Anderson was outside her window, laughing his ass off.
Carmondy hopped out of her Jeep and quickly tried to brush some of the water off 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. She pulled out a pair of sweats and looked around the parking lot. They were alone and surrounded by cars.
“Go away,” she said to Anderson, who was still working on catching his breath.
“What?”
“Go away. I’m going to change my pants.”
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. 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 and nodded approvingly. “Rainbow-striped. Very cute.”
“What?” she asked.
“Your underwear.”
She gasped. “What the hell? Do you have 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 in a parking lot. Your ass was free game.”
“Whatever, perv.”
He shrugged. “Did you get my missed call? Save my number?”
“Yes, I did, but that was before I knew you were a Peeping Tom.”
“I can moon you, if it will make you feel better.”
“Gross. No, thank you.”
“Well, consider it a standing offer.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Right.”
“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 tryouts. There were lots of girls around but she didn’t know any of them. She changed quickly and walked to the gym with her basketball shoes in hand. She saw Anderson down the hall. He was chatting with his hot