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I turned and saw a woman standing next to me. I did the usual scan out of habit—short nails, no wedding ring, but silver rings on her other fingers, tattoos winding up her arms. Her long hair was tied back off her face. It was obvious what she was here for.

“No, I guess I should’ve opted for green,” I said. She was wearing a cut-off Lakeside Green shirt. It was black instead of the usual green, very much fitting with the cool girl, motorcycle vibe she was giving off .

“I don’t know, I think I like the shirt you’re wearing,” she said.

I nearly rolled my eyes, half expecting her to launch into some variation of and I’d like it even more if you weren’t wearing it .

Even beyond already knowing every line in the book, I found myself uninterested in her. Normally, I could overlook the corniness—and I would’ve on any other night. She was hot, and she was flirting with me. I was single, she was presumably also single. There was nothing holding us back.

But there was something holding me back. As she was talking to me, all I could think about was Theo.

As the girl in front of me picked up her beer to take a sip, all I could think about was how Theo’s hands looked when she was fiddling with my highlighter at the table.

It’d taken all of my willpower not to stare at them the entire time we’d been together.

It was so easy to imagine those same fingers intertwined with my own, tangled up in my hair, traveling over my body.

And then there was the way her arms looked under her short-sleeve t-shirt. I wanted to run my hands over her biceps, squeeze them, kiss them .

Suddenly, I was itching to get out of this conversation. For the first time, maybe ever in my life, I was passing up the opportunity to flirt and doing so willingly.

And most surprising of all, I was doing it with zero label or confirmation from someone else that they actually liked me and were interested in me in return.

“Thanks,” I said, hoping I was still being polite but firm enough to get out of this. If I stood here any longer, I was at risk of saying something out loud about how attracted I was to Theo and how she was the person I wanted to be seeing tonight.

Alcohol seemed to be having the opposite effect of what I’d intended it to—it highlighted my feelings for Theo and made everyone else seem entirely unappealing.

“Not much of a football fan, then?” the girl asked, still trying even though I wasn’t giving her much. Her effort was starting to feel grating rather than admirable.

“Not really,” I said. “But my girlfriend is.”

She nodded with acknowledgement and backed off.

It wasn’t my first time using the line, but it was my first time using it because I was genuinely interested in someone else.

Normally, I would use it whenever the person wasn’t really my type or I wasn’t getting any kind of spark.

This time, though, it actually felt like it meant something.

I ordered drinks for me and Iris, the process uninterrupted by anyone else attempting to take me home.

I ordered Iris and me two rounds each to save time and avoid having to brave waiting at the bar again.

I couldn’t tell if the crowd was going to clear after the game or not, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

“Drinks on drinks!” Iris said as I walked over. She’d found us a tiny round table toward the back that had barely any view of the screen; it seemed like this side of the bar was mostly non-sports fans looking for a night out.

As I placed the cups—expertly balanced in my hands like a practiced barmaid—down onto the table, the crowd erupted.

“Overtime,” Iris said.

“Fuck,” I said. I settled into the chair across from her.

“Sorry, I didn’t realize the crowd was going to be like this,” she said. She took a long sip of one of her drinks through her straw. “Did you get her number?”

“What?”

“The girl at the bar. I saw her talking to you. She was radiating gay from all the way over here.”

“Oh,” I said, having already brushed the thought of her away. It was nothing she’d done, and I hoped her all the best, but I had someone else who was taking up all of the real estate in my head. “Yeah, I did. We might get a drink sometime,” I lied.

“You’re scarily good at this,” Iris said, shaking her head.

“Yeah,” I said and tried to quickly think of a way to pivot the conversation. “I promise we’ll find your basketball player. It’s meant to happen.”

Iris waved me off. “I’m more worried about your basketball player.”

“I don’t have one,” I said, and it almost sounded convincing .

Iris and I called it a night earlier than we usually did—she wanted a full night of sleep before heading into work, and I wanted to get up early to finish a paper that was due.

After showering sticky dive bar air off of me, I curled up in bed in the biggest, softest t-shirt in my closet and a pair of loose-fitting women’s boxers.

I leaned over and cracked my bedroom window open just the tiniest bit so I could get some fresh air into the room, one of my worst vices.

I loved sleeping with the window open, even when it was nineteen degrees and the heat was blasting in the house.

I only ever cracked it so it wouldn’t get too cold, but I slept better with the fresh air.

I picked up my phone and scrolled through social media, only half paying attention to what I was looking at.

It was all the same—party updates, people taking vacations, trips back home to visit parents.

People from high school posting updates from the local bars.

Every once in a while, someone would have a picture to share from an engagement or a baby, which still threw me off whenever I saw it.

Even though some of the people posting were seniors when I was a high school freshman, it was hard to believe I was anywhere near old enough for that kind of commitment.

Then, a picture of Theo crossed my feed. My heart stopped as soon as I registered the familiar colors, the basketball court behind her. It was a picture from the first home game of the season. I zoomed in on her face, taking in her easy smile. My heart fluttered .

We hadn’t texted since coordinating plans to meet up.

I didn’t know if that meant we were never going to speak again, if I was supposed to reach out, or if Theo wanted to reach out first. I didn’t want to appear overeager, but I also didn’t want to come across as aloof.

It was the stupidest, most childish game ever invented, but I wasn’t used to playing this way, so I genuinely didn’t know what to do.

It turned out it was a lot easier to text first or go a few days without texting when I didn’t care much about the other person.

I clicked onto her profile, unable to help myself.

There was another post that was a series of stills from a recent practice, promoting that there was a game this weekend.

