Page 50

MAYA

A week after the game against the Yellowjackets, I glanced at my calendar and then over at a sleeping Theo in the bed next to me.

She didn’t have practice today because she’d just gone through a week of away games, and there were a few days until she had a home game again.

She was taking full advantage of the downtime that she had after what had been a busy school year so far.

Time was passing quickly—the regular season was over in only a few weeks. And Theo’s game against Cam Kerr was coming up very, very soon, something I seemed to be more stressed about than Theo.

Despite the little hiccup after her home game, everything had been fine.

It seemed like we were in a good place. I loved spending time with her and loved getting to know her; she was quickly becoming my favorite person in the world to hangout with—something I was never going to say to Iris, both because I knew she’d hate to hear she was being replaced, and also because she’d make fun of me for it.

Over time, I’d learned that Theo slept like someone who hadn’t slept in weeks every single time she lay down.

When she didn’t have to be at practice, she knocked out solidly for at least eight to ten hours.

She didn’t move and didn’t talk in her sleep, and didn’t notice when I got up from bed or was on my phone.

She—reasonably—slept like someone who burned a million calories a day and didn’t stop moving from the second she woke up to the second she went to bed.

Her sleeping face was so cute. I’d seen a few pictures of her as a kid here and there, and she still had some of the same characteristics.

Her hair was darker now than it was when she was a kid, but her expressions were still all the same.

I loved the pictures of her in basketball uniforms throughout the years; it reminded me that somewhere in her, she was still just a little girl with a dream.

I smiled a little bit and then looked back at my calendar.

Valentine’s Day was coming up quickly—as in, three days from now.

Theo and I hadn’t addressed it all, which was fine.

But I’d never been the kind of person who wanted Valentine’s Day plans.

I’d always been someone who was scared of Valentine’s Day and everything it implied.

To get me through it, Iris had been offering gentle words of encouragement, usually in the form of you’re an idiot for even asking me if I think you and Theo are serious .

Theo’s eyes slowly fluttered open, and I turned my head quickly away, acting like I hadn’t just been staring at her and memorizing every faint freckle across the bridge of her nose.

“Why are you staring at me?”

“I’m not,” I lied .

“I could feel your beady little eyes on me,” she teased, and pulled me down toward her. My phone dropped into the sea of sheets in the process, and I buried myself in her arms. She stroked my hair. “What were you thinking about?”

“What makes you think I was thinking about something?”

“Because I could feel your beady little eyes on me,” she repeated, and I laughed.

“Iris’s birthday is coming up at the end of the month.

Do you think you’ll be able to go to the party, or is your schedule going to be too hectic?

” I started there because that felt easier than going straight into Valentine’s Day.

I was so embarrassed by the entire thing that I wanted to crawl out of my skin.

Theo and I had covered a lot of ground, but I hadn’t gotten to a point yet where I felt totally comfortable asking for her to make time for me.

“Let me look at the dates,” she said. She readjusted so she was spooning me. “That was it?”

“I…” I said with a small shrug. “What are you thinking about, pretty girl? What’s going on in that head of yours?” she asked, her voice low.

I squeezed my eyes shut, as if that was going to make it possible for her not to see me. “Are you doing anything on Wednesday?”

“Valentine’s Day,” Theo said without having to check. She must’ve been thinking about it too. “You’re spoiling my surprise.”

I turned to look at her, our noses nearly pressed to each other.

“What are you talking about?” “ I was going to do a whole Valentine’s Day thing.

Well, not like a whole thing, because I know how you are.

But I was thinking about it,” she said. “Give me the chance to at least ask you to be my Valentine first.”

I had to resist squealing with excitement, my nerves from earlier evaporating. “You are so cute ,” I said, wrapping my arms around her and bringing her in for a hug.

For just a second, I flashed to an outside perspective of me being so affectionate toward my partner, and I didn’t recognize myself. But maybe that was a good thing. Maybe this whole time, this version of me had been in here, waiting to come out.

The only holdup was that I was still hesitant to make it official.

Every time I thought about it, I felt a tug in my chest that made me feel almost sick to my stomach.

Outside of a brief high school thing with a boy I didn’t even like, I’d never been someone’s girlfriend.

Not during a time in my life where it really mattered, where things like moving in together and marriage weren’t far down the line.

I was so close to getting there with Theo. I’d dreamed about it and thought about it. My friends liked her and had no complaints about her. She was so sweet to me. She was perfect girlfriend material.

But something was holding me back, and I didn’t know what.

Fortunately, Theo didn’t seem like she was in any kind of rush. She never brought it up, never made any comments that made me think she was getting impatient. She knew me well enough to know that she’d have to wait for me, and she was willing to do that.

At least, for now. I didn’t know if she’d be able to be patient forever.

We eventually got up and out of bed and headed to the kitchen.

In addition to how hard Theo slept, Theo was also someone who loved food.

It made sense—she wasn’t going to be able to build the kind of muscle she had without eating consistently.

But it was funny watching her cook because it was obvious she learned a basic set of skills and nothing beyond that.

She could roast any vegetable, but got nervous trying to cook anything on the stove.

I went to work on making eggs for us while Theo worked on pancakes.

She’d introduced me to the protein-dense kind, which I was trying my best to adapt to.

It was a small compromise for being able to eat breakfast together every once in a while.

She was never opposed to putting chocolate chips in them, which was as much as I could ask for.

As the eggs cooked, I mindlessly scrolled through social media. There were pictures from the party this weekend at The 151, people who’d fled Colorado for the weekend to get away from the cold, people skiing. Then, a video popped up with Theo’s face .

It was never less jarring to randomly see video clips about Theo. Pictures were fine, and footage shared of her playing online was also fine.

But when it came to people posting theory videos, gossiping about her career, and talking about her, it’d become jarring. Now that I actually knew her and she wasn’t just the basketball player I had a crush on from a distance, I’d gotten defensive.

I was initially going to scroll past it, but when I saw that it was a draft predictions video, my finger hovered over the screen. Instead of sliding past, I let it play.

“Draft predictions are starting to become real now that the season is almost over,” a guy who was way too enthusiastic said.

He was sitting in a gamer chair and flashed up clips of different major college basketball players of the moment—including Theo—and team logo graphics.

“Everyone already knows Theo McCall will probably be staying close to her university after last season’s bleak performance from the Blizzards.

But Cam Kerr seems to have a lot to say about everyone’s predictions putting her second. ”

“What are you watching?” Theo asked, glancing over at me.

“Shh,” I said.

A clip of Cam popped up. She was sitting on a post-game panel, her coach and two other players sitting nearby. “The draft isn’t here yet. Predictions are predictions, they don’t mean anything. I know my stats and I know my skills.”

“Do you think predictions will change once you play Lakeside Green?” a reporter asked .

“I’m not saying I can do it, but I know that anyone who can beat Theo McCall might be an even more valuable asset to a team than Theo herself.”

The video cut back to the guy. “Looks like we’re about to have a battle ahead. We still have March to know for sure how things are going to shake out, but let me know your predictions for who you think will be going where in April.”

Theo peeked over my shoulder. “What are you watching?” she asked again.

“Nothing,” I said, trying to play it off as casual. But the swirling in my stomach and the half-whisper in my voice was an obvious giveaway. I’d never been a confident liar.

For the first time, the realization really hit me. Theo was actually going to get drafted, meaning she was going to go where her team was. And that was that.

At least with graduate school, it felt like I had some choice. If I got into multiple programs, I could weigh the pros and cons of each one and decide for myself.

But Theo didn’t have that luxury. And April was soon, and then the pro season began weeks after that.

My stomach knotted and I realized exactly why I’d been holding out on Theo. Subconsciously, I knew this couldn’t possibly be forever.

Even if Theo did get drafted to the Blizzards and stayed in Colorado, there was no promise I’d get into a program here. And there was also no promise that I would stay here, or that Theo would even be the draft pick who made it on the Blizzards.

“You okay?” Theo asked, looking over at me. I realized I’d been staring into the eggs and watching them get way too crispy.

“Yeah, sorry,” I said and tried to shake it off. I thought about what our schedules were going to look like—her continuing to fly all around the US, me in a rigorous program that required me to be somewhere for at least five to seven years.

That was a long time in the grand scheme of things. A really long time.

Theo looked over at me curiously. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired,” I said. Part of me hoped she’d see right through it.

I so badly wanted to talk about all of it, to get it off my chest. Theo had gotten so good about being the person who would keep me level; she’d listen to me monologue for hours about graduate school decisions and my future.

But I didn’t know what to do now that my favorite emotional support person was the reason I was wound up.

We could talk about it. But it wouldn’t actually fix anything, wouldn’t actually give us any answers. The only thing we could do was wait—just like we’d been doing. Both for my graduate decisions and who was going to take Theo in the draft.

There were so many things that could go wrong. Theo could end up not getting picked first. Or she could end up in Colorado, and I wouldn’t get accepted into a program here. Or I would get accepted into a program here and we’d try to make it work, only to realize it was never going to.

There was a chance we’d done all of this just for it to crumble as soon as we left Lakeside Green.

It was dramatic, but it was true. We’d made the mistake of meeting too late, becoming serious too late.

February was the last month of our routine, and then March would be here with a flurry of championship games and then April for the draft and that was it.

I knew the bubble had to burst eventually, but I’d been hoping it wouldn’t have to be so soon.