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“I’m soaked, yeah.”
“Can you come again?”
“Yes, but you’re right; we’ve already broken a lot of rules. We should try to get some sleep.”
“There’s a bathtub. I can run you a bath so that you can clean up without having to stand. Then, we can get ice on your ankle and go to bed.”
“Will you get into the tub with me?”
“No, because it will barely fit you.” Layne moved back on top of her. “But just one second, okay?”
“Okay.” Shay wrapped her arms around Layne’s neck and looked into her eyes. “I know there are more important things than basketball, too, you know? You’re the most important thing in my life.” She kissed Layne on the nose. “I love you.”
“I love you,” Layne replied and kissed her.
Minutes later, she ran a bath for Shay and helped her into the tub. She helped her clean up more because she wanted to than Shay needed any help. Then, she helped Shay get back into bed, with Shay insisting that they sleep naked tonight, and cleaned herself up before bed as well. When she walked back out, she found a one-time-use ice pack on the desk and cracked it open. Gently, she wrapped Shay’s ankle with an ACE bandage, set the ice pack on it, and wrapped it the rest of the way.
“Twenty minutes, and we’ll take it off for sleep,” she said and slipped into bed beside Shay. “It looks better, by the way.”
“It is better, but thank you,” Shay replied and cupped Layne’s cheek. “I still can’t believe you’re here. I feel like you’re going to tell me we have to hang up our video chat and go to sleep.”
“I’m here. Close your eyes, baby. I’ll take your ice pack off for you if you fall asleep.” She kissed Shay’s forehead.
“You’ll be here when I wake up?”
“I’m going to hold you all night, sneak out when my breakfast is delivered to my door, grab it along with yours, and we’ll eat in here together before practice.”
“That sounds nice,” Shay said, sounding exhausted.
“Sleep well,” Layne replied and kissed her lips sweetly. “I love you.”
“I feel like we’ve said that a lot tonight,” Shay noted with a sleepy voice. “I like it.”
Layne smiled and kissed her on the cheek.
“I like it, too.”
CHAPTER 37
Shay felt the arm around her waist and smiled. She was burning up. It seemed like Layne was attached to her from the tips of their toes to the tops of their heads, and Shay was ridiculously hot, but she didn’t want to move. She never wanted to move. They’d waited for this for so long: the chance to fall asleep next to one another and wake up the same way. Shay still couldn’t believe it was happening. Layne was behind her, lightly snoring, which had Shay smiling wider and trying not to laugh.
In just a couple of weeks, Shay would know if she was going to be drafted as one of the thirty-six players who would be selected in the three-round, twelve-picks-per-round WNBA draft, and her stock had definitely risen since before this tournament started. She should be worried about her ankle injury and if it would keep her from playing in the final tomorrow. She should also be worried if it would keep teams who might have been interested away. She should be worried about finally leaving Dunbar for good this time and playing in her last game, but she wasn’t.
Shay was thinking about Layne and how if she did get drafted, she already had the credits required for graduation, so even though she’d deferred until spring, she’d be free to go and join her new team, wherever that may be. Layne would have to finish out the semester, which would only take another month, and she still didn’t know if she’d get that other year of eligibility. Shay didn’t know what Layne would do if she didn’t get it. Paying for school wouldn’t be possible for her, so she’d have to take out loans, and Shay knew that Layne was trying to be smart about the amount of debt she took on before she graduated.
Yet again, things were all up in the air, and all Shay wanted to know was that she and Layne would be okay. Everything else in her life would be fine if she and Layne were okay. She understood that now in a way that she hadn’t not all that long ago when she’d put Layne first and worried it would screw up her life plan.
No, she wasn’t supposed to meet someone and fall in love. It wasn’t supposed to happen for her yet that she’d find someone she could actually see herself with; someone with whom she could be moving in together into some small apartment they could barely afford, maybe getting engaged in a few years, and married after that, arguing over what to have for dinner and who would take out the trash after. That was supposed to happen when Shay hit about thirty, but it had been ridiculous for her to try to plan out her love life like that. It was silly to think that she could control when the right woman appeared.
So, as Layne squeezed her middle and Shay started to sweat a little, she was still smiling because she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“You’re awake?” Layne asked.
“Yeah, just. You?”
Layne kissed her shoulder blade, and then it sounded like she mumbled, ‘How’s your ankle?’ against Shay’s skin.
Shay tried to move her foot a little, but Layne’s foot was on top of it.
