Full Court Press (35 page)

The arm around her shoulders tightened and she heard murmuring, feeling the vibrations from the chest easily against her ear. She pulled her hand back and picked her head up off Beck’s chest just as he opened his eyes.

He looked sleepy and confused. “Did you just feel me up?”

“I, uh...didn’t mean to.”

He slowly removed his arm from around her shoulders and sat up.

She rolled onto her back, too tired to get up. She was surprised he wasn’t freaking out, telling her to get the hell away. Her hand itched to reach out and touch him, stroke his back, feel his skin again. She felt like it had been such a long time but really it hadn’t.

“Did you sleep okay?” she asked.

“Fine, you?”

“Very well, actually. How is your back feeling?”

“Better. I’ll be fine by tonight for the game, as long as I take it easy during PE so it doesn’t flare up.”

She sat up and leaned close, though he didn’t notice since he was turned in the other direction.

“Beck?”

He turned to look at her and she pressed her lips against his. He was too surprised to do anything about it before she pulled back, a satisfied smile on her face.

He looked at her for a moment before frowning. “What was that for?”

Returning the favor, she wanted to say. But she decided that it would be better if he didn’t know that she had been awake for that little moment. “Nothing.”

His eyes narrowed for a moment before he snaked an arm around her torso and pulled her down to the floor. He didn’t so much pull her as just let himself fall backwards and drag her to the floor on top of him.

As they kissed, she slid her body on top of his so that she straddled his hips. God, it seemed like forever since they’d kissed, but it had only been four days.

She moaned against his mouth when his teeth nipped at her lower lip and his hand found her ass. After a few more minutes of groping and kissing, Beck dropped his head back against the floor, separating their mouths.

“Fuck.”

Carmondy caught her breath and looked down at him. “What’s wrong? I mean...I know you said you needed time but you seem pretty—”

“My back.” He bent his knees so that his quads pressed against her back.

“Oh crap!” She started to scramble off. “Are you okay?”

His hands on her thighs kept her in place. “No, it’s not that. I’m fine lying here...but if I want to play today, we can’t go there. Not right now.”

“What if I did all the work, like that one time?”

He smiled at her eagerness but shook his head and closed his eyes. “It won’t matter. Once we get going I can’t really control myself.”

“Ah, I see.” She stopped fiddling with his shirt and rested her palms on his stomach. “Well, there’s no way we’re risking you not being able to play. So I guess I’ll just...”

She should be getting off him, but his hands weren’t letting up.

“Beck?”

His lids opened and the steel-gray eyes met hers.

She bent down and pressed a chaste kiss against his lips. “I should get going. I gotta shower and get all packed for the game and road trip.”

His hands released her, and she stood up reluctantly.

“See you at school then,” she said, waiting for his nod of acknowledgement before leaving.

It was the first game of the season, and Carmondy was nervous as hell. They had just arrived at Ellensburg, the school they were competing against. They were in time to catch the start of the JV games, as planned. They entered the main gym where the boys’ JV was playing. The girls’ JV would be in the spare gym.

She hauled her duffel bag in and the varsity girls grouped together on the bleachers. The boys sat beside them in a group. Some boys and girls mingled but mostly, they stayed separate.

Beck looked focused. He watched the JV game for a moment before descending the bleachers to go sit on the bench beside the coach.

Beck watched the game intensely, shouting encouragement every now and then. Other times, he would point out small mistakes or gaps so the team could fix it. The JV coach didn’t seem to mind, as if it was natural for them to work together. Every now and then, the coach would pull someone out and Beck would talk to him one-on-one, no doubt pointing out the mistakes that he made so that he could go back in and fix them. That was what junior varsity was all about, getting better.

Beck also retrieved information from the bookkeepers, like the number of fouls, turnovers and shots. During a timeout, the coach pulled the team into a circle to line out the plan of attack before handing the floor over to Beck, who said some encouraging words and reminded them of the basics. He never berated anyone, never blamed anyone of a missed shot or a foul even if it was clearly their fault. He was very professional.

