First off: All credit for the summary should be directed towards Automatic Loveletter, she entered the summary into the little contest I hosted and was voted the best by my readers! Congratulations!

Hey guys! I'm back!

So this is another romance with some basketball thrown in there. It will be rated M within by chapter 7 but not right now.

I welcome all comments either via review or PM!

Chapter 1- First Things First

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Carmondy sorted through her closet. It was her first day at the new school. Luckily, the school was on a semester system and she would be going to the first day of the winter semester so she wouldn’t be behind in classes. That was the last thing she needed, she wasn’t very studious.

Other than the typical first day jitters, she wasn’t really nervous, it was only high school.

She held a pair of blue jeans in front of her as she looked in the mirror. A light brown haired, blue-green eyed girl with a trim athletic build looked back at her. Normally she didn’t give a rip what she wore; if she could wear baggy sweats and t-shirts everyday she would. She did in her old school. But she figured she should wear jeans for the first day at least. Thank god she wasn’t going to that stupid private school like her parents wanted; she would have had to wear a uniform. Not that she had anything against private schools but this particular private school had a reputation for being extra snotty.

Nope, no private snob school for her, she was headed for Prosser High School, home of the Bulldogs.

She finally decided on a pair of faded jeans that weren’t too tight and a plain fitted t-shirt, not like it mattered, because she would be wearing her jacket most of the time anyways.

Once dressed, she descended the ladder from her room; she lived in the loft of the large log cabin style house. She liked living in the loft; she had a good amount of privacy and an awesome window with a view of the sky. Her parents never bother to climb the ladder to her room because nothing else was up there except for the second bathroom which she had all to herself.

Her mom was sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee; her dad was already off to work.

“Good morning.” Her mother said.

“Morning mom,”

“Is that what you’re wearing to school?” her mother asked with a disapproving tone, wrinkling her nose a little.

“Yep,” Carmondy answered, she opened the door of the fridge to look for the some breakfast. Her mother never made breakfast. Luckily, they kept the fridge stocked with fruit and the cupboards stocked with cereal.

“Why don’t you wear a skirt or maybe some nice khakis?”

“It’s a public school, mom, not private. Besides, you know I hate skirts and it’s like 30 degrees outside.”

“Yes, I am well aware of you manner of dress but I thought this move might give you a chance to change your appearance.”

“I like how I dress.” She found a banana and put some bread into the toaster.

“I still don’t understand why you refused to go to the academy; it would have done you wonders.”

“Yeah, and wear a plaid skirt? I don’t think so. Besides, they don’t have a girl’s basketball team there.” Carmondy began slicing the banana.

“So? Girls shouldn’t play basketball anyways, that’s a boy sport; it’s too rough for girls. I’m sure you would be great at volleyball or badminton.”

“Maybe, but I don’t like volleyball or badminton.”

Her mother muttered something about wishing she had had a boy.

Carmondy was used to the disapproval from her mom. She didn’t get too worked up over it, as long as her dad didn’t force her to private school, she didn’t care what her mom said.

The toast popped out of the toaster and she quickly lathered both pieces with peanut butter. She then put the banana slices in between to make a toasted banana peanut butter sandwich. You have your carbs, potassium, and protein, a good breakfast for an athletic person and the best thing ever.

She ignored her mom’s disgusted look and walked out of the kitchen. Using her extreme talent, she held the sandwich in her mouth while she climbed the ladder back up to her loft.

According to the clock on the wall she should be leaving for school soon. It was a bit of a drive, about fifteen minutes of slow driving down her five or six mile driveway that her father had had to put in specially for the house and then another five minutes through town to reach her school. She had driven the route the first day she had arrived to see how long it would take. When her dad had the house built, he had put it on the side of a heavily wooded mountain. He had to have the road converted from a deserted logging road to get to Prosser because the only other road went in the opposite direction and took almost three hours to go all the way though the next town, Molson, and then down and around the long way back into Prosser. This wasn’t a problem for her dad because he worked in Molson; the road was just for her to get to school.

