Page 26

MAYA

Even though Theo had invited me and Iris out, my body was responding to her invitation as if it were an invitation to a solo date. I had butterflies like crazy and was already thinking about what I was going to wear to the game.

“Three basketball games in two weeks !” Iris squealed as we walked home from the game. “Thank you for your service, Theo McCall!”

When I told Iris that Theo invited us to a men’s game, I made the executive decision not to mention that Theo knew she had a crush on a player from the men’s team.

I’d also made the executive decision not to mention to Iris that Theo and I were definitely going to be seeing more of each other because of my stupid fake dating idea.

I couldn’t believe Theo had actually gone along with it. I’d expected her to be entirely uninterested in how much public attention she had already received. But I wasn’t going to question it.

Iris had been begging me for details from the hang out, but there wasn’t that much to say—just that I’d had a great time and it seemed like Theo did too.

I didn’t need to give an elaborate I have to get closer to her in order to get over this speech that would just end with Iris going, Oh, so you really like her .

“Happy to go,” I said, because trying to explain any of the other eight million thoughts in my head would’ve been a lot for both of us.

“I know you’re getting into this because of Theo but I’m taking advantage while we have it,” she said. “Next, I’ll drag you to a Cedar Creek Blizzards game.”

I’d heard enough from Iris over the years to know that the Blizzards were the professional women’s basketball team in the area.

Lakeside Green was the college town just outside of Cedar Creek, so she would go to see the Blizzards whenever she had the chance.

During their season—May to October—Maya was always in frosty blue and white instead of our school’s deep green.

“We’ll work our way to it,” I said as Iris looped her arm around mine and pulled me in for an excited side-hug.

Back home, I did my usual routine of showering and then digging through Theo’s social media. It’d become an unfortunate habit. I wouldn’t say I was obsessive about it, but it was definitely a considerable part of my evening.

I just couldn’t help it. I didn’t know what the pull was, but it was like I needed to be as close to her as I possibly could. I wanted to know everything she was doing, hear her explain it in her slow, even timbre, see her mouth pull up in a permanent half-smile while she talked.

It was my dirty little secret, which I’d gotten surprisingly good at hiding from Iris.

I’d found the in between of how much to talk about Theo so she didn’t get too tipped off to how I really felt about her.

She was definitely close to piecing it together, but I had my own personal history on my side.

There was no one less likely to develop a long-term crush than the girl who had never had a long-term crush before.

But it was difficult to maintain that track record when my opponent was Theo McCall.

I scrolled through anything I could find on social media related to her—tagged posts, new posts from her, posts from the team.

A video popped up of one of her shots from the game; it was already going viral.

All of the comments were hyping her up, talking about wanting to drive out and fly out to see her.

Students from Lakeside Green were joking that they’d start selling their tickets to people at a starting rate of two hundred or three hundred dollars each—and people were genuinely considering it in the comments.

DM me, I’ll legit take those , one person wrote.

It was the most peaceful side of the internet I’d ever seen. Theo was managing to unify everyone. And make them come to our small town in the process.

The video after that was a clip of Theo at a post-game conference. It was clearly from today, kicking off with a reporter asking her about her half-court shot .

“It’s very impressive,” the reporter said from off-camera. “And you’ve done it a couple of times now.”

Theo shrugged. “It’s basketball. All practice.”

“Theo—how are you feeling about playing Point Brook later this season?” another reporter asked. “Cam Kerr has had quite a bit to say in the press.”

The press chuckled, and GJ rolled her eyes, making me think there was more to the situation than I knew. I didn’t just have to learn the mechanics of basketball; I also had to learn the dynamics between everyone.

Theo was more diplomatic in her response than GJ.

She leaned in close to the microphone, leaning her weight on her forearms. Her biceps flexed as she put weight on her arms. “Point Brook has a lot of really great players—I know it’ll be a fun game.

I love getting to go up against Cam, we’ve been playing each other since we were pre-teens. I’ll let the game speak for itself.”