At the end, she attached a short video of her tossing the ball from halfway down the court.

Her teammates exploded into cheers as the camera cut off, catching the tiniest, cockiest smile from Theo.

God, she was so hot it was disgusting.

It had to be the ego; that was what I really liked about her.

She was so confident, so certain that she was going to go places.

And she was so good . I didn’t have to know anything about basketball to know that she was something special.

People didn’t talk about just anyone like that, giving them features in magazines and coming from all around the country to see them play.

Everyone knew what she had—including herself.

I paused the video, taking in the details of her face. Her jawline was sharp and defined, her lips so full I knew she had to be a good kisser.

I closed out the app and put my phone down. I couldn’t keep doing this. I had to figure out how to be normal about her. We could be friends or less than friends, but I couldn’t keep torturing myself like this.

I picked my phone up and went into my app store. Slowly, as if someone was forcing me to do it, I typed in the name of the first dating app I could think of. I clicked search and then, when it popped up, stared at the download button for a long time, debating on if it would be worth it.

It wouldn’t be to look for anything serious, which was ideal for a dating app. I just wanted to find someone who stirred up even half of the mess of feelings I felt toward Theo. Someone who was as attractive, as compelling, as magnetic.

I bit my lip, my thumb hovering over the download button.

It could be so easy. I could force myself to get over all of this, running from one issue to the next just like my mom always did.

There was no use in facing anything head-on when moving on and pretending it never happened was an option.

I could push Theo to the back burner, playing impossible to get until she gave up and left me alone.

I could block her, and in a couple of months, Iris would bring Theo up, and all I’d say in response was, Who?

It was what I’d always done. Maybe not to that extreme, but I had always found ways of keeping myself out of anything serious.

I would push away, run away, pretend things never happened or were never as serious as they might’ve seemed.

I kept my feelings in such a tightly locked box that I wasn’t sure I’d ever allowed myself to have a genuine, sweaty-palms, heart-racing, capital-C Crush.

But then, Theo came along. And Theo made it so I didn’t even want to flirt with a random girl at a bar. She made it so all I could think about was her. I was suddenly the kind of person who waited by the phone and wondered if she was supposed to text first or if I was.

I exited out of the app store and dropped my phone onto my bed. It wasn’t going to happen. A dating app wasn’t going to fix this. I wasn’t sure anything would. I had to find a way to get over it; it was the only option.

I woke up the next morning to my phone vibrating with a text from Theo. My heart raced as I opened it, checking to see what she said.

Just got out of practice, if you want to come see me .

I thought it over for about half a second before making the executive decision to go. I had some pride, but not so much pride that I was going to pass up the opportunity to see Theo again. At the very least, I needed to keep seeing her for now so I could get her out of my system.

She shared the address of where she was, and I got up, throwing on something cute and flattering enough.

I didn’t want to think too much about it; if I spent too long fixating on an outfit, I’d inevitably start to make myself nervous.

If I pretended that this was nothing—the equivalent of hanging out with Iris—then I wouldn’t overthink it. Obviously .

I headed out and trekked across campus toward her. She’d led me to some kind of workout facility. I entered without an issue and headed in to find her.

Locker room on your right .

A feeling stirred in me. I hadn’t imagined that Theo would be bold in that way when we first met. Theo gave quietly confident in her day-to-day life; she didn’t pursue and she definitely didn’t pull any fuck-boy adjacent moves.

But maybe that’d been naive of me to think.

Either way, I was intrigued enough to go find her. I wandered through the building until I found a door clearly marked locker room .

“Theo?” I called out from the door, not wanting to intrude in case this was the wrong room.

“Maya, hey,” she said. She came out from around the corner. She was wearing a shirt that was clinging to her sweaty body, her hair pushed away from her face. Her sweat glistened in the low lighting of the room that looked suspiciously like the locker room from my old gym back home.

“Hey,” I said.

“Come here.”

I didn’t even attempt to protest. My feet carried me over to her, not wasting a single second. She made it so easy for me. No games, no questions about her intentions. It was obvious why we were both here alone.

Theo and I stood together, only a small distance between us. She brushed a piece of hair from my face and then pulled me in for a kiss. Neither of us hesitated or waited to explore; we both knew exactly what we wanted.

My hands traveled over her firm arms. They were slick with sweat, but in a way that was weirdly hot, especially considering I’d never been someone who was into athletes.

I’d also never played sports or done any formal athletics outside of dance, which I quit when I was nine.

I didn’t necessarily dream of sticky, sweaty sex.

I wasn’t interested in working out with someone else. I didn’t like sweat, period.

But god, was it hot when Theo was drenched in it.

Her hands found my hair as mine trailed down her abs. She was so strong and lean. Everything about her was chiseled in a way I’d never experienced before. It left me breathless.

“Fuck, Maya,” Theo whispered as she moved to kiss my neck. My entire body was on fire. All of my blood rushed south, and I knew I was going to let her take me right there in the locker room. I didn’t care if anyone walked in; I had to have Theo. I wasn’t giving her up.

I suddenly opened my eyes, jolting awake. I was in my own bed, in my own room. Completely alone. It didn’t take long to realize that the entire thing had been a very stupid, borderline porn-like dream.

I groaned. This was unbelievable. I needed to get myself out of this bullshit I was feeling for Theo as quickly as possible. I picked up my phone and looked at the screen. I let out a small sigh as I looked at it .

Even worse than having a vivid sex dream about Theo McCall was realizing that I was disappointed she hadn’t actually texted me while I was sleeping.