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THEO

Maya quickly became part of my routine. I didn’t really mean for it to happen and I was assuming she didn’t mean for it either.

We went from the occasional joke text to texting pretty consistently.

Our conversations flowed just as easily on screen as they did in person, so it made sense why it was hard for me to put my phone down sometimes with her.

The conversations were never anything meaningful, usually little quips or small updates about what we were doing throughout the day. Maya teased me about all of the time I spent at practice or in the gym and I tried my best not to text her something like, Do you have a crush on me too?

“I didn’t even realize you texted,” GJ said after getting out of the shower in our shared hotel room.

We’d just wrapped up our second away game of the week—a win against a smaller school with decent defense but zero shooting game.

It felt like the hoop and the ball were repelling magnets—for them, at least. It’d been smooth sailing for us.

“What do you mean? I text,” I said. I put my phone down on my hotel bed, which was admittedly an upgrade from my bed on campus.

Everything in my room was pretty plain—basic IKEA furniture, the first mattress I could find online.

The rest of my apartment matched the vibe, hence the shitty living room couch.

Our NIL money paid us decently well, but my roommates and I didn’t feel particularly motivated to use it on our student housing.

“Dude, I’ve been talking to you for, like, five minutes and you haven’t responded once. I don’t even think you’ve heard me talking.”

“I’m just…”

GJ looked at me. “Are you still texting the girl from the party?”

“Maya,” I said. “Yeah. We’re going to a men’s basketball game.”

Her brown eyes lit up. “A date?”

“Her roommate is coming too.”

GJ waved me off, clearly annoyed by my answer. “ Man . What the fuck?” “I invited both of them to hang out!” I said defensively. “Maya’s trying to set her roommate up with one of the guys on the team.”

“Right,” GJ said, remembering Iris now, and sighed. “Can’t believe she’d go after one of those losers.”

“They’re nice guys.”

“Okay, some of them are nice. Most of them are losers.”

“Do you want to come to the game? It’s an open invite.”

“Dude, this is like the worst date ever.”

I rotated on my bed to face her as she came to sit down.

She was wearing a shirt from her old high school team, her black hair pulled off her neck.

Our hotel room had come to smell like what I now thought of as home—shea butter and coconut-based hair products.

Since GJ joined the team, we’d been travel game roommates.

We’d spent more time together than I’d ever spent with any other friend outside of seeing people at practice.

Our friendship had transcended into something that felt closer to what I imagined siblings felt like.

She and her sisters joked that I was their bonus white sibling whenever they came out to see us play.

“It’s not a date,” I reminded her.

“It should be.”

“I already invited Iris.”

“Some guidance—don’t do that next time,” GJ said and threw herself onto her bed.

“And no, I’m not interested in third wheeling your not-date.

Or I guess fifth-wheeling, since you’re also trying to set her friend up.

” She paused. “You have to let me know what basketball player it is. I know I’m a lesbian, so I can’t speak to it, but none of those men seem worth chasing down. ”

I shrugged. “No clue. Maya doesn’t know either yet, so it’ll be new information to everyone. I’m guessing Danny. He’s the nice one.”

GJ nodded in reluctant agreement. “That would make sense. I still don’t get it, though.”

I snorted. “When are you going to start dating, huh? Where’s the girl I can tease you about? ”

“I got a few. None I’m telling you about because none of them are anything,” GJ said.

“Man, you are such a nightmare. You’re giving us all a bad rep,” I said, laughing.

“What, worried Maya’s going to think she’s one of many?”

I shook my head. “I’d be surprised if she really thought that.

My dating life is so bleak that people are photographing us in public together, thinking that we date and it’s actual news .

She told me people found out her name and her Instagram, and she gained so many random followers, she had to make her account private. It’s so stupid.”

“Yeah, I saw the last picture of you guys. It’s cute. People are thinking it’s really serious,” she said, giving me a sideways look. I hadn’t told GJ about me pretending-but-not-really-pretending to date Maya for the cameras for obvious reasons.

“Stop,” I groaned.

“Is it serious?” GJ asked, leaning across our beds and smacking my knee. “Come on. You have to tell me. We can be honest here. I know you hung out with her at her apartment.”

“And nothing happened, just like I told you.”

“Mhm.”