Her father had warned her that the road might get treacherous when it snowed though, because it was not a public road the snow plows did not plow it, they had to hire out and even then they would not be a high priority. Carmondy had said she didn’t mind, she had a 4x4 and her dad had bought her nice studded snow tires and chains for extra precaution.

She grabbed her backpack and checked that it was adequately stocked for her first day of school. Pens, pencils, notebooks, calculator, change of clothes for practice and basketball shoes; everything she needed. Of course she had her emergency duffel bag already in her car, it had a change of clothes along with a couple other random articles of clothing.

She slung the backpack over her shoulder and descended her ladder. After finding her keys, she left the house. There was a little bit of snow on the ground but not much, there was more to come for sure; Washington winters could get nasty, she’d heard.

Her new red Jeep Wrangler Rubicon sat in the driveway with a light dust of snow on it. She loved her car; her dad had bought it for her when they had moved over here, she had only driven it a few times so far.

Clutch in and it started right up. She let it warm up a little before backing out of the parking space. She could see tracks in the snow from where her dad had driven this morning. She drove in the opposite direction, downhill, onto the narrow forest road.

The ride was a little bumpy, it was a dirt road after all, but she was soon at the bottom and a few minutes later, she was backing into a parking spot at her new high school. She peered through her window to look at the front of the school building. Big letters were displayed above the double doors.

PROSSER HIGH SCHOOL

PRIDE OF THE VALLEY

She sat in her car for a moment and watched more kids arrive, getting out of their cars, walking into the building. Her excitement started to build. Even more so, she wanted the school day to be over and basketball try-outs to start.

She got out of the Jeep and headed toward the building. She followed the crowd through to the hallway with lockers; the slip the school had mailed her had her locker number and combination so she went on a search.

Locker number 321 ended up being towards the end of the hallway. Once she got her locker open, she got out what she would need for her first class and her schedule. They had told her she didn’t need to stop by the office unless she had any questions; she was enrolled in all her classes and ready to go.

She leaned against her locker and surveyed the crowd, there were more cliques then she was used to from her old school, of course her old school had been way smaller, with only about 300 students. This school probably had about 1300 she guessed; it was a 3A school.

The cliques included preps, cheerleader looking types, dumb blondes, nerds, Asians and others. She also noticed two boys coming down the hallway; they looked to be friends, important friends because the crowds parted for them. They stopped at their lockers which were almost directly across the hall from hers and a few girls suddenly appeared, fawning over the boys.

They both looked like athletes, she hoped so at least. They were both tall and muscular, one about six feet, the other she put around six feet three inches. The shorter of the two had short black hair and dark eyes while the taller one had steel grey eyes and dark brown hair that was trimmed short on the sides but a little longer on top; it looked good on him. The taller one had some serious muscles on him, the shorter one was built a bit leaner; not as bulky.

She could hear the girls chatting up to both of them.

“Aw, please Anderson? Please, please, please?” the girl was addressing the black haired one while clutching his arm.

“Sorry, Trin, I don’t kiss and tell.” He winked at her and put his arm around another girl, she looked about ready to faint.

The taller one was getting attention too but wasn’t acknowledging it at the moment, a black haired beauty with big boobs was plastering herself to his side, stroking his chest while he sorted through his locker.

The one with black hair, Anderson, shut his locker and put his arms around two girls, kissing each one on the cheek, “Hey Beck, what do we got first period?”

The taller boy answered without looking away from his locker, “Lit, with Chandler.”

The girl attached to the dark haired boy looked up and batted her big eyes at him, “Beck?”

No response.

“Beck?”

Nothing.

“Beck!”

The boy looked down, seemingly puzzled to have a girl attached to him, “Off.”

“What, Beck baby?”

“Off.”

“But B--”

He removed her easily with one hand and then turned his back, dismissing her.

The girl stood there, puzzled, for almost a full minute before getting over it and joining the two blonds with Anderson.

“Don’t worry about him, he just doesn’t warm up well to girls he doesn’t know.” The boy assured her.

“But I know him! We had sex two days ago.” She pouted.