Carmondy turned to Kendall again. “He’s...coaching.”

“Yeah, sort of. He doesn’t actually call any of the shots but he helps them out, and the team relates to him better.”

“Why does he do it?”

Kendall shrugged. “He wants to be a basketball coach someday.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yep, elementary or junior high.”

“He wants to work with kids?”

Kendall nodded. “I know it seems weird but...we’ve talked, believe it or not, and yeah, it’s what he wants to do. Always has been...and frankly, he’s damn good at it.”

“Yeah, it seems like it.”

“He’s done the same thing for us, sort of. If he sees something wrong that he knows we can fix, he’ll pull us aside at half-time or something and let us know. He’s really helpful.”

Carmondy continued to watch him until half-time, when they had to go the locker room and begin to get ready for their own game.

As she started to get dressed, the nervousness really started to set in. This was her first game with these girls, her first game against a team this size.

Did she belong here?

Was she really good enough?

Oh shit, what if her asthma started acting up? She couldn’t just leave the game to grab her inhaler, could she?

She was starting.
Starting.
That was a big deal in a school this size.

But the coach thought she earned it, and the coach knew best, right?

If she didn’t do well in this game, he might take her off the starting line-up and that would be terrible.

“Carmondy?”

She looked up. Kendall had been trying to talk to her. ‘Yeah, what? Sorry.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah, just nervous.”

Kendall smiled reassuringly. “You’re gonna do fine.”

“Thanks.”

“Beck’s outside, says he wants to talk to you.”

“Oh.”

“Go ahead, we got plenty of time.”

Carmondy nodded and headed out of the unfamiliar locker room. Beck was standing a few feet away from the door.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“I wanted to make sure you had your inhaler.”

“I got it.”

“Bring it to the bench and put it on top of the med kit when you come out.”

“Okay.”

“I talked to your coach. He says if you need to come out for a puff, don’t wait until it gets so bad that you need to abandon the game. If you feel it coming on, signal to Kendall or Coach and they’ll get you a sub. Okay?”

She nodded.

“Don’t wait until it’s too late. I mean it. I won’t hesitate to walk onto the court in the middle of the game.”

She believed him. “I won’t let it get bad, if it even comes.”

He nodded. “You seem...distracted.”

“I’m not distracted. I’m nervous. I mean, am I good enough for this?”

Beck rolled his eyes. “Coach wouldn’t put you where you are now if you weren’t good enough.”

“I know...but I feel—”

“Don’t, you’re going to do fine. Just remember the stuff we went over.”

She frowned. “I wish we had practiced more together.”

He shook his head. “Well, there’s nothing you can do about it now so go and finish getting dressed. I’ll see you on the court.”

“Okay.” She felt the urge to give him a peck on the cheek but resisted it and turned back into the locker room.

After the pre-game pep talk from Coach, they all filed out onto the court and started their warm-up routine. She noticed Beck in the stands, beside Anderson. She couldn’t tell if he was watching or not. He had his headphones in and didn’t seem all that interested.

When the game finally started and they circled around the center where Torie was standing to tip, Carmondy’s nervousness went away. It simply vanished. Suddenly, it wasn’t about if she was going to do terrible or if she deserved to be here.It was about doing the best that she could and proving to herself, her teammates, the coach and the spectators that she deserved to be here.

The first half of the game was a little all over the place. They weren’t quite in their groove yet, but they got it together when it mattered. Their fast break was scoring most of their points. The other team just wasn’t as fast or in as good a shape. They just couldn’t keep up.

Carmondy couldn’t remember how many times she had sprinted down the court, passing everyone to receive a bullet of a pass from Kendall just as she was about to pass under the hoop. With her speed, she didn’t have a hard time getting high into the air to score easy layups.

Eventually, the other team caught on and had at least one defender get back fast enough to guard her. It didn’t matter though. Either Kendall passed the ball to her sooner and she dribbled in or she passed it in later and Carmondy gave a short bounce pass to Alli, who was always at the opposite block just in the nick of time.