I paused, the two of us staring at each other. I knew GJ wasn’t going to let me off easily. “I mean, I guess I wouldn’t be mad if something did happen—”

“Thank god you’re finally admitting it . Jesus. I never thought I’d hear the words come out of your mouth. You guys would be walking down the aisle to each other, and you’d be like, yeah, I mean, she’s pretty cool .”

“I don’t think that’s how a wedding works.”

GJ shot me a look. “You know what I mean. And trust I remember what a wedding looks like after my sister made me be a bridesmaid that one time. I thought she was going to have an aneurysm over me insisting on wearing a suit.”

“I loved the pink,” I admitted with a nod.

“I did too! At least I matched the other bridesmaids! Like, what? I was gonna wear black like the groomsmen? I might not care that much, but I do care enough about my sister to not ruin her photos.”

“Maybe one day you’ll meet someone who makes you want to care about your wedding.”

“Skeptical. I’ll get married if you do.”

“Bet,” I said.

Later that night, I fell asleep thinking about Maya in a wedding dress, her walking down the aisle to me wearing the same pink suit GJ wore to her sister’s wedding.

I spent most of my time on the plane ride back preparing for my classes and catching up on work.

Maya gave me a renewed motivation to whip through work as quickly as possible, utilizing the tutors where I could and focusing harder on my work than I’d ever focused before.

I didn’t necessarily need the work to be any better than it was—I was happy to graduate with anything above a 3.

0 with how intensive my basketball schedule was—I just needed to do it faster.

It was a feeling I’d never experienced before.

It caught up to me in unexpected ways—wishing I could see Maya after practice, rushing through workouts so I could text her again.

It wasn’t enough to negatively affect my playing, but it was unusual for me.

Suddenly, all of the pressure I’d been putting on myself had been lifted.

I was learning how easy it was to work someone into a routine if you wanted them there, and I wanted Maya there more than anything.

In the lead up to meeting up for the game, Maya and I kept texting.

We were still trapped somewhere between flirty and platonic, but I was just happy to be talking to her at all.

I loved her wit and how she seemed to have a response for everything, how she was supportive without ever overdoing it.

She could turn around any kind of day I was having.

I looked forward to hearing from her and was disappointed when my phone vibrated and it wasn’t her. I had a diagnosable crush, and I was worried that the more I felt it, the more difficult it would be for me to hide it.

But I wasn’t about to give up my time with Maya in order to keep my secret crush from her.

If anything, I was tempted to bring it up with her the second she gave me an indication that there was a green light.

It was still too early, and I was nervous I’d scare her off, but I wasn’t so much of a coward that I’d continue on forever keeping my feelings a secret .

Before leaving for the game, I threw on an easy outfit. I had a moment of second-guessing myself as I headed out the door, but I refused to let myself get in my head about it. I didn’t need to wear anything special.

I spent the entire walk to the arena telling myself that I needed to be normal, that it wasn’t a date, and that I couldn’t forget Iris was there. I repeated it over and over again in my head: be normal. Not a date. Iris will be there .

“Theo!”

I looked up and saw Maya waving at me. She was standing at the front entrance of the arena, a flood of people walking around her. Iris was next to her with a smile on her face.

Going to a basketball game here sometimes felt a little bit like willingly walking into a cage at a zoo.

I knew everyone was staring at me. And it wasn’t in a way that assumed I was more important than I was; anyone who watched Lakeside Green basketball, whether men’s or women’s, knew who I was.

Every single person there knew my name, even if they hadn’t ever seen me play.

But I still enjoyed going to watch it. I loved the sport as a whole, not just playing. If going meant I had to endure thousands of people looking my way, I could force myself to handle it.

“Hey,” I greeted them. Maya and I shared a smile that made my insides turn to mush. I turned to Iris. “Good to see you again. ”

“Yeah, you too,” Iris said. Something in her eyes told me that she was sizing me up a little bit, probably trying to get a sense of my intentions. I didn’t blame her—athletes didn’t exactly have the best reputation of being loyal, dependable partners.

Part of me hoped that she could tell I had a crush and would push Maya in that direction. But another part of me hoped that not one ounce of my feelings was obvious. If Iris could tell, that meant Maya probably could, and I didn’t need that.