Beck looked over his shoulder with a disgusted look. He surveyed her body a couple times and then shrugged, turning back to his locker.

The bell rang and put an end to the scene. Carmondy looked at her schedule and then used her map to guide her to her first class. It was Algebra and she was not excited about it at all; math didn’t interest her.

She made it to her next class early; it was Fine Art, an elective. She took a seat at one of the tables and watched the door. Students filed in, including one of the boys from that morning, Anderson.

He came to her table and looked at her for a moment.

“Uh, can I help you?” she asked, only just noticing that he was pretty attractive.

“You’re sitting at my table.”

“Your table?”

“Yes, my table.”

“This is the first day of classes, how can this be your table.”

“I took this class last semester.”

“Right, well whatever, you can share like a good boy or find a different table.”

He assessed her for a moment and then sat down, “I guess I can share a table.”

“How generous of you,”

“Actually, I was only thinking of you. See when I make art I tend to spread out, get messy.”

“Well thanks for the warning.”

“I don’t recognize you, are you new?”

“Yes.”

“Got a name?” he asked, lounging back into his chair.

“Yes.”

“Well what is it?”

“Carmondy.”

“Carmondy? That’s cool, I’m Anderson.” He held a hand out across the table and she shook it. “Where’d you move here from?”

“Maine.”

“Oh yeah? That’s way across the country, this is Washington.” He commented.

“...yeah, I know, I’m not dumb.”

He laughed, “Right, sorry, you’re blond and I was just hanging out with some airhead bleach-blonds.”

“First of all I’m not blond and why would you mix me up with them?” she asked.

Anderson shrugged, “Well, you’re a girl.”

“So?”

“You’re a hot girl?”

“Oh, so I’m hot and that means I’m an airhead.”

“Typically works that way.” He shrugged

“Right,” She rolled her eyes and turned to listen to the teacher talk about the things they were going to be doing this quarter.

“So, Carmondy huh? Do you go by Car for short?” he asked. He obviously wasn’t paying attention to the teacher.

“What’s it to you?”

“Just trying to make conversation here.”

Carmondy sighed, maybe she was kind of being a jerk; she was a little on edge. She didn’t like guys like him, guys that other girls clung to; players. Her last boyfriend had been one. She thought she’d changed him but the second she said she was moving away, he moved on. He didn’t even talk to her about a long distance relationship before he found some random girl from their high school to bang. Eric had been a total jerk but she had never seen it. He got what he wanted out of her by pretending he was someone he wasn’t, she didn’t see the real him until after they’d broken up. Of course she’d been torn up about it. She’d vowed not to trust guys blindly after that.

“Hellooo?” Anderson was trying to get her attention.

“What? Sorry. What did you say?”

“I was saying that I was just trying to make conversation here. Do you have anything short for Carmondy?”

“Yeah, my friends call me Car sometimes.”

They fell silent for a moment as the teacher walked around handing out assessments of some sort.

“That’s cool. Car...yeah, that’s neat.” He nodded.

She was doing her best to be polite, “Yeah, what about you? Anything short for Anderson?”

“Andy, sometimes.” He grinned, “Girls like to call me that.”

“Ah, I see. Your airheads you mean?”

He shook his head and started to fold the assessment into a paper air plane, “No, they call me Anderson. Believe it or not I have some friends that are girls that aren’t dumb.”

“Oh yeah? How did they achieve such a high status?” she said sarcastically.

“They are the girls on the basketball team. You gotta have decent brains to play b-ball.”

“Tell me about it. Memorizing offenses, plays, defenses, zone patterns, presses; full, three quarter and half. Not to mention the act of playing the game itself; gotta be a quick thinker.”

He was taken aback, “You play?”

“I played at my old school, plan on trying out after school today. You play?”

“Yep, varsity point.”

She nodded slowly, giving him a once over, “Yeah, I can see that.”

He laughed, “What do you mean?”

“You’re tall, but not too tall, you look strong enough to play ball but not so big that you lose that speed you need for a point guard.”

