Page 6 of Full Court Crush

I’ve got this.

I hope.

At the end of a short corridor off the main thoroughfare, the women’s changing room loomed. Keira paused outside and triple-checked the sign, then took a deep breath and pushed open the door. Immediately, a wave of noise hit her. A group of women talked and laughed together. Stepping inside, she rounded the corner, and the noise quietened down as many pairs of eyes turned towards her. Keira stood in the silence for three long, terrifying seconds before one of the women on her right stepped forward.

“Hi, I’m Lucy, and you must be Keira.” It wasn’t a question. “Welcome to the Blizzards!” Lucy, with her short blond curls, light brown eyes, and light sandy skin, flashed her a brilliant smile. A few in the room either gave a brief nod, wave, or verbal acknowledgement of her presence before returning to their conversations.

“It’s okay, we don’t bite,” Lucy said quietly. “Unless you’re into that, of course.” She winked. The player standing next to Lucy immediately slapped her on the arm.

“Lucy! For Pete’s sake, don’t scare her off already. She’s only been here thirty seconds.”

“Who’s Pete?” Lucy grinned.

The other player rolled her eyes before turning to face Keira. “Hi, I’m Asha, nice to meet you.” The woman's petite stature meant she looked up at Keira. She had long, black, braided hair and deep brown skin with golden undertones matched the warmth of her eyes.

Keira vaguely remembered playing against an Asha in age-grade basketball, though that had been years ago now. If this was the same person, she was a force to be reckoned with.

“Likewise,” Keira replied, offering a smile, glad of another semi-familiar face. “I’d better get changed.”

The changing room was painted in Blizzards colours — white, blue, and grey — with a vinyl floor. Benches with hooks above them wrapped around the edges of the room and formed an island in its middle. Keira guessed the two archways at the opposite end led to toilets and showers. Carefully, she navigated around the bags, shoes, and pieces of clothing that littered the floor, trying not to make eye contact with anyone else. She finally found an empty spot on one of the benches and dropped her bag with a thud, drawing the attention of the nearest player.

“Hi, I’m Sienna, I’m new as well!” The young girl practically bounced on her tiptoes. Keira looked her up and down. She didn’t look much more than eighteen. The girl talked at her a mile a minute.

“I’m so excited for this season, aren’t you? It’s so hard for a new team to get into the pro league now, and this is the first year we’ve been there. It’s like we’ve got something to prove, right?”

“Mm-hmm,” Keira said and took her roughly packed clothes out of her bag, carefully placing them on the bench next to her water bottle. She’d played basketball for too long to care about stripping down to her underwear in front of others, but with new people, it was always a little jarring.

Her mind swirled with the pressure of this first training session. First impressions counted, and all eyes would be on her. She needed to cement her place in this team. Her father was counting on her. She swallowed down the bile that had risen in her throat and got changed.

The changing room slowly thinned out, players often leaving in pairs, chatting as they made their way to the court. Sienna and Keira were the last to leave, partially because Keira had been later in getting to the changing rooms, and partly because Sienna still hadn’t stopped talking. Keira, having zoned Sienna out by this point, finished getting changed and followed her new teammates towards the court.

Keira pushed on the double doors that opened onto the court. A shiver ran up her arms the moment she stepped onto the smooth wooden surface, and she couldn’t help but look around in awe. As nervous as she was, it didn’t seem real. All going well, this would be her new home in basketball. She was getting paid, albeit not much, to play the sport she loved. The butterflies in her stomach were doing somersaults. The courts weren’t anything like the big venues she had experienced at college, but the familiar, intangible magic made her steps a little lighter. She breathed in the grounding, musky scent of basketball, and tried to breathe out her self-doubts.

There was no room for insecurity in professional sport.

Players warmed up across the two baskets. Keira walked to the nearest of the chairs dotted alongside the court and put her drink and bag underneath it. Sienna followed her.

“-isn’t it, right?” Sienna said, her voice interrupting Keira’s musings, clearly expecting a response.

“Yeah, definitely,” Keira said. She hoped that was the right answer. It seemed to be, since Sienna put down her own bag, grabbed a basketball from a kit bag, and bounded towards the nearest hoop. Keira joined her, nodding slightly at the players she made eye contact with. She thought she detected a hint of recognition from some of them. She dribbled the ball a few times. With each bounce, the tension in her muscles turned down a notch. The bounce of the balls, squeak of shoes, and swoosh of the net whenever anyone drained a shot created a disjointed, but comforting, orchestra. Keira exhaled and put up some shots herself. The familiar movements further relaxed her.

Coach Grant blew her whistle just as Keira put up a three-point shot. Everyone retrieved their balls and jogged to the centre circle. Keira watched her shot fall slowly towards the basket before hitting the outside of the rim and pinging unexpectedly towards the other courts. She sprinted after it, shoes screeching on the floor as she skidded to a halt, grabbed the ball, and returned to her team, who huddled around the centre circle. They immediately parted to make room for her to join them, her cheeks warm.

“Thanks,” she whispered to those who had moved for her.

Glancing around the circle, her gaze arrested on piercing blue eyes that mirrored her own shock. For a few seconds, Keira stood transfixed, Coach Grant’s voice fading into obscurity. The woman from the park twitched her lips into a tentative but warm smile that electrified the butterflies in Keira’s stomach. This explained why she’d seemed familiar when they’d collided in the park — Keira had seen pictures of her when researching her new team. Keira suddenly realised she was gawping. In a panic, and much to her own surprise, she winked at the other woman. Her cheeks immediately burned. She snapped her attention back to Coach Grant, hoping no one else had noticed the exchange. Coach Grant placed her hand on the shoulder of the tall man standing next to her. With rich umber skin, dark brown eyes, and clipper-cut ebony hair, he grinned at the group.

“Turning semi-pro has allowed us to have an assistant coach this year, and TJ has kindly agreed to take on that role, for his sins.” There was a polite smattering of applause, while Lucy whooped and hollered.

“Yeah, TJ!”

Those near him reached out for low fives. TJ grinned as he returned each of them.

“Also, Amelia has agreed to be our captain again this year,” Coach Grant said. The woman from the park smiled and nodded in acknowledgement. “And I know what you lot are like.” The coach made pointed eye contact with Lucy and a couple of the others. “Pleasego easy on her this year.“ The returning players all chuckled, and Sienna looked rapidly between them all, like a confused but excited puppy.

Amelia.Keira rolled the name around in her mouth like an unfamiliar dessert from a foreign land. She risked a glance in Amelia’s direction, who studied her right back, curiosity etched on her face.

“I’d also like to welcome our two new players, Sienna and Keira. I know you’ll all help them feel at home,” Coach Grant continued, pointing to each player as she named them. Keira nodded, her lips pressed together, grateful when Coach Grant took the attention off her by continuing.