Page 48

THEO

I dribbled the ball, crouching low to keep it just out of reach of number thirteen on the opposing team—the Yellowjackets.

She’d been riding my ass all game, doing everything she could to attempt to block my shots.

Her success had been minimal—I’d sunken thirty-two points, one of my highest games of all time—so her hovering was more like a bug that wouldn’t leave me alone than anything else.

I glanced between Gemma and Nia. Nia had never been much of a shooter, but she was good with an assist. I bounced the ball just past the feet of a player on the Yellowjackets and Nia caught it, running hard as she dribbled.

I ran on the right side of the court to set up for her to send the ball back toward me.

“Nia!” I shouted.

With a quick chest pass, she sent the ball flying to me. I lined it up and shot it quickly before number thirteen could knock it out of my hands.

I moved backwards, waiting to see if it would fall. When it slipped through the net, the crowd went to their feet. I gave myself a few seconds to celebrate before I was at risk of getting a technical and then continued on .

We played hard, maintaining a consistent lead of twenty-three points.

When it reached the last few minutes of the game, Coach Darlene pulled me to give someone else a chance to play—common when it was obvious we were going to win—and swapped Ellie in for me.

GJ was also called back to the bench. We sat back, drinking water, as we cheered on our teammates to finish out the game.

“Move those feet, Ellie!” GJ shouted. “Watch your left!”

I squirted water into my mouth and took deep breaths, my heart rate slowly going back to normal after running for what felt like an hour straight.

GJ turned to look at me. “Did you see Bendr is here?”

“Of course I did,” I said. I glanced over to look at him.

He was a kind of dorky looking white guy—shorter and less muscly in person than I thought he would be.

Even so, it was pretty cool that he intentionally came out here to see us.

Outside of basketball legends, he was probably the most significant celebrity I’d met so far.

And he wasn’t a bad one considering he’d had several number one hits and was played on the radio all the time.

“Everyone’s been talking about it. He posted that thing online, too, saying that he was coming. ”

“Look at you keeping up with celebrity social media,” she said. “I’m impressed. You’re a changed woman.”

I brushed the comment off and dabbed sweat from my face with my towel. “Maya keeps me updated. She’s like my pseudo-social media manager now. She thinks it’s funny. ”

That was maybe an understatement—Maya thought it was hilarious.

She’d dig around online and only ever told me information unrelated to my playing and Cam Kerr.

She even found the occasional article about us, which usually just referred to her as the mystery woman who was presumed to also be a student on campus.

A few of them actually mentioned her by name, but there wasn’t much online about her so they’d leave those at Maya Healy is a student at Lakeside Green from Arizona.

The articles always featured the first photo of us together, a random photo from Maya’s social media, and then a photo of me playing.

There weren’t many articles, but there were enough that Maya could make jokes about everyone’s lack of creativity and their poor sleuthing skills.

“Are you sure that isn’t just another way of saying that she monitors your texts to make sure you’re not fooling around with anyone else?”

“Oh, right. You know me,” I said dryly and turned to look at her. “I always forget you’ve dated people who are kind of nuts until you say things like that.”

“To be fair, they aren’t wrong to be worried. But we’re never exclusive . We’re just seeing each other. And then probably other people, too. Or at least, I am,” GJ said.

I chuckled and shook my head. For being best friends, we had opposite approaches to dating.

I used to not think too much about it, but hearing her now has made me grateful for Maya.

I liked that things were so stable with us.

I couldn’ t imagine wanting anyone else ever again now that she was in my life.

I put my water down and glanced at the clock, then back at the court. “There’s not enough ball movement,” I said, shaking my head. The Yellowjackets had managed to slow down our lead, bringing it to only thirteen points. I sat forward. “Shoot, Ellie!”

Coach Darlene hovered near me and GJ and I was tempted to tell her to put me back in.

But I knew exactly what she was doing—she wanted to see what the team was going to be like without me.

It was hard to know when I’d been running the team for so long if they could stand entirely on their own two feet.

I believed in them, but it would be a major transition.