“Hmm, okay, gimme a second, I’m gonna guess what position you play.” He took his time looking her over.

“You’re looking at my boobs.”

“So? They’re important too.”

“Important or nice to look at?”

“Both.”

“So it would be okay if I stared at your package all the time?” she asked.

“Of course, normally I would say look but don’t touch, but with you... you can touch all you want.”

She smiled, enjoying the sexual banter.

“This is difficult, you’re not quite tall enough for a center but too tall for a wing or point. So... power forward?”

“You got it.”

“Awesome, I got it right. So you’ve got some ball handling skills?”

“I started varsity every year of high school at my old school but it was way smaller then here so I’m anxious to see how I’m going to match up.”

Anderson nodded, “Yeah, we’ll see. I’ll be watching try-outs today.”

“Really?”

“We try-out right after the girls, normally the guys watch the girls and then the girls stay and watch the guys. We cheer for the girls we want to get varsity but really the coach decides on his own.” He shrugged.

“That’s cool.”

“Hope you’re in shape, the girls' coach is a conditioning maniac.”

“I actually think I’m okay on that front, it’s the other stuff I’m worried about.”

“Well you’ve got some competition; we’ve got four starters returning this year.”

“Four? Really?”

“Yep, we’ve had a young team, they’re good.”

They chatted a little bit more and listened the teacher talk about his grading policies and procedures until the bell rang.

Anderson stood up and pulled out a sleek blank cell phone from his pocket, “Hey what’s your number?”

She recited it for him.

“Got your cell on you?”

“In my locker,”

“Cool, I’m calling you, save my number in your phone.”

“Uh, why exactly?”

He winked, “I like to keep hot girls on speed dial in case I get lonely.”

She grinned, “Awesome, call me. Anytime.” She added the last word huskily and got a laugh from him in response.

“Will do”

-

Lunch soon arrived and Carmondy entered the cafeteria to buy lunch. The food didn’t look half bad so she got a sandwich, apple and a bottle of water. She didn’t even attempt to find a seat in the overcrowded lunch room; she wasn’t up for that right now. Besides, her phone said she had a few missed calls and voicemails, probably some friends from back home and she wanted to listen to them.

She walked her food out to her car which wasn’t too far from the exit. She was happy to find her car unscratched after just the few hours in the high school parking lot. Once she was situated in her Jeep she saved the unknown number as Anderson and started listening to her voicemails, the first was from her dad, letting her know that snowfall was expected in the afternoon. Carmondy looked out her window, up at the sky and sure enough she could see clouds moving in from over the mountain. The next message was from her ex-boyfriend, he was spouting a bunch of shit about missing her and saying he had made a mistake but she deleted it before the message was even finished; she wasn’t interested in his bull shit. The last message was from her friend back in Maine, just checking in, letting her know she was missed and all the stuff.

Carmondy ended the voicemails and hit her friend’s number on speed dial. She took a bite of her sandwich as a Nickelback song played as a ring-back tone. Her friend answered after a couple rings, “Hey Sarah!... everything’s okay so far... yeah, yeah, I know, I miss home and you guys too, how is the team?... you guys will be okay without me... I have faith.” They talked for a good twenty minutes until a loud knock on her window scared the crap out of her, causing her to spill her water all over jeans.

“Jesus Christ! No, not you, sorry,” Anderson was outside of her window, laughing his ass off, “I’ll call you later okay? Yep, bye.”

Carmondy hopped out of her Jeep and quickly and tried to brush some of the water off of her pants. “What the hell?”

Anderson was too busy laughing to respond.

“Thanks a lot,” Carmondy said. Now she looked like she had wet herself and there was no way it was going to dry in time for her next class.

Anderson finally gained enough composure to talk, “Oh my god that was hilarious.”

She rolled her eyes, “Yeah, funny.” She reached into the back of her jeep to find her duffel bag with extra clothes in it. She pulled out a pair of sweats and looked around the parking lot, they were pretty much alone and surrounded by cars.

“Go away,” She said to the boy who was still working on catching his breath.

