Ben
You’d think the world was falling apart from the way people complain at the end of class.
I keep my mouth shut as we file out of the lecture hall and listen to the complaints around me.
“The workload is insane. How the hell am I supposed to get through everything?”
“Professor Truman is such a dick. I can’t believe he’s lumped us with this.”
“And all that reading? Shit, my life is over!”
Moving around the group of whiners, I pick up my pace and head for the gym. I have practice in twenty minutes, and I want to move my car so I don’t have to run all the way back here afterward.
Dumping my bag in the back seat, I make the short drive and end up parking next to Mac’s car. I’m surprised he’s already here. The guy usually prefers to run a few minutes late, like he’s made the decision in advance. Like showing up on time is uncool or something.
I hate running late, and it’s been a bone of contention between us.
He must be hanging with Jimmy today, which means he’s on time for once.
Hitching my gym bag onto my shoulder, I lock my car and head for the changing rooms.
And the first thing I hear when I open the door is another complaint.
Shit, I can’t get away from them today.
“And then she told me we’re the worst team in the school.” Darian’s voice pitches.
“I still can’t believe she actually said that shit.” Sawyer shakes his head. “When I saw her, I told her none of us would speak to her. Thanks for the warning, by the way.”
“Yeah, you’re welcome.” Darian throws on his practice jersey, and I catch Sawyer’s eyes, silently asking what’s up.
“You haven’t checked your phone?”
“I was in class,” I tell him, remembering that my phone was blowing up just as I was walking in and the beeps were driving me insane. I ended up not just silencing it but turning it off so it’d stop vibrating in my pocket.
I don’t have time to check it now, and I kind of don’t want to. I can just imagine that thread in the team chat. It’ll be all bitching and moaning about…
“Who is this person?” I make the mistake of asking.
The second the words are out of my mouth, Darian kicks into another rant that makes Mac snicker and Jimmy look like he wants to melt into the floor just to get away from it.
“I have no idea what her name is, but she’s this skinny blonde with eyes too big for her face and a mouth that can’t stay shut. Seriously.”
“I think her name was Joanne or something.” Sawyer fills in the gaps.
“And she wanted to interview me for an article in the paper, and I actually stopped to listen… until she told me we’re the worst and the school thinks we’re a bunch of losers.”
Nolan U is known for its hockey and its football. We’re pretty good at track too, but basketball… that’s never been our forte.
In fact, our performance has been so bad the last two seasons that our funding has taken a hit. We still get our scholarships covered, but we don’t get paid to play like other D1 schools do.
But I’m not going to complain about it.
At the end of the day, we get to play.
So, we show up every damn day we’re told to, and we play our guts out, because we love the game and even though we’re not the best, we want to keep going.
Occasionally we win, mostly we lose, but I think we’re all here to just have some fun, you know?
Our coach isn’t exactly a hard taskmaster, and this summer he was more laid-back than he’s ever been. Seriously. I think he spent half of our training camps asleep on the side of the court.
We’re the shortest team in the division and we don’t have much going for us, but we play. We play despite all the odds stacked against us, and I think that makes us fucking amazing!
“Just do us all a favor and stay away from that chick. If she’s dumb enough to approach any more of you, just politely decline and move on,” Sawyer tells us while Darian continues grumbling.
“Or you can rudely decline.” Slamming his locker shut, he sits down to tie up his sneakers.
Mac snickers again. “Damn, I hope she does approach me now. This could be fun.”
“Don’t be mean,” Jimmy warns him. “She’s just a little freshman, I think. She was so jittery.”
“How do you know?” Darian points at him.
“She asked me too, but I was running late and didn’t have time to talk. Plus, I hate interviews.”
I smirk, keeping the thought to myself. No big surprises there. The guy is an introvert through and through. I’ve been living with him for well over a month now, and though he’s starting to come out of his shell a little, he’s still the quietest guy in the house.
I like him, though. He’s good people. Solid, dependable, tidy. Even though I’m still getting to know him, I trust him already.
“Oh man, I hope she approaches me.” Adonis rubs his hands together, looking gleeful as he gets in on Mac’s line of thinking.
This poor girl. They’re going to decimate her.
And all because she made one little slipup.
I mean, I haven’t met her yet, but I’m guessing she was just nervous and it all came out wrong.
“Everyone just stay away from her.” Darian lays down the law. “People already think we’re shit; we don’t need any more attention thrown on us.”
It’s kind of weird that the paper is wanting to write an article about us. We never get any attention at this school. Unless they just gave this freshman a bullshit assignment to keep her occupied and out of the way.
Who knows?
But I’ll keep my distance. Darian and Sawyer are looking around the room expectantly, and the full team is here now, all listening to them.
Nodding along with everyone else, I agree to stay away from the jittery freshman. If she does approach me, I’ll politely decline. We need to protect one another.
No, what we need is more people showing interest in us.
But I keep the thought to myself, not wanting to suggest that this could actually be a good thing.
Because it all depends on what she writes.
It could be the worst thing.
Completely humiliating.
Yeah, staying away from her is the right decision.
“Let’s go, Cougars.” Coach ambles through the locker room, looking completely unenthusiastic about our training session. We trail out after him and the two assistant coaches.
Although the energy level seems kind of low, I run onto the court, catching the ball Jimmy throws to me and dribbling it down to the hoop. Doing an easy layup, I land back on my feet with a grin.
Something about the swish of the netting when the ball goes through the hoop makes me smile every single time.
I can feel the shifting energy within minutes.
The squeak of sneakers and the rhythmic bouncing of the ball seems to calm our nerves as we run drills and do what we do best—have fun on a basketball court without the pressure of an actual game.