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From Home

May

One Month Later

‘ T he Wi-Fi out here is horrendous. I swear, I’m about to move us to New Haven so we can get a decent—’

‘JJ, if you don’t shut up for once in your life, the Wi-Fi will be the least horrendous thing in this room.’

I bite down on my tongue to keep from laughing as JJ crosses his arms and pouts like a toddler when Colt shoots a glare his way. Inviting the guys to watch this was a fantastic idea. It provides me with free entertainment to calm my currently haywire nerves.

The Women’s MLL logo pops up with a chime, taking over the enormous projector screen in the Riders’ boardroom with fancy animations and theme music, buffered with the slight glitch that has got JJ so miffed. ‘It’s starting!’ announces Rod.

‘It’s starting!’ his daughter, Talise, echoes him, clapping her hands happily.

Our parents laugh as we all settle in, pretending we aren’t wound up as tensely as a taut fire hose. Colt’s arm is around me on one side; Jordan, who’s also up for draft tonight, is on the other; and from behind me, Mumma and Papa clutch my shoulders, while in the seating behind us, Coach Dillon, along with our entire Riders team – including the men’s lacrosse guys – waits nervously, making for a very, very full boardroom.

With the women’s season beginning in a month, a staggered start from the men’s season, modelled after American soccer schedules, it feels like I’ve barely had a minute to breathe since the big game, and then since walking at the UOKC’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences graduation. That was my biggest hurdle for such a long time, and I finally did it as a College Lacrosse champion.

Up on that stage, posing for my photo, I had my degree in hand, but if I’m being honest, the championship game was still fresh in my mind. The second I touched that enormous trophy, holding it up over our heads as the team wept for joy, all the alternate options I’d dug up lost meaning. To physically touch victory like that is a rush like nothing else. It’s a rush like barrel racing and storm tracking all rolled into one couldn’t even give me. And that was when I realized I had to declare. There were no two ways about it.

Jordan taps at the laptop that sits in front of us, making sure we’re hooked up to Zoom in case we have to come on. The camera feed will run continuously, and if one of us is selected as a pick, we’ll be displayed on the live programme. With the aforementioned ‘horrendous Wi-Fi’, we’re not extremely confident this system will work.

‘With the first pick in the 2025 Women’s MLL Draft, the Philadelphia Liberty select McKayla Evers, Northern Virginia University.’

‘That’s okay. No worries,’ Coach chants from above us, as our parents pat our shoulders assuredly. There will be six rounds of picks. No worries. We’ll be okay.

The second pick, and then the third, fly past. Jordan and I clutch each other’s hands so tightly I’m pretty sure we’re cutting off one another’s circulation.

‘With the fourth pick, the Rhode Island Reapers select Jordan Gutierrez-Hawkins, the University of Oklahoma City.’

Jordan is on her feet in a split second, shrieking the loudest I’ve ever heard her and bringing me along. We’re jumping up and down so hard I think I’m going to break an ankle.

‘YOU DID IT!’

It’s so surreal to watch your best friend, the person who’s had your back since the day you picked up sticks, to move up like that. The video call pops up onscreen, and Jordan speaks on receiving the opportunity to do right by the sport of lacrosse, and finding the passion to proceed forward. If anyone deserves it, it’s definitely her.

The first round flies by, and before we know it, we’re on the eighth pick, last of the round. Every limb in my body feels like it’s full of lead.

‘On the clock now are the New Haven Woodchucks.’

‘Holy shit.’ Colt’s flipping out next to me, basically hyperventilating. ‘The Chucks are picking. Okay, May. No pressure. No pressure.’

‘You look like you’re the one waiting on the draft, not me.’ I slug him in the arm, but he’s the outward manifestation of all the anxiety zooming around inside my body right now. The next four minutes are agony as we wait for the announcer to declare the Woodchucks’ pick.

My eyes are squeezed shut. I decide I’m going to rely on my sense of sound. I can’t look. Mumma’s hands knead the tension in my shoulders as the announcer clears his throat.

‘With the eighth and final first-round pick in the 2025 Women’s MLL Draft, the New Haven Woodchucks select Manmayi Velasco, the University of Oklahoma City—’

‘OH MY GOD!’

I don’t register that the scream bouncing off the walls of the boardroom is mine at first, at least until people are jumping up out of their seats all around us, my parents and Coach in hysterics behind me, Jordan shaking me by the shoulder from the right. The presiding members of the Woodchucks are absolutely ecstatic; Rod is holding Talise and dancing her around the room. Colt practically keels over dramatically before standing again, looking at the ceiling in disbelief, hands on his head like someone’s shocked uncle.

‘MAY!’ he howls, cupping my face in his hands. ‘MAY, YOU’RE A WOODCHUCK!’

I don’t even care how weird that sentence sounds. I leap right out of my chair and into Colt’s arms, hanging onto him for dear life as he spins me around, and I plant an adrenaline-fuelled kiss smack on his lips, one that he returns readily.

‘Start picking colours for our picket fence,’ he teases as the announcers, in the background, crack a joke about how our boardroom looks like it’s about to lose its roof.

‘Our picket fence?’ I grin, my fingers tickling the back of his neck, finding the cold metal of his necklace among the stupid little waves of hair that peek out past his ears. ‘Are you sure about that? Are you ready for my mess, CJ Bradley?’

‘I’m so ready for the mess. As long as it’s yours.’ His hands on my waist, his thumbs rest on top of the thick leather of my belt. ‘Love you, Red Card.’

‘Love you, New Haven.’ I scrunch my nose. He mimics me before brushing his lips across my forehead.

Woodchucks. What a thing to call your lacrosse team. Too bad I’m going to have to get used to it.