“What?”

“Go away. I’m going to change my pants.”

“Shouldn’t you go inside or something?”

“Yeah, and walk through the school like this? I don’t think so.”

“Do it in your car then.” He said.

“What the hell to you care? Besides, have you ever tried to change clothes inside a Jeep Wrangler? I’m sure it’s not easy. Just go stand over there.”

He went and stood in front of her Jeep and she quickly pulled her jeans off behind the door. Anderson pretended to peek but she knew he couldn’t see anything because the door was in the way. She pulled her sweats on and tossed her jeans over the passenger seat of the Jeep to dry.

Anderson came back around the Jeep and nodded approvingly, “Rainbow striped, very cute.”

“What?” she asked.

“Your underwear,”

She gasped, “What the hell? Do you have like x-ray vision or something?”

He just smirked and pointed behind her where the very large, side mirror of a pickup had given him the view.

“You’re a pervert.”

“You’re the one changing it a parking lot. Your ass was free game.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Oh don’t get you’re rainbow panties in a bunch, you obviously don’t care that much.”

“How would you know?”

“You didn’t blush or anything, you’re fine. You’re just pretending to be offended.”

She thought about it for a moment, was he right? She wasn’t big on being mad just because of ‘the principle of the thing’

“Besides, your ass is nothing to ashamed of, it’s quite nice.”

“Whatever perv,”

He shrugged, “Did you get my missed call? Save my number?”

“Yes, I did, but that was before you peeping tom-ed me.”

“I can moon you if it will make you feel better.”

“Gross. No thank you,”

“Well consider it a standing offer.”

“Right,”

“What were you sitting in your car for anyways?”

“I had to listen to my voicemails and make a call.”

“Boyfriend checking up on you?” he asked.

“Ex-boyfriend, and yes, he left me a voicemail.”

“Ah, ex huh? So you’re unattached?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Good, I don’t like wooing other guy’s girls.”

“Wooing?”

“Yeah, you know, seduce you.”

“This is you trying to seduce me?”

“Not yet, like is said before, when I get lonely I’ll let you know, okay? Just hang tight until then.”

She cocked an eye brow, “Right, well I’ll do that then, thanks for the heads up.”

“No problem. Come on, we should probably be getting to class.”

She grabbed her keys and cell phone and they walked into the school together.

-

The rest of the day passed quickly and before she knew it she was in the locker room getting changed for try outs. There were lots of girls around her but she didn’t know any of them. She changed quickly and then walked to the gym with her basketball shoes in hand. She saw Anderson a ways down the hall chatting with his friend, Beck. Anderson was laughing about something and Beck appeared to be smiling but she couldn’t tell; she had yet to see his face look anything but expressionless.

The gym was a really nice gym. The hardwood had recently been refinished and it shined in the bright lights hanging from the ceilings. The lines were painted in magenta and the key was painted in with navy blue. There was a huge bulldog painted in the center of the court as well.

She hopped up onto the edge of the stage and loosened the laces on her shoes. They were her shoes from last season, she had new ones but the first day of practice was definitely not a good day to break them in.

Girls started coming in the door, she could tell that a few were sophomore and younger, then a pack of four came in and she knew right away these were the four returning starters from last year that Anderson had told her about.

The girls walked right by her, a couple sent her looks that she couldn’t really identify. They took up residence several yards down, a couple sat on the stage like she was and the other two just leaned against it as they talked. Two of the girls were tall; one was probably almost 6 foot while the other one was closer to 5’10. They were undoubtedly the two centers. The other two girls were average height but one of them seemed to have leadership quality, like the head of the group, she guessed it was the point guard.

Carmondy tried not to look at them because they were still sending her funny looks, she didn’t want to get on their bad side; she had enough problems with teamwork as it was.

A few minutes later one of the girls approached her, it was the blonde on that she had guessed as point guard.

“Hey.” She said, brushing her bangs out of her eyes.

“Hi.”

“You’re new right?”

“Yep, I’m Carmondy.” She stuck out her hand and the other girl shook it.

