. And ignore Mom. Don’t let her bullshit become yours. She loves us, but she’s…well, she’s Mom.”

Sage felt a wave of gratitude for her sister. “Can’t wait to see you,” she said.

“You too,” Brinley replied. “Okay, I’ve gotta run. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Brinley hung up before Sage had a chance to end the call.

* * *

By 8:30pm, the practice gym was as she knew it: empty, and lit only by the harsh white overhead lights. Sage moved to the bleachers, opening her bag and pulling out her worn Hyperdunks, the red and orange accents scuffed and the laces beginning to fray. She slid her feet into the shoes, kicking her heels back against the floor before tying the laces tight, just how she’d always liked it.

She reached into the bag, pulling out a basketball. The leather was a rusty orange, with only a few scuffs on the surface. Sage had had the same ball that she’d stolen from her high school gym since she’d left California.

With only the ball in her hand, she walked over to one of the baskets, craning her neck up to look at the orange of the rim and fresh white of the new net. Positioning herself only about a foot away, she held up the ball in one hand, and then shot.

The flick of her wrist was second nature. The slight bend in her knees before she shot. The ball rolling off of her middle finger, the angle of her head as she watched the ball barely brush the rim before falling through the net with a soft swish .

Her hands were ready when the ball bounced back to her. She repeated the shot, lifting just her left hand and shooting; this time the ball fell perfectly into the net, just missing the rim. A small smile twitched at her lips.

She repeated the same shot twenty times, before moving to the front of the basket, where she did the same thing. She moved from spot to spot, shooting again and again, and eventually her right hand came up to guide the ball from the side. Her movements sped up, more of her body getting involved as she deepened the bend in her knees to give more strength to her shot.

She made more than she missed. In the wake of a miss, she made tiny adjustments, but for the most part her body fell into the routine of shooting, reuniting with each familiar spot within fifteen feet of the basket. It was a rhythm so familiar that her mind quieted until there was nothing but the squeak of her shoes on the wood, the swish of the net, and the almost metallic-sounding bounce of the ball.

An hour later, her back and face were drenched with sweat, and her lungs burned with each breath. She walked back to her little pile of stuff on the bleachers, nudging out of her shoes and sliding her now soaked socks into her Birks.

She should stretch. If she were more responsible, she would stretch.

But at that point she was so hungry that all she could think about was getting home to her stocked fridge. She packed her bag, already feeling stiffness settle into her hamstrings, and shuffled out of the gym, flipping the lights off behind her.

When she got back to her apartment she showered, but didn’t bother with washing her hair. Once she had a big bowl of rice, beans, and sautéed veggies and chicken topped with hot sauce, she curled up on the couch with a novel; she probably had an hour and a half to read before she needed to go to bed.

Just as she was settling in, her phone pinged with an email notification.

Swiping it open, she read the message.

From: [email protected]

Subject: Meeting

Miss Fogerty,

Please let me know if you’d be available to come by my office tomorrow afternoon. As I’m sure you are busy with classes, I can be flexible on the timing. Let me know when would work best for you.

Looking forward to meeting you,

Coach Hughes

Southeastern University Men’s Basketball

Sage exhaled loudly, sinking her head back into the couch behind her. She gave herself a few seconds to think about just how shitty this was before she sat up and tapped out a response.

From: sfogerty@ southeastern.edu

Subject: Meeting

Coach Hughes,

I am available tomorrow at 1pm.

Looking forward to it.

Sage Fogerty