Page 16

Albuquerque

May

I busy myself picking out each type of cloud as they pass the windows by. Cumulus. Nimbus. Stratus. Jordan, on the other hand, wants nothing to do with clouds.

‘… really famous football team, and maybe now, we’ll get to see some of the players at the game—’

‘Girl, you are too much,’ Maddie hollers from the back of the bus.

‘Shut your mouth!’ shouts Jordan in return. ‘You don’t wanna see Ronny Casamento?’

Sounds of agreement fill the bus, and up front, Coach shakes her head exhaustedly. Beside me, in the aisle seat, Colt’s brow furrows. ‘Ronny who?’

‘Ronny Casamento ,’ Jordan says with a little extra ‘oomph’. ‘Last year, when Albuquerque came up here for the yearly match, we met him at this massive party Lambda Alpha Delta hosted. I thought Maddie was gonna pass out when he complimented her game. Sayin’ all these things about how she was scoring and then something real cute about her smile. She ate it up. And him? He wouldn’t stop following her around like a lovesick puppy all night .’

‘He’ll looove to see her again this year,’ Brianna jumps right in.

I can’t help but laugh. The lore around Ronny Casamento goes deep – especially because after the Lambdas’ Jungle Gym party, he followed Maddie on Instagram, and rumour has it they’ve been in touch over the past year, waiting for the next Albuquerque game to have their adorable little reunion. As it goes with all rivalry games, we alternate between away and home each year, and this year, we’re travelling to Albuquerque to play the Armadillos in one of our most anticipated matches of the season. I’d be more excited, but the eight-plus-hour bus ride and concussion protocol have kind of ruined the mood for me.

‘He’s guaranteed to be in pro football within the next two years,’ I point out, raising an eyebrow at Maddie, who’s got her quickly reddening face in her hands. ‘That’s wealth management. Capitalize on that while you got the chance, girl.’

‘Noooo!’ she groans. ‘Guys!’

‘Hold on, now.’ Colt grins, that dumb, lopsided grin that has the ability to make your heart skip about a million beats. A dimple etches itself in his left cheek, and I find myself wishing he’d turn the smile he directs at Maddie my way. Gross! What? ‘Are you looking forward to seeing him, though, Maddie?’

‘I …’ She slowly removes her hands from her face, and sheepishly, like a shy bride, nods just slightly. ‘I guess I am.’

‘You guess?’ teases Jordan.

‘Okay, fine!’ Maddie blurts. ‘I’m counting the fucking hours!’

The bus explodes into laughter and jeers and shouts as Maddie swats away the girls’ grabby hands. There’s something fun about being young and in love. But I’ve learned that when you’ve done it once and staked everything on it, you can’t quite replicate the feeling ever again. At least not for anyone else.

We reach the Albuquerque Memorial Union later in the evening than we would have liked. It’s nine p.m., and we’ve been on the road since noon, with the game T-minus eighteen hours away, and a boatload of starving lacrosse players ready to demolish the welcome buffet. We immediately lug our bags up to the only room they’ve prepared so far, form a mountain of twenty-plus duffels, and head down to the buffet. By the time we return to the room, we’ve stuffed ourselves full, and many of us have our hands full with additional plates of pizza.

‘Keys are right here!’ Coach Dillon announces, with a stack of cards in hand. ‘I have Brianna, Jordan, Lexi and Maddie in 409; I have Nyla, Paige, McKinley and Kassidy in 11; Cameron, Johanée, Bea, Allison …’

The coach makes her way through the roster, and then she brings the hammer down. She extends a key card my way, and with a knowing smile, says, ‘May, we were gonna put you in one of the rooms of fours, but we had a booking situation with Colt traveling with us.’ She turns to Colt. ‘The school books us exactly nine team rooms of four girls each, covers all thirty-six of us, and then I get my single room. That gives us ten rooms total. But considering we have one extra coach now, I think it may be best you both share. Will y’all be okay with that? I’ll be in Charlotte’s room.’

‘You’re sure?’ Colt asks, ever the gentleman when it counts. We exchange a nervous look. This definitely wasn’t in the cards when we decided on this fake relationship thing. In fact, May’s Plays number one is to keep our distance. This is very much not keeping our distance.

‘It’s either that or put Colt in a room with three college lacrosse girls getting ready for a noon game tomorrow,’ she says with a shrug. ‘That’s a sort of chaos none of us are prepared to deal with. I know you guys have that entire press thing going on, but … our alternatives aren’t great. It makes the most sense for the rest of the team. It was Jordan’s idea, for the record.’

Damn it, Jordan. I’ll have words with her after she plays tomorrow. I grit my teeth and paste a smile on my face as best as I can. ‘Sure. We’ll make it work.’

Five minutes later, Colt and I are staring down one solitary full-size bed. We are, after all, staying in the AMU Hotel attached to the Memorial Union. It’s school-owned and operated. I don’t know what I expected, to be honest. A California king? A hide-a-bed couch, at the least?

‘Thoughts?’ Colt finally says after a long, awkward moment.

We exchange a look of pained confusion. Colt looks remarkably put-together in his hoodie and training shorts for just having suffered a nine-hour drive with thirty-six raucous girls in an abnormally toasty bus, and I hate myself for noticing. I hate that I register the way his lashes flutter in thought, and the dimple appears in his cheek again, this time as he tweaks his mouth to the left. ‘I can sleep on the floor.’

My line of sight immediately travels to the kinesiology tape slapped all around his bad knee. ‘You’re not sleeping on the floor.’

Colt’s eyes widen, lips parting just slightly. ‘No, I can—’

‘I’ve slept on the floor before in way too many shitty hotels, and I know you have, too.’ I chew on the inside of my cheek and regard the bed with disdain. The elephant in the room. ‘We’ll figure something out.’

‘Yeah.’ He idly cracks a knuckle before reaching out and grabbing one of the forty different pillows on the bed, tossing it in the centre. ‘Make a wall?’

It’s our best bet. Maybe it will stop my heart from thundering like a herd of horses at the mere thought of sleeping in the same bed as Colt Bradley. It means nothing , I remind myself. Except that high school May would probably have passed out at the thought.

We busy ourselves in filling the tentative silence with the whispery whoosh sound of pillows hitting sheets as we form our wall. By the end of it, there’s an obvious division slicing through the middle of the mattress.

‘I think I’m gonna hop in the shower.’ I yawn. I feel like crap, and I figure the shower will help me fall asleep instead of staying up all night in a state of hyper-awareness. ‘Unless you wanna go?’

‘Oh – no, you go ahead, I’ll go after,’ Colt replies quickly, sheepishly.

With a curt nod, I unzip my duffel and grab my PJs, and I try not to notice the hint of pink that creeps up Colt’s neck as I pass him to get to the bathroom.

I try really, really hard.