“Kendall. Are you any good? What position?”

“I played on varsity at my old school but it wasn’t anywhere near this level. I like to play power forward but I can play post against short teams or even wing if I need to, but my three point percentage ain’t that hot.”

Kendall nodded and surveyed her body, “I saw you earlier today, I think we have a class together, I couldn’t tell then but you’re built, like ripped hard core, you must lift, are you as in shape as you look?”

“Yes, actually, my cardio stamina is pretty much the only thing I’m confident about right now.” She said truthfully.

The other girl nodded, “Fair enough, I guess we’ll find out what you can do pretty quick huh?”

Carmondy nodded and glanced over at the other girls.

“Ah, don’t worry about them. They just don’t really like to welcome new comers until they can see what they can do on the court.”

Carmondy shrugged, “I’m not trying to get into anyone’s clique.”

Kendall paused and cocked her head, “In sports it’s not called a clique. It’s called a team.”

Carmondy blinked, had she just called the team a clique? She hadn’t meant it to be offensive but it dawned on her that the other girl was totally right, that was un-called for, “Yeah... sorry, you’re right, I don’t know why I said that.”

“I’d think you would know that if you’ve ever played on a team before.”

Carmondy had put thought into the team dynamics at her old high school. There wasn’t any cohesiveness to them, except for Sarah they didn’t hang out together. They didn’t particularly get along, they didn’t know each other very well and it wasn’t a very good team at all. She knew that that was something she really needed to work on; being a team player, “The only team’s I’ve ever played on haven’t been very team-oriented, I guess that’s something I really need to work on.”

“Yep, at least if you want to be a part of this team; good luck.” Kendall went back over to the other girls. She actually sounded sincere.

-

Practice was... an experience for her; she had never been around so many players that were so talented. She was used to carrying her team, but now she was at the bottom of the food chain. During the conditioning she kept up just fine, she was in the front of the pack for most of the time actually. But she had a harder time keeping up during the drills and an even harder time during the 2-on-3 or scrimmaging. Everyone on the team but her were in a rhythm, they knew exactly when to pass and when to expect passes, they seemed to speak to each other without using words. It was baffling to Carmondy, she found the ball flying at her when she was looking in the other direction and being yelled at for not passing the ball when it was called for. She didn’t know the offense so she just kind of went with the flow even though she knew she was getting it wrong, she was pretty much on level with the freshmen even though she was a senior.

Throughout practice the boys up in the balcony would cheer for the players they liked, they didn’t use their name; they used the numbers on the practice jerseys the coach had given them. Her number was 15 and she heard a very distinct voice cheering for her often, especially during sprints when she was kicking everyone else’s asses, it was Anderson of course. She wasn’t sure if she liked the attention being drawn to her but in the end decided that it couldn’t hurt.

By the end of practice her body was moderately tired and her brain, even more so, from trying to sort out the plays and positions. She took a big gulp of water as they crowded around the coach to see what he had to say.

“Nice first practice ladies, I see a lot of potential here. I’ll have the results for Varsity and JV posted in about half an hour if you want to stick around, the boys were cheering for you and it would be a nice gesture if you hung around and cheered for them. I don’t have much else to say to you except make sure to stretch some time tonight so you’re not too sore in the morning. You are free to go except numbers 32, 28 and 15; I would like to talk to you, in that order. 28 and 15 if you don’t mind putting the balls away, the guys are coming onto the court.”

The coach and number 32, Kendall, went to the corner of the gym while Car and number 28, a red haired girl, gathered up the balls and walked them to the storage closet.

The boys began flooding into the gym as soon as the majority of the girls were out, Car found herself trapped in the closet, trying to put the girl’s balls in the rack while boys were trying to squeeze past her to get to the boy’s basketballs.

Car was trapped between one guy that was wearing way too much cologne and another who had apparently already started sweating. The closet was way too small for this.

“Get out! Get out!” She shooed the boys out of the handed them each a ball, satisfied when they walked off. More guys came and rather than trying to get out of the closet again and get trapped she just continued handing out balls to guys since they came one after the other.

