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“Great. Thanks,” she replied.
When Shay made her way out to the court, the team was already stretching. Layne was leading them, which made Shay’s heart embarrassingly swell about three sizes. She remembered Layne hardly being able to talk to anyone on the team, and now, she was stepping in for Shay regularly and leading them in their warm-ups. She was proud of her girlfriend, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever been proud of anyone else quite like that before.
“And?” Coach asked when Shay walked over to her.
“All good,” Shay replied. “It’s wrapped up, and everything is normal.”
“Test might be normal, but how does it feel?”
“Fine,” she said. “It’s a little sore from not moving much, but there’s no swelling. I can take it easy today, test it out, but I feel good, Coach.”
“I know it’s the final, and we need you, but you plan to go pro, Shay. I want you to think about that.”
“I do. But, Coach, let’s be honest: I have no idea if any team is going to pick me on draft day. There were sixty-eight teams in this tournament, with about fifteen players on every roster. Even if we remove half of those players from the list, for whatever reason, that’s still over five hundred players. Then, there are only so many players that are draft-eligible. I’ve done the math. There are thirty-six picks, and in this tournament, from my last count, there are over a hundred players who would kill to be any one of them. I don’t know how many of them will actually declare. Maybe only fifty. Still, that means I could be one of the thirty-six, or I could be one of the fourteen who don’t get picked. I want to play for Dunbar right now. I want to win the National Championship. And if I don’t play ever again because of my ankle, I’ll still feel like I made the right decision.”
“And that’s why you’re my captain,” her coach said. “But I needed to do my job as your coach and make sure you’re thinking about your future, too.”
“I think about my future all the time,” she replied and looked over at Layne.
“Light stretches for you. Go easy on your ankle. We’ll run some plays and shoot around. I mean it, Shay. You take it easy. Do not risk further injury.”
“I won’t,” she replied.
“Go join the team, then. I want the trainer to look at it again after practice, tomorrow morning, and then–”
“I get it, Coach.” Shay laughed. “You want him to check it constantly until the game and probably during the game, too.”
“Yes, exactly. Now, get out there.”
Shay jogged onto the court, taking it easy like she’d been instructed as she went through some regular stretches. When they started running a few plays that Coach wanted them to use tomorrow night, she felt like her ankle was a little stiff at first, but it loosened the longer they went on. Her shooting was taking a minute because she was trying to shift more weight onto her other ankle, but she wouldn’t be able to do that tomorrow night, so she shot normally and risked it. No additional pain hit her, and she felt like she might just be able to play tomorrow night after all.
After film and their team meeting, they were dismissed to their rooms for their delivered dinners. Layne went into her own room to wait for her dinner to show up and give everyone else a chance to grab theirs before she came into Shay’s bedroom and brought them both their meals.
As Layne stood at the end of Shay’s bed, wrapping Shay’s ankle after putting another ice pack on it for her, Shay smiled up at her. Then, they ate on Shay’s bed, talking mostly about the game tomorrow night and what Layne had seen on film.
“You’re good at this,” Shay told her, resting her head on Layne’s chest later that night.
“At holding you?”
“Yes, that, too.” She chuckled. “But I meant coaching.”
“I’m not coaching.”
“Yes, you are,” Shay said and pushed Layne’s shirt up in order to get her hand on her girlfriend’s skin. “You’re a great player, but you might even make a better coach one day.”
“I might have to be.”
“Have to? You don’t like it?”
“I think I like it enough to be a graduate assistant, but I still want to be in sports management. I like the idea of getting athletes great contracts and sponsorship deals, especially the female athletes.”
Shay closed her eyes and said, “In Chicago?”
“You know, the other day, I saw a job posting for that company I had the internship with. It’s not for anything I could or would do, but I just clicked on it out of curiosity. It mentioned that they’re going remote for a while, with the option for the role to be permanently remote. I think this is about to be the new normal. It won’t just be until COVID isn’t as bad as it is now.”
“And?”
“And maybe I can work somewhere and not have to go into an office. I don’t know. First, I have to figure out if I’m staying in my MBA program or not, but that’s for another day. Right now, I want to hold you all night again, wake up next to you, and get ready for our final game together.”
