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“A slow kiss?”
“Very slow and very long; like we’re just making out for hours because we can, finally, and that’s it. That’s what I’d want.”
“God, that sounds good,” Shay had agreed. “I miss kissing. I’m twenty-two. I should be kissing someone, right? I’m supposed to do a lot of that in my early twenties.”
“Girlfriend is lying right here,” Layne had stated, glaring at her.
“I didn’t say, ‘Kissing every woman in a room.’ I want to be kissing you. I want to walk around campus holding your hand, drop you off at your building, and kiss you quickly before I have to run off to class, too. And I also want to find that evil bench where you and Sabrina decided to start something and make out with you on it for hours.”
Layne had laughed and said, “Where did you and Eliza make out? Can I make out with you there, too?”
“Her place, mostly, so probably not going to happen. My room a little. A few times at the campus theater.”
“We’re going to a movie there, and I’ll be in your room a lot, then,” Layne had said.
“Fine by me. You can stay over. Technically, you wouldn’t be breaking curfew since the rule says we have to be in the building, not specifically in our rooms.”
“That’s assuming we can do this before the season is over. The way it’s going out there, Shay, I don’t know, babe,” Layne had said.
“Okay… Only good stuff. That’s our rule, right? Unless we have to talk about it – on our dates, we don’t.”
“You’re right,” Layne had agreed. “You’re beautiful, Shay.”
“So are you,” she’d replied.
Shay ran out onto the court, high-fived the other three teammates out there, and moved to the side, waiting for Hilton to join them. She looked over at the bench, where Layne was clapping, and gave her a little wink. Layne smiled and shook her head at her. Then, Shay put herself into game mode.
“Everyone good?” she asked as they huddled together.
“Good,” Hilton confirmed.
“Yeah,” Ledger offered.
The others nodded before they all put their hands together and yelled, “Dunbar,” taking their spots on the court right after.
The team they were playing tonight was from a small college in Iowa that wasn’t in their conference. They were starting three freshmen and two sophomores who didn’t seem to have a ton of experience or a high game-IQ, so when Shay took the ball up the court in the second quarter, passed it to Hilton, waited for her pick, and rolled, her defender and the other one didn’t know if they should stay with their player or switch off. The ball came back to Shay. She took a step back and landed a three. Dunbar was up by twelve.
It got even easier after that, and all Shay could think about was that soon, they’d have one game down, with only twenty-six more regular season games to go. She had to keep herself and her teammates focused, with all of the distractions, and most importantly, she had to keep them all healthy. If a team didn’t have enough players due to COVID, they had to forfeit, and even one of those could impact their goal of making it back to the conference championship and beyond.
At halftime, the starting lineup remained unchanged, and Shay noted that Layne hadn’t come off the bench yet. Layne was fine with it because she was Layne, but Shay knew how much work the woman had put into getting back to her old self and then some, so when Coach subbed Ledger out for the fourth time that game, she was pissed to see that yet again, it wasn’t Layne coming in for her. She brought the ball up, but because of that distraction, the guard from Iowa stole it from her and went in for an easy layup. Shay silently chastised herself, pushed the concerns about her girlfriend’s playing time out of her mind, took the ball back up the court, and landed a jumper.
It turned out, getting angry at herself for messing up made Shay a better player. She scored six more points and got two more rebounds and an assist, along with a steal and a jump ball that gave Dunbar possession. In the end, they won the game by fourteen points, looking almost unfazed by the fact that they had to get tested every day by shoving long sticks up their nose and then pray for a negative result for themselves but also for everyone on their team, including their coaches and trainers and anyone else on staff.
“Great game, everyone,” Coach said when they all got to the locker room. “We shouldn’t linger in here too long, so I want everyone back in their rooms. Get yourselves hydrated. I got you all some electrolyte kits. Take those bags with you when you go and follow the instructions for me. Eat well. A late snack will be at your doors when you get back, and I want a full night’s sleep tonight. It’s the first game back. You’re all going to be extra tired. Tomorrow, we’ll do some light work outside and watch film.”
“Yeah? We can go to the film room?”
“No, we’ll do it on Zoom,” Coach replied. “I know… I know…” she added when everyone groaned. “We all hate it. I asked the university to buy us one of those big, inflatable projector screens so that we could watch outside, but they declined my request, so it’s a virtual film-watching session for all of us. But we could have some fun with it, at least. Why don’t we do a pajama film session? Everyone, dress comfortably or funny if you want.”
“Lame, Coach.” Roy laughed.
Everyone else followed.
“I’ll wear my unicorn onesie,” Ledger said.
“I’ve got a tiger one,” Jessop added.
“There we go,” Coach replied. “We’re going to make the most of it. Take care of yourselves tonight. I’ll see you all tomorrow for our workout. Then, we’ll go back to our rooms for film.”