Anderson appeared in line and laughed, “No wonder! I couldn’t figure out why the line was so orderly. Normally we just all dive in and wrestle for the balls. Whatcha doin in there?”

“I got trapped.” She handed him and ball and then another to the guy behind him, “The coach wants to talk to me.”

“Cool, cool,” he squeezed into the closet with her as more guys came for balls, he smelled nice.

“What are you doing? Go away.”

“This is my practice. My closet,” He said, leaning again the wall, “Anyways, if you don’t make the team you can always be our ball-girl.”

A blond haired boy she didn’t know looked excited, “Yeah! I want a hot ball-girl! We can all do her on those long bus rides.”

Anderson laughed and Car looked disgusted.

The boy was pushed out of the way abruptly and Beck appeared in front of the closet.

He shot a weird look at Anderson as he took a ball from Car and walked away without acknowledging her.

“Isn’t he just full of sunshine?” She asked sarcastically and watched him walk away; his long basketball shorts swayed from side to side as he casually dribbled his ball between his legs.

“Oh yes, you caught him on a happy day too. Hey! Stop drooling.”

She snapped her head back, “What? I’m not drooling.”

“You were staring.”

“Was not, gross.”

“Whatever. Don’t let me catch you looking at him,” he joked, “I want to do the new girl first, he can have my sloppy seconds.”

Her jaw dropped as he smacked her ass lightly before walking out of the closet, “Hey!” she charged out of the closet and meant to give him a piece of her mind but she then found herself surrounded by a bunch of insanely tall boys, all looking at her like, ‘what are you gonna do about it?’.

She shot him a dirty look and he just smirked back at her before turning to swish a 3-pointer.

She looked up and number 28 was walking away from their coach so she headed his way. When she reached him he looked down at her paper as if looking for her identity.

“Ms. Hamilton?”

“Yep,” Sir? Should she call him sir? He was young, early 30’s, it seemed weird calling him sir, the rest of the girls had just called him ‘coach’ or ‘Winters’.

“What I observed during today’s preliminary practice was that you have next to no understanding of the word team. I understand that you are new here and I don’t expect you to know our plays but this is more than that. You have no chemistry with this team, no non-verbal communication.”

She nodded, non-verbal communication sounded hard.

“However, as I’m sure you know, you are extremely quick and fast. You beat my fastest girl from last year on almost every sprint. Also your cardio leaves nothing to be desired, I would love to have all my girls on your level. I could really use a power forward with your speed right now, a big part of our game plan is our fast break and you would be an amazing addition to that line up. You have skills and you have talent but that is only about 50% of this game. The other 50% is your teamwork; knowing your team mates and them being able to trust you, as well. I keep team-work on a very high pedestal for this team.”

“I understand.” She said.

“So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to post you as on varsity, we have two weeks before our first game and within that time I want to see some serious improvement from you. I encourage you to make friends with the girls on and off the court, I want to see you putting an effort in during practice, I want to see you on Sundays for group shoot around with the boys and I would also like to see you enroll in my PE class second period, what do you have then?”

“Art, it’s just an elective though, I’m sure I could switch.”

He nodded, “Many players do switch, it is pretty much an un-spoken basketball class for varsity players, I think it will do you some serious good scrimmaging with lots of other players. Now, if I see enough improvement I will put you on the starting line-up for our first game.”

Car’s heart rate shot up.

“But, if I don’t see as much improvement as I want I will bump you down to JV for playing time. I really don’t want to do that because your skill level is above that and it’s not fair to the other JV girls either, but I will if I have too.”

She nodded again, “I understand, I’m going to work really hard at the teamwork thing. It’s new to me but I’m going to do my best.”

“Good, that’s what I want to hear. I would also suggest sticking around for the guy’s practice like the rest of the girls, it will give you chance to get to know them and you can observe the boys team, they have amazing team skills. Now get lost.” He dismissed her and Carmondy jogged out of the gym, skirting around Anderson who ‘accidentally’ stepped into her path.

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Let me know what you think!