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“Sorry.”
“No, I don’t mean that it’s your fault. It takes two, right? You just never seemed interested in getting to know any of us.”
“It’s not that I wasn’t. I was focused on other things. College is important to a lot of people, and I understand why, but for me, it’s just the in-between. In a couple of months, I can graduate and finally be in my job.”
“Shit. I still have to figure all of that out.”
“What about the WNBA?”
“Well, I hope I’ll get drafted, but I don’t know that I will. Roster sizes being what they are, and the small number of teams in the league, mean that it’ll be hard to get drafted and then, harder to actually make the team and play the whole season. I’ve been putting off planning for anything else, trying to keep that confidence thing working for me. But then, Eliza dumped me, and I wasn’t playing well… So now, I might need to start applying for jobs at fast food places because I might have lost my shot.”
“We still have at least one game, and on a national level. We win that one, we get another.”
“What are the odds that we will, though? We won in a good conference, but I can’t see them ranking us anything higher than ten. If we’re ten, we’re playing a seven. And if we’re lower than that, like a twelve, we’re playing a five seed. They could also really screw us and give us a fifteen seed or something, and we’d be playing a two. The odds are stacked against us.”
“Aren’t they kind of always against us, though?” Layne asked.
Shay laughed and said, “I suppose they are.” Then, she took another drink of her beer.
CHAPTER 7
Shay had looked out at the highway that was still busy despite it being after one in the morning. She’d been in her own room, thinking she was ready to call it a night, when she’d seen Layne. Worrying about her, Shay had gone back to the hotel room party briefly to grab them a couple of beers, thinking it would be good to offer Layne a drink to maybe get her to open up. It turned out, Shay hadn’t needed the drink at all.
“Hey, come upstairs,” Shay said. “It’s cold out here, and it’s getting late.”
“Is that an order from my captain?” Layne asked with a nice smile that Shay hadn’t really noticed before.
Come to think of it, Shay hadn’t noticed much about Layne prior to now. She’d known her for four years, but she’d not paid much attention to Layne’s long brown hair that she always wore up and seemed to care so little about, or her matching brown eyes. She was 5’10” to Shay’s 5’09”. Shay only knew that, though, because of the team. She knew how tall all of the players were. Now, she also knew that Layne had a nice smile.
“I should get some sleep, yeah,” Layne added after a second. “We have a flight tomorrow morning.”
“Do you know that they were going to make us fly out tonight, but Coach got them to let us stay one more night because our game finished so late? The plan had been for us to leave at, like, eleven tonight, but the game got scheduled for nine, and Coach had to tell the NCAA person that there was no way we were making it out of the game and to the airport in time to catch that flight. So, now, we’re out of here at, like, nine in the morning.”
“I didn’t know that, no,” Layne replied and stood up. “But we really should get some sleep. The bus is leaving here at seven.”
“Sleep when you’re dead. That’s my motto, anyway,” Shay said and stood up, bringing Layne’s untouched beer with her and finishing her own to throw the bottle away.
Then, she opened up the one she’d brought for Layne and took a long drink as they walked back to the hotel.
“How many of those have you had?” Layne asked.
“This is my third.” Shay held up the bottle.
“And when did you last eat?”
“At dinner. Why? Worried about me, Mom?” she joked.
“Worried about my captain drinking too much, yes,” Layne replied.
“I’m fine. I’ll admit, I can be a bit of a lightweight, but I’m not driving anywhere, and we have tomorrow off, so if I’m going to celebrate us making it to the big time, this is the night. Also, I’m sulking, too.”
“Sulking?” Layne asked as the automatic doors opened, and they walked into the hotel lobby.
“My girlfriend dumped me, remember?”
“I wasn’t sure that’s what had–”
“Oh, yes, you were.” Shay took another drink and laughed a little as she hit the button for the elevator to arrive and take them to their floor. “Eliza. Did you ever meet her?”
