Page 6

THEO

Sweat dripped down my face and back, and my shirt clung to me as if I’d been standing in the rain for hours. Any part of me that could sweat was drenched in it. I’d never wanted a shower so badly, but I also couldn’t get enough of it. I liked the physical manifestation of how hard I’d been working.

Our practices were always intense, but Coach Darlene had been making us hit it extra hard leading into our first game of the season.

Based on the way she’d been berating us, she didn’t think we were in the shape we should be.

Our team was predicted to be good this year—even better than last year, and we’d made it into the division tournament then.

The hope was that we would at the very least make it to the championship this time around.

Our players who were good last season—including me—had only gotten better during the offseason.

“Two-a-days are killing me,” Nia, our best small forward, huffed out from next to me.

We always had some kind of workout at least twice a day, but it was typically conditioning in the morning and then drills in the evening.

Just before the start of the season, Coach liked to transition us from conditioning to doing drills both morning and evening, usually followed by a pick-up game.

Conditioning was tacked on in the middle of the day instead, usually done as individual workouts; we spent what felt like half of our waking hours in physical motion.

It didn’t matter how in shape we were—it was always an uphill battle. I loved the high that came from working out more than anything, but it never got less tiring. We’d had a full day already, and pushing through the last twenty minutes was the hardest.

“We’re almost done,” I said. I squirted water into my open mouth, my chest still rapidly rising and falling.

After a water break, we jumped into doing three-man weaves on rotation.

As soon as I was back in motion, the part of my brain that was protesting against physical activity shut off.

The hardest part was always starting and getting back into it; when I was in the middle of it, all I knew was that I loved it.

I loved using my body, loved running, loved being out there with my teammates.

It was the best feeling in the world. The only thing that was better was actually playing in a game and having a crowd there to cheer us on.

I tossed the ball over to Gemma, who sent it to Ellie. Ellie shot it, effortlessly dropping it in.

“Nothing but net, baby,” GJ said, clapping her hands together as we jogged off the court and let the next group of three go.

We stood on the sideline and Ellie wiped sweat from her forehead. She was bright pink up down to her chest and her red curly hair was falling out of her hair tie. She looked like she was bordering on vomiting.

This was her first year playing for a major program; she’d always been good but not good enough to get recruited for a school like ours.

But after initially playing for a much smaller D1 team last year as a freshman, she put up a hard fight and ended up transferring here.

When she’d first introduced herself to me, she told me that it was an honor to be my backup.

I didn’t think there was anyone else in the world with that kind of mentality, and I didn’t get it at first, but I’d grown to appreciate it.

She was the baby on the team—she wasn’t the youngest person we had, but she was the youngest who got time on the court.

She was also the greenest in just about every area of her life.

We didn’t engage much socially; she tended to stick by the side of some of the other girls on the team who I wasn’t as close with.

And the few one-on-one interactions we’d had suggested she had one of the more sheltered upbringings of anyone I knew, meaning she and GJ usually just stared at each other blankly whenever they tried to speak to each other.

“You good, Ellie?” I asked.

“Totally fine,” she said between hard breaths.

“Good work out there.” I clapped a hand to her shoulder, her shirt wet under my palm, and she nodded with appreciation.

Our group went up again, this time switching out the order. Gemma started us off and Ellie sent it to me. When I sank the ball, we sprinted off the court to let the other groups go.

“Good! Good!” Coach Darlene shouted, her voice echoing off the gym walls.

After finishing off another few rounds, Coach blew her whistle. We sprinted across the gym to circle up around her. GJ threw her arm over my shoulders and then laughed as I shook her off.

“Keep your sweat to yourself,” I grumbled, pushing her away. Her dark skin glistened under the fluorescent gym lighting.

“There are women out there who would kill to be in your shoes,” she said back.

“And I’m not one of them.”

Coach gathered us up. Everyone was ripe and breathing hard, but Coach Darlene had been in the game a long time, both as a coach and a player, to be used to it.

“This was good. I can tell you’re all working hard.

Gemma, I want to see more from you—Holden University’s defense was strong in the pre-season.

They’re going to blow right through you if you don’t guard on your left.

Mags, your threes weren’t as consistent today.

Need you to get your head in the game. Work with McCall tomorrow. ”

Mags shot a look in my direction, clearly not thrilled with that proposal. She was the least likely on the team to take any kind of advice and she spent more time bitching about Coach’s orders than anyone else.

Coach then let us go, and we headed off to gather our things.

“McCall!” she called out before I could get too far, and I stopped, turning back toward her.

She and I had a different relationship from everyone else on the team.

Our team had gone through a pretty significant transition last year; after having a starting line-up of mostly seniors, she was left with me and GJ.

Our team right now was young and still learning, but the combination of our skills was promising.

Mostly, however, people were looking at me to anchor it.

“How are you feeling? Head on straight?” Coach asked, dropping her usual coaching voice into something softer and more human.

We’d always had a good relationship; I respected her coaching and her playing style.

I’d idolized her growing up—she’d played for thirteen years professionally before going on to coach at a college level.

She was a celebrated player when she was on the court, a four-time WNBA All-Star and division champion when she played in college.

She was exactly the kind of player that I wanted to be, if not better.

She’d been coaching here for years with not much to show for it other than a love for the sport and her players.

But she was determined to make this program something special, and I was right there with her.

