Chapter One
GJ
For the first time since I was a freshman, it felt like the first day of school all over again.
Every year that I’d been going to Lakeside Green University, the women’s basketball coaching staff hosted a beginning-of-the-season banquet to celebrate the closing of preseason and our exhibition games and the start of the regular season.
It kicked off what would be a schedule of playing and traveling straight through from the end of November to, hopefully, early April if we made it to the Finals.
It also gave us a good excuse to get a few more truly wild nights out of the way before we were expected to behave for the rest of the season.
This year wasn’t any different, other than the fact that Theo wasn’t going to be there.
And as much as I prided myself on my independence and confidence, I’d grown up with siblings.
Reunions and family gatherings always sucked without them.
Basketball requirements outside of games—no matter how much I loved my team—felt the same way.
There had to be at least one person there I could crack jokes with in the back of the room when it all became a little too stiff.
Theo and I had never bothered to become a trio, which was an oversight on my part. Now that I was facing an event where I knew everyone but wasn’t siblings-close with everyone, I didn’t exactly know what was waiting for me.
I walked up to the front of the same restaurant we’d been going to since my first Lakeside Green banquet.
That was one thing about a small college town—it was the same few places, the same routine.
I didn’t mind it most of the time, but after spending all summer feeling sour toward my small campus and the upcoming season, the tradition felt stale.
Inside, the restaurant was decorated the same exact way it always was—dim lighting, warm wood accents throughout, cozy western adjacent decor. It was the kind of restaurant I would never eat at on my own dime with my friends, but I’d bring my family when they came to town to visit.
A hostess looked up. I flashed her a practiced smile when I caught her eyes flicking up and down, checking me out. I didn’t blame her—my linen pants and coordinated button-down shirt fit my lean frame well. “Party?”
“I’m with the Coyotes,” I said, pointing to the back room reserved for events.
She pushed her hair behind her ear, standing up a little straighter. “Basketball player?” she asked, looking up at me through her lashes. “GJ, right?”
“I am,” I said. Being a women’s basketball player here carried weight now since Theo put us on the map. Girls had always liked that I was an athlete and that I was tall, but it’d never been easier for me to get laid than in recent months.
“You had a great season last year. Shame about the tournament,” she said.
It was true—we’d had a stellar season last year.
We hadn’t gone all the way, but we’d done better than any other team in the history of the Lakeside Green University basketball program—both men’s and women’s.
There was a lot of talk about whether we’d be able to surpass—or even maintain—our record from last year without Theo.
I was confident we could do it, even when it seemed like a lot of fans and commentators weren’t.
“It happens,” I said, even though I spent most nights playing through what we could’ve done differently to have won last season’s final game.
“GJ!” Gemma called and I looked up to see Gemma, Nia, and Mags practically stacked on top of each other, waving to get my attention. The restaurant was far too nice for a bunch of college students to be shouting at each other across tables, but I was immune to being embarrassed by them.
I looked back at the hostess. “What time do you get off?”
Her cheeks went pink and she looked back at me with surprise. “A few hours, if all goes well.”
“There’s a party at The 151 tonight. You should swing by.
” The 151 was one of the big party houses on campus; everyone knew about it and pretty much everyone went at least once during their time at Lakeside Green.
It’d been passed down for years, often inherited by siblings or close friends.
It was an honor to be one of the girls living there, and typically a lot of pressure.
They ended up hosting most of the hottest women on campus and a lot of the female athletes—meaning it was also somewhat of the lesbian hotspot on campus, which I appreciated.
The 151 was one of the things I’d missed most over the summer—there was no use trying to throw ragers when no one was in town—and I was grateful to be back in the swing of things.
The first week of classes had been a breath of fresh air after feeling like I was trapped between my studio apartment and the gym for the last few months.
Her lips turned up in a smile. “Okay.”
I offered her one last glance before brushing past the hostess stand and heading to the back of the restaurant where my teammates were waiting for me.
The back room was mostly full—I was one of the last people to arrive, which was ideal.
There were no more than twenty people back here; our full roster was thirteen players and then the coaching staff had also received invitations.
We were all scattered around the room into our various social groups within the team, picking off the charcuterie board before sitting down.
Coach Darlene had always made it clear that this was meant to be a celebration of us as a team more than a stuffy, formal get-together, but I felt a little like I was wearing my Sunday best and being forced to mingle with the grown-ups.
Nia, Mags, and Gemma chatted around me, adding me to the circle, while I pulled out my phone.
The regular WNBA season wrapped up last month in September, and the Cedar Creek Blizzards—Theo’s team—had been knocked out of the playoffs in the first round.
But Theo didn’t need basketball to fill her schedule; she had about eight thousand different brand deals and was constantly roped into one thing or another.
She also had a hard time saying no to any charity event invites or anything she could do for Cedar Creek.
The city had totally fallen in love with her, even after they didn’t make it as far into the playoffs as everyone was hoping.
But, despite all of that, it was also still the offseason. During the summer and into early fall, she was considered basically unreachable—other than FaceTiming me from Ohio for my birthday—but that wasn’t the case anymore.
It didn’t mean I knew where she was, though. No missed text notifications, no response to my earlier text about going to the last banquet of my Lakeside Green career.
I put my phone away, annoyed by my own jilted lover act.
Theo was enjoying her time off—I was pretty sure she’d mentioned she and her girlfriend, Maya, were going on a weekend vacation as soon as the season ended and they could find time between Maya’s graduate school classes.
But it’d been weeks since I’d last heard from Theo, so I didn’t actually know if that happened.
“Okay, let’s settle in our seats,” Coach Darlene said, waving us over to the table.
“Family dinner.” She looked older off the court than she did when she was on it, the wrinkles around her eyes more prominent.
That was how it was for all of us—we were different people on the court, to a certain extent.
Larger than life. Superstars. Budding professional athletes.
Off the court, we were just students who had to show up to our 8 a.m. lectures.
As we headed over to the table, I spotted Anna with her dark, slicked-back hair and cat-like eyes. I looked away immediately, scowling.
“She’s our teammate,” Nia reminded me gently. I’d never been subtle.
“She came in our senior year. She’s not one of us, even if she’s on the roster.” I kept my voice intentionally low; I didn’t mind stirring up some shit, but this wasn’t the place to do it. Even I had enough sense to know what I could get away with saying and what I couldn’t.
“And that attitude has nothing to do with her getting time on the court during the preseason?” Nia asked.
I hated that she was perceptive and would try to pry my feelings out of me.
Theo and I had mostly just fucked around, teasing each other more like brothers than anything else.
Nia actually tuned into how we were all doing.
It was impossible to hide anything from her.
“No,” I said, even though a memory of Anna setting up a play on the court I never in a million years could’ve seen through was on replay in my head.
She’d come in like she owned the place—there was no required easing in, no rust in her shooting.
She fit in easily, too, and played to our rhythm, which was the most frustrating part of all.
It was like she’d always been one of us.
I’d never been the kind of asshole who set boundaries in a team.
I’d pick fights, but in the same way siblings picked fights.
I was never the type to isolate or force out or pretend there was some type of hazing you had to go through to become a Coyote.
I’d accepted my other teammates without question.
But I wasn’t warming up to Anna. Not even a little bit.
Coach Darlene stood up from her seat at the table, tucked in between our assistant coaches.
I’d always appreciated that she was so down to earth.
My high school coach had been intense, like how most coaches with a lot of state titles tended to be.
He’d taken his team to the championship ten times over his career—including twice while coaching me—which meant that people usually overlooked him yelling and breaking clipboards.