Page 18 of Making It Count

“You can just sit here, too, you know? I don’t bite.”

“See? This is it.”

“What is it?” she asked, feeling the three beers she’d had starting to hit her.

She regretted chugging that last one. What had she been thinking?

“I’m awkward like this. I always have been,” Layne told her. “I’m here for school, and most twenty-two-year-olds aren’t really in college for school. They’re here for sports, maybe, or parties, frats, sororities, or because they don’t know what else to do. I came here to study and get a good job. That’s the goal.”

“You think you’re awkward?”

“I think people think I am, but really, I’m just goal-oriented and focused on one thing.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that, Layne. Hell, had you told us that four years ago, we might have even understood and been able to help you.”

“How would you have helped?” Layne sat down next to her.

“Help you study. You’re in business school, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I can think of four other players on the team since we got here that were in the same program. I’m in kinesiology, so I would’ve been useless to you there, but they could’ve helped you study during team study hours or something. You always seemed to want to be alone, though. You never really talked to anyone during study hours.”

“Oh,” Layne uttered and looked down at her hands in her lap.

“Your fingers are long,” Shay blurted out.

Then, her eyes went wide.

“Um… I guess. Yeah.”

“Shit. Sorry. I just said that out loud. That was a thought.”

“You thought about my fingers being long?” Layne asked. “I mean… I’m tall, and I play basketball, so…” She held her hands out in front of her and splayed her fingers.

Shay tilted her head and swallowed. How hadn’t she noticed Layne was hot before? How was it that after four years of being on the same team with this woman and changing in the same locker rooms, she’d never noticed that Layne Stoll was very pretty? Shay’s drunk brain was taking over from her sober one, which meant that she should probably leave the room right now and go straight to bed. Instead, she stared until Layne dropped her hands to her lap.

“How do you do it?” she asked.

“Do what?”

“Not care? Not worry about what they think? I can’t seem to stop. I worry about what Eliza is thinking about me now, and we’re broken up. I worry about what everyone in the WNBA is thinking about me right now after that game. I played like crap. Sure, I made the winning shot, but that’s probably not good, so I’m worried that they’re thinking I’m inconsistent, and they won’t want to take a risk on an inconsistent player from a small school. I’m worried about what my professors think of me, what everyone on the team thinks of me, what my friends back home think of me, what my–”

“Hey, Shay?”

“Yeah?” she asked, looking into Layne’s eyes.

“Have you tried turning your brain off for a little bit?”

“I had three beers, so I think I’m well on my way,” she joked.

“I’m being serious.” Layne chuckled. “Not alcohol-induced.”

“I can’t really turn my brain off. At least, not in season. It’s pretty much always thinking about basketball these days. Which is why Eliza dumped me, and she’s probably right to do it. But even when she and I were together, I was still thinking about how I’d practiced that day or how I’d played in a game the previous night. It feels like everything I’ve been working for since I first picked up a basketball is coming up really, really soon. I want us to win at least one game. That’s my goal: one game in the tournament. I know sixty-seven teams end their season on a loss, and only one team can win. I know we won’t be that team. I’m not delusional. I just want one win. That’s all I can think about right now. Which means my brain keeps running through what happens if we can’t pull that off. What will I do if I don’t get noticed? Don’t get drafted? It’s not likely that it’ll happen, but I’ve yet to make a backup plan. My parents have been hounding me. My sister, the oldest one, is a successful doctor now. She was near the top of her class in undergrad, and–” Shay shook her head. “I have two other sisters who are also both successful. One is about to graduate from Northwestern Law School. Another went to Georgetown and is working in politics. Then, there’s me. All I know is basketball.”

“And you’re very good at it,” Layne told her. “You had other offers, Shay. You chose Dunbar because you wanted to play.”

“Because I wouldn’t have been good enough to start anywhere else as a freshman, and I was worried about that,” she admitted and sighed. “I don’t think I’ve ever said that out loud; that I knew I wasn’t good enough to put another player on the bench and take their spot as a freshman.”