I had to lock my phone to take a deep breath. “God, she is so hot,” I whispered to myself.

My mind flashed to my hands pressed to her arms earlier, and I nearly swooned thinking about it again.

I’d seen my moment and taken advantage. I’d been desperately wanting to touch her, be close to her, in any capacity I could.

And I was a touchy person with people I was close with, so it wasn’t entirely out of character.

I just maybe didn’t necessarily mean for the touch to come across as entirely platonic this time .

It was all for the audience, though. I’d done it because it was for the bit, and it was funny. Obviously.

Theo was still the tiniest bit sweaty from the game, and her arms were firm .

I’d never been someone who was into muscle; I’d always leaned more toward the artist type.

The people who liked books and music and drawing.

People who looked like they’d never even seen weights or the inside of a gym outside of school requirements.

But I was suddenly really understanding the appeal of someone strong. It was easy for me to imagine her arms wrapped around me and how safe I’d feel.

There was the tiniest part of me that craved the kind of predictability that I felt like Theo could offer.

She seemed like someone who had a nice, loving family and probably wanted to have a nice, loving family of her own.

Her muscles were like the physical manifestation of that.

I trusted that she could build me bookshelves in a theoretical home, or fix the dryer.

It also didn’t hurt that the mental image of her building furniture for me might as well have been pornographic. I needed to come up with a way to see her holding a hammer as my next grand plan.

I shook my head. Something was seriously wrong with me.

I’d never felt this way before—ever. Growing up, I’d been the girl who nobody could ever pin down.

Boys were interested in me because I wasn’t interested in them.

And then when I came out, nothing serious ever came of anyone I met.

I didn’t have the tragic first lesbian heartbreak that left me curled up and crying on the floor like it did my friends.

I was always the person who broke things off and always the person who’d never really wanted more to begin with.

I’d roll with the attention I had, liking someone for long enough until I’d get bored and crave something else.

I never knew exactly what that something else was.

But I’d also never met someone like Theo before, who was making it very hard for me to imagine what else I could want in a partner that she couldn’t provide.

I picked up my phone and called the only person I knew who could fix this for me.

“Mom,” I said as soon as she answered. I was surprised I’d been able to catch her—she was usually off doing something. She was always on a date or at the gym or at work or out with friends. She had the kind of bustling social life even I envied sometimes.

“Hey, honey,” she said, and I could hear the treadmill going in the background.

She’d turned one of the spare bedrooms into a home gym and preferred working out in the early mornings and late evenings when it was cooler out.

Unlike Colorado, Arizona stayed hot into October most of the time and didn’t feel remotely like fall until close to Halloween.

Our air conditioning was good, but it wasn’t so good that we’d want to workout in it when it was nearly ninety-degrees outside.

“Did you need something?” Mom sounded only slightly out of breath. In classic hot mom fashion, she took great care of herself and took a lot of pride in being fit. The only thing keeping her from wearing my bikinis to our backyard pool was childbirth.

“I think I have a crush and I need your help,” I said. I dropped my voice to a low whisper like I was telling her a secret.

In a way, I kind of was. I knew Iris wasn’t going to overhear the phone call, but voices sometimes traveled in our apartment, and I didn’t want to risk her hearing me bare my soul in this way. Iris knew me, but she didn’t need to know the most deeply pathetic parts of me.

“Oh, it’ll pass,” Mom said. “It always does for you.”

“This one is really bad.”

“Why are you whispering? Is she there with you?”

“No, I just…” I put my free hand to my forehead. “Can you, like, tell me something about how I shouldn’t let my girlfriend stop me from finding my wife or whatever? I need your live-and-let-live advice right now.”

“I don’t know if I have that, baby. Love is a beautiful thing. Most people would be thrilled to have a crush. It makes life more exciting. I remember when I met Ray, and it felt like the entire world opened up in a way it never had before,” she said.

“Which boyfriend is Ray again?”