The only problem Carmondy was having was on defense. Sydney was on a bench because Coach was going with a fast line-up to take advantage of the other team’s slowness. That left the other team’s post for Carmondy to guard. The girl was taller than she was, and a little heavy-set. Carmondy wasn’t used to playing against a girl who just used brute strength against her.

She did her best and even got an offensive foul called on the other girl. She felt like every shot that the girl got in was her fault though. She just didn’t feel tall enough or strong enough to guard her.

Coach seemed to think she was doing okay though, because he didn’t pull her out.

When the buzzer rang for the half, Carmondy felt good about the game so far. She wasn’t too tired. Thanks to the coach’s ruthless conditioning regime, they were in much better shape than the other team.

The half-time talk was pretty simple. Coach told them to keep doing what they were doing, just don’t slack. They were up by about 15 points, which was a comfortable lead but he didn’t want them getting complacent.

The coach left the locker room with several minutes left and some of the girls left with him to warm up. Others stayed.

She didn’t want to sit in the locker room and let her muscles get cold but she didn’t want to go out onto the court either. She settled for pacing in the hallway just outside of the gym, which was mostly empty except for a few random strangers.

She pivoted to continue pacing and jerked back. “Shit!”

Beck had been right behind her.

“Jesus Christ, you’re going to give me a heart—” She cut herself off and stared at him. He was in his basketball jersey, navy blue. Sexy.

“What?” he asked.

She blinked and tried to stop staring. “N-nothing, just...your jersey...looks good.”

“Focus!” He snapped his finger in her face.

“Right! Sorry, go ahead.”

He rolled his eyes again. “Is Coach keeping you on that number 23?”

She nodded. “I think so. He didn’t say otherwise.”

“You need to man-up.”

“What?”

“Push her around a little. You’re letting her walk all over you.”

“She’s bigger than me!”

“Don’t give me that BS. Yeah, she’s bigger, but not stronger.”

“Yes, she—”

“No, Carmondy, listen to me. I’ve played ball against you. If you want to, you can muscle just about anyone around. You only think you can’t because she’s so much bigger than you. But you’ve got the muscle. I’ve seen them, touched them, and felt them in action, so just do what I say and put a little muscle against her. She won’t expect it. She’s used to being able to bounce everyone out of the way and I’m telling you, you’re stronger than that.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“Come on. Just throw your muscles around. I’ve seen you do it in practice against other guys. Just pretend she’s a guy.”

“Yeah.” She nodded slowly, a smile growing on her face. “Yeah! I can do that. She does kind of look like a guy, doesn’t she?”

The corner of Beck’s mouth turned up. “Whatever you say. Just don’t be afraid to use a little muscle. If you get out of hand, the refs will call it and you’ll know where the boundaries are, okay?”

She nodded.

“Good. Now go on. I’ll see you after my game.”

“Did I mention how great you look?”

“Carmondy, focus. Forget about what I’m wearing. We aren’t going to get into this on game day, not until afterwards at least, got it?”

She nodded firmly. “Of course, yep. Got it.”

He gave her an unexpected sudden smile. “You’re doing great.” He pushed her back into the gym and she forgot all about his hot body and started focusing on the game.

Carmondy took Beck’s advice. She used her muscle on the girl and it worked. Number 23 had been surprised at first, but then she started to fight back. Carmondy held her own. Eventually the girl wore down, though it was partly because she was just as out of shape as the rest of her team.

At one point, Carmondy felt her asthma coming on and called for a substitute immediately. Coach sat her on the bench for about five minutes after she took the two puffs before sending her back in. She was fine for the rest of the game.

Car’s team ended up winning by almost 20 points and as soon as they cleared the floor, the boys jogged on to warm up.

Carmondy wanted to watch the boys but Kendall dragged her to the locker room to shower and change first, assuring her that they would be back before the game started.

Coach came in and gave them a short post-game talk before leaving the girls to celebrate the win.

Kendall punched her in the arm excitedly. “That was great, huh!”