Our team, just like any other, developed a rhythm with each other. Adding new people or taking away old ones changed that rhythm, no matter how hard Coach Darlene tried to keep everything exactly the same.

And despite my attempts at being modest, I knew the team had been built around me.

Coach had made it clear how much I’d impacted her decisions on where and how people were played.

I wasn’t the only player on the team, but I was her all-around best. And graduating meant leaving her—and everyone else—to their own devices.

I glanced over at GJ. Fortunately, she wasn’t graduating yet, so I knew the team was going to end up in good hands. But filling the void I was going to leave would be difficult. GJ was not going to have it easy next season.

After a few sloppy plays, the buzzer sounded off, and the game was over.

The lead had dropped to twelve points after some back-and-forth scoring.

It was decent, but still a little too close for comfort.

I wasn’t going to rag on the team for it too much—they didn’t have GJ in, who they would still have next season.

And the team was still so young. There was time for them to get stronger and faster.

The building blocks were there, especially in Ellie.

After handshakes, I looked over to the student section to find Maya. She and Iris usually sat in the same spot, which made it easy to find them. It was right near a group of Iris’s friends. Maya said they were nice, but she hadn’t gotten to know them outside of basketball games.

“Theo! Big T!”

I turned and saw Bendr waving to get my attention from his courtside seats. He was with a few of his friends, all of them dripped out like they were courtside at the Lakers instead of a college basketball game.

GJ took me by the arm and moved me over that way further from the student section and Maya. “Yo, Bendr! Huge fan,” she said easily, even though I knew she didn’t listen to his music. I wasn’t even sure she totally knew who he was other than being in music.

“ Sick game, guys,” Bendr said in a thick Australian accent. He clapped his hands together. “You’re fucking incredible. ”

“Thanks, man,” I said and then dapped him up with more intensity than was probably necessary. I pushed down any smug feelings I had toward definitely being stronger than him—or at least being able to match him.

“You’re both going pro?” he asked.

“Just me,” I said. “Hopefully. GJ still has another year until she’s eligible.”

“Almost to the orange carpet,” GJ said.

Bendr laughed like that was the funniest joke he’d heard in his life.

“I’ll be seeing you again. Definitely,” he said.

He turned to his friends, pointing at me.

“This is the future of the sport right here. Remember this fucking name and this fucking face. Hopefully, she’ll remember me when she’s making more money than all of us combined from a Nike deal or something. ”

I smiled, feeling a little bit like I had to play polite, but also genuinely flattered.

As much as Bendr seemed like kind of a quintessential jerk, it was still surprising every time I heard adult men praising my playing.

I’d spent most of my college career fighting off devil’s advocate types who would discuss the technicalities of my stats, trying to say that mine didn’t mean as much as someone else’s for one reason or another.

It seemed to be part of the gig when you started breaking records left and right; everyone wanted an explanation.

No one really could believe that I was as good as I was.

But maybe things were starting to turn around. People were hopefully starting to accept my numbers for what they were.

“Can we get a picture, by the way?” Bendr asked .

“Oh, for sure,” I said and dragged GJ with me to pose with Bendr and his boys. Bendr and I posed for another one-on-one, and then Bendr called over the rest of the team, who’d been eyeing the interaction from afar. The second they saw their chance, all of them jumped in to say something.

“Huge fan,” Gemma said.

“It’s true. She’s always listening to you at the gym.” Mags nodded.

I fought off a smile, thinking about what Maya had told me about the two of them and how flirty they could be—whether by accident or on purpose, I wasn’t sure.

Maya .

I looked back over at the stands and realized that it was quickly clearing out.

As I scanned over the student section, I couldn’t see Maya or Iris anymore.

And because I was down on the court, I didn’t have my phone with me to ask Maya to stay behind for me.

My smile quickly faded, and panic set in.

“I’m honored, ladies,” Bendr said, putting his hand over his heart and nodding his head. “Really.”

“Shit,” I muttered under my breath.

GJ looked at me. “What’s up?”

“I think Maya and Iris left,” I said. “I didn’t realize how long we’d been down here for.”