Chapter 3
Keira
The car Keira shared with her father rumbled into the sports complex car park, the exhaust kicking out a worrying amount of fumes and music rattling the windows.
Keira parked and turned off the car. The sudden silence felt suffocating.
She had to make this work. Her probationary contract could be made permanent if she played well, so she had to play well.
Grabbing the bag containing her training clothes off the passenger seat, she got out of the car and took a deep, steadying breath before walking towards the sports centre.
The humid air clung like a damp, heavy blanket, prophesying an incoming storm.
She adjusted the new tracksuit she’d been instructed to wear when travelling to or from training, or on any other official Blizzards outings. It felt like it didn’t quite fit.
The automatic glass double doors parted, revealing Coach Grant sitting near the entrance, laptop propped on her legs.
“Ah, Keira, right on time.” She closed her laptop and sprang to her feet.
“Welcome to the Blizzards.” She smiled kindly at Keira and began leading her down the long hallway.
Coach Michelle Grant was a head shorter than Keira, had a fawn complexion, and light brown hair tied up in a neat bun.
Her reputation also preceded her; she was a force of nature in the basketball world.
“So, as you can see, we have three courts,” Coach Grant said, jerking her thumb towards the courts visible through a wall of glass, “as well as full access to the fitness suite across the road. The women’s changing rooms are down the far end, on the left.”
Memories of playing on these courts as a teenager flashed across her mind. Her junior team and the Blizzards had been quite the rivals, back then.
They paused briefly to watch the chaos of what Keira guessed was an under-eights training session.
The differently coloured neon bibs looked more like dresses on some of the children, and the smaller than usual basketballs still dwarfed their tiny hands.
Keira couldn’t help but chuckle as she watched them follow the ball around like moths attracted to a flame.
“We have a strong junior programme here,” Coach Grant continued as she resumed walking down the hallway. “Sienna, our other new player this season, started with us when she was about their age,” she nodded towards the multi-neon-coloured throng of youngsters, “as did both of my daughters.”
Keira vaguely remembered playing against the Grant sisters. The familiarity helped her relax a little.
They reached the end of the corridor, with a fire exit and several doors to what Keira assumed were store cupboards. Coach Grant approached one of the doors and pushed it open.
“And this is my office. I have an open-door policy in place — literally. If I’m in there, the door will be open, and everyone is welcome. I only shut the door if a conversation needs to be private.”
She nodded, and Coach Grant led her inside a small, narrow, windowless room.
A metal storage rack ran along one of the long walls, and a small desk was tucked against the other, with barely enough room for the desk chair slid underneath.
Coach Grant squeezed in and put her laptop down on the desk, then opened it again.
She pulled a flimsy plastic stool towards her and indicated Keira should sit down.
Keira put down her bag and looked sceptically at the proffered seat, unsure it would handle her tall frame, but sat regardless.
“Thank you for returning the paperwork I sent you. I just wanted to run through our plan for the season with you, as well as our training schedule and expectations for self-led training outside of our structured sessions. I’ll send you all this in an email as well, but I wanted to give you the chance to ask any questions if you had them. ”
Keira nodded, then exhaled quietly.
I’ve got this.
I hope.
At the end of a short corridor off the main thoroughfare, the women’s changing room loomed.
Keira paused outside and triple-checked the sign, then took a deep breath and pushed open the door.
Immediately, a wave of noise hit her. A group of women talked and laughed together.
Stepping inside, she rounded the corner, and the noise quietened down as many pairs of eyes turned towards her.
Keira stood in the silence for three long, terrifying seconds before one of the women on her right stepped forward.
“Hi, I’m Lucy, and you must be Keira.” It wasn’t a question.
“Welcome to the Blizzards!” Lucy, with her short blond curls, light brown eyes, and light sandy skin, flashed her a brilliant smile.
A few in the room either gave a brief nod, wave, or verbal acknowledgement of her presence before returning to their conversations.
“It’s okay, we don’t bite,” Lucy said quietly. “Unless you’re into that, of course.” She winked. The player standing next to Lucy immediately slapped her on the arm.
“Lucy! For Pete’s sake, don’t scare her off already. She’s only been here thirty seconds.”
“Who’s Pete?” Lucy grinned.
The other player rolled her eyes before turning to face Keira. “Hi, I’m Asha, nice to meet you.” The woman's petite stature meant she looked up at Keira. She had long, black, braided hair and deep brown skin with golden undertones matched the warmth of her eyes.
Keira vaguely remembered playing against an Asha in age-grade basketball, though that had been years ago now. If this was the same person, she was a force to be reckoned with.
“Likewise,” Keira replied, offering a smile, glad of another semi-familiar face. “I’d better get changed.”
The changing room was painted in Blizzards colours — white, blue, and grey — with a vinyl floor.
Benches with hooks above them wrapped around the edges of the room and formed an island in its middle.
Keira guessed the two archways at the opposite end led to toilets and showers.
Carefully, she navigated around the bags, shoes, and pieces of clothing that littered the floor, trying not to make eye contact with anyone else.
She finally found an empty spot on one of the benches and dropped her bag with a thud, drawing the attention of the nearest player.
“Hi, I’m Sienna, I’m new as well!” The young girl practically bounced on her tiptoes. Keira looked her up and down. She didn’t look much more than eighteen. The girl talked at her a mile a minute.
“I’m so excited for this season, aren’t you? It’s so hard for a new team to get into the pro league now, and this is the first year we’ve been there. It’s like we’ve got something to prove, right?”
“Mm-hmm,” Keira said and took her roughly packed clothes out of her bag, carefully placing them on the bench next to her water bottle. She’d played basketball for too long to care about stripping down to her underwear in front of others, but with new people, it was always a little jarring.
Her mind swirled with the pressure of this first training session. First impressions counted, and all eyes would be on her. She needed to cement her place in this team. Her father was counting on her. She swallowed down the bile that had risen in her throat and got changed.
The changing room slowly thinned out, players often leaving in pairs, chatting as they made their way to the court.
Sienna and Keira were the last to leave, partially because Keira had been later in getting to the changing rooms, and partly because Sienna still hadn’t stopped talking.
Keira, having zoned Sienna out by this point, finished getting changed and followed her new teammates towards the court.
Keira pushed on the double doors that opened onto the court.
A shiver ran up her arms the moment she stepped onto the smooth wooden surface, and she couldn’t help but look around in awe.
As nervous as she was, it didn’t seem real.
All going well, this would be her new home in basketball.
She was getting paid, albeit not much, to play the sport she loved.
The butterflies in her stomach were doing somersaults.
The courts weren’t anything like the big venues she had experienced at college, but the familiar, intangible magic made her steps a little lighter.
She breathed in the grounding, musky scent of basketball, and tried to breathe out her self-doubts.
There was no room for insecurity in professional sport.
Players warmed up across the two baskets. Keira walked to the nearest of the chairs dotted alongside the court and put her drink and bag underneath it. Sienna followed her.
“-isn’t it, right?” Sienna said, her voice interrupting Keira’s musings, clearly expecting a response.
“Yeah, definitely,” Keira said. She hoped that was the right answer.
It seemed to be, since Sienna put down her own bag, grabbed a basketball from a kit bag, and bounded towards the nearest hoop.
Keira joined her, nodding slightly at the players she made eye contact with.
She thought she detected a hint of recognition from some of them.
She dribbled the ball a few times. With each bounce, the tension in her muscles turned down a notch.
The bounce of the balls, squeak of shoes, and swoosh of the net whenever anyone drained a shot created a disjointed, but comforting, orchestra.
Keira exhaled and put up some shots herself.
The familiar movements further relaxed her.