“Ready,” I said with a nod. I forced out an image of Maya sitting in the crowd, watching me play. My palms got sweaty just thinking about it. But I wasn’t about to let my coach know that there was something— someone —that made it feel impossible to keep my head on straight.

“We’ve always done well against Holden, but don’t let that get to your head. Every second of this season counts,” she said. “There’s a lot of pressure on you, but I know you can handle it. Make us proud.”

“Will do, Coach. ”

“Okay, good. Now shower and go home. You smell terrible,” she said, and I laughed.

After showering and getting my things together, GJ and I headed back home. We lived with two other senior girls on the rowing team who needed rooms filled. Because of our schedules, it felt like we never crossed paths with them. It was cordial, which was about as much as I could ask for.

“I am so fucking ready for this game, bro,” GJ said as we cut across the street.

I could see her breath in the cold air. Our house was as close to our gym as we could possibly get, so we rarely bothered with throwing on coats or changing after practice.

The cold air usually felt good after being stuffed into a gym for so long.

“Coach was right that their defense is good.”

GJ waved me off. “I’m not worried.”

“You’re never worried.”

“Because we’re gonna kill it this year. No one is ready for us,” GJ said. “Did you see the pre-season panel about us? You’re going to be all over ESPN again this year.”

“You know I don’t pay attention to that stuff,” I said, and it was true—I had zero interest in seeing what anyone was saying.

I preferred to keep it objective, basing my feelings on the number of wins and broken records and the occasional award.

But things like articles and panels and social media comments were of zero interest to me.

People having shit to say didn’t ruin my game; they were just annoying. And usually wrong .

“That’s inconceivable to me. People are obsessed with you; I’d want to see it. And I will see it, once I’m no longer competing with you for the spotlight,“ she teased.

“I get enough attention when I play and see the people there to watch me,” I said. “And I know they’re there to watch me specifically because no one would ever come just to see you play.”

GJ threw her head back with a laugh. “You know, maybe I should DM that Maya girl on your behalf just to see you sweat it out a bit. Maybe I’ll be the star this season since you don’t seem to want it.”

My heart thudded at the mention of Maya, like she was some secret that wasn’t supposed to be let out into the world.

She wasn’t exactly a secret—GJ refused to let it go and kept pestering me about her.

But GJ seemed to mostly enjoy having something to torment me over.

It didn’t seem like she realized exactly how much I actually thought about Maya.

With the way she was messing with me, it was obvious she viewed it as a fleeting moment with a random hot girl on campus, but I’d found it hard to stop thinking about Maya.

I’d tried to find her online, but I didn’t have a last name and she wasn’t close enough with anyone on the team to be followed by anyone.

And I knew Maya had introduced her friend, but I’d been so focused on Maya that I couldn’t remember her name, either.I felt like I was losing my mind, knowing that there was this girl out there literally on my college campus that I couldn’t find.

It seemed like every person ever had an online presence, and I’d never cared much about any of it.

Now, I was desperate to find anything I could on the one girl who didn’t seem to be online at all.

GJ, however, didn’t know any of that. And I preferred to keep it that way. The easiest way of doing that was letting GJ relentlessly tease me about having seen me flirt with someone and never letting her get near the actual truth.

“Yeah, for sure,” I said, brushing it off even though my stomach knotted at the thought.

I’d convinced myself that there was no way Maya was actually coming to the game. In some timeline out there in some part of the universe, maybe. But not in this one.

I hadn’t been able to completely figure Maya out, but during the brief interaction, she’d given off that she was uninterested in something serious.

She was fun and bold and confident, but not looking for anything.

She was a girl who didn’t date . The kind of person who flirted so frequently that she knew how to get herself out of anything, including the exact right response to appease me and GJ when we mentioned coming to our game.

I also couldn’t bank on Maya even remembering that we’d met.

I had no idea if she was drunk or high or both.

Maybe all of it was fuzzy, and she didn’t remember that she’d said she wanted to go.

Or even worse—she regretted that she’d spoken to us.

Being a basketball player had associated clout, but it didn’t guarantee that people thought we were actually cool .

Most of the athletes I knew, especially the men, tended to be a lot dorkier and a lot less impressive when they weren’t playing.

We didn’t exactly have much time growing up to flirt and fuck around; most of us were away at camps and practices and games, too busy to actually talk to our crushes.

I wasn’t going to pretend I was above having zero game as a consequence of that, even if I did get featured on ESPN.

I took a deep breath. I couldn’t let myself go there.

I was many things, but I wasn’t the kind of person people got embarrassed they spoke to or flirted with.

If anything, GJ was right—I was a campus icon.

If I were playing it cooler, I could act like I was the kind of person who invited girls to my games all the time.

But I wasn’t, so instead I was worried that I’d embarrassed myself by flirting with her. As if she’d known that I didn’t normally do that and was giggling to her friend on the way back about how badly I’d fumbled my chance.

“Don’t worry, dude—I’m sure she’ll be there,” GJ said, still teasing me. “You could pull even the biggest non-basketball fan.”

“Are you still hurting over the blonde wanting a man over you?”

“I’d be jealous, but I don’t think there’s a single man on that team who deserves her,” GJ said. “And the team sucks. They didn’t even make the cut for the first round. At least we made it to the Sweet Sixteen.”

“You nervous she might go to the game?”

“I never get nervous knowing someone is there to see me play,” GJ said, and I nodded, forcing myself to start feeling the same way.