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“Sure. When?”
“Now.”
“Now? The game’s still going on,” Layne replied.
“I know. We can come back in a few minutes.”
Layne looked at her confused but nodded anyway.
“We’ll be right back,” Shay told Hilton, who was sitting on her other side.
“Okay,” Hilton replied.
“Babe, where are we going?” Layne asked when they were outside the gym and walking in the direction of their old dorm. “I was kidding about staying here tonight, remember?”
Shay stopped walking and pointed, causing Layne to follow her hand and look at the bench.
“This is where we first held hands. And where I reclaimed this bench from Sabrina Stephenson, who asked you out here.”
Layne laughed and said, “You still bring that up?”
“Have a seat,” Shay requested.
“What? Why?”
“Layne…”
“Okay. Fine. Sitting.”
Layne sat down on the bench, and she put her arm out, likely waiting for Shay to sit down next to her. Shay loved that she had this spot next to Layne always reserved.
“When I was eighteen years old, I had a choice,” she began. “I could have gone to a basketball school, sat on the bench for a couple of years, and maybe I still would have gotten drafted. That was the smarter move. But something in me told me to choose this small school that no one had heard of instead, get some real minutes, and get noticed that way.”
“You were right all along, babe,” Layne said.
“I was, yes. But, it turns out, I was right about Dunbar for a different reason.” Shay knelt in front of the bench, not caring about her knees on the hard sidewalk. “There was this other eighteen-year-old who was hoping to get a scholarship to help pay for school, and she walked on. I didn’t talk to her much back then. She didn’t talk to me much, either, and she didn’t seem to mind not playing because she knew she had a role on the team that was different than mine but still important.”
“Babe, what–”
“But then, we’re both seniors, and she suddenly gets a chance to really play. She helps us win a few games and make it to a tournament we’d never get to play in. I kissed her one night, and she kissed me back, but for over a year after that, we couldn’t even touch unless we had to on a court. I loved her, though.”
“Shay…”
“She helped us win the biggest game I’ll probably ever play in, and I loved her. When I was sitting on my couch next to my parents and my sisters not long after that, wondering if I’d get drafted, she was next to me on that couch, too, and she hugged me first when I heard my name called.”
“I kissed you, too.”
“She said yes to moving in with me when I got my place in the city, even though it meant a longer drive for her to get to school, and–”
“And when she got a job in Chicago, you requested a trade to move with me,” Layne added.
“And now, we’re here. We’re at the bench where I first held your hand while we wore masks and wondered if we’d ever get to do more than that.” Shay pulled the ring box out of her pocket and opened it. “It’s just a simple band, but when I saw it, I thought of you, and I knew I wanted you to wear it for the rest of our lives. I’ve loved you for four years, and I’m going to love you forever. Layne, will you marry me?”
Layne smiled when she looked at the ring. Then, she looked up into Shay’s eyes.
“Yes,” she answered.
“Yes?” Shay checked because her heart was racing, so she couldn’t exactly hear anything other than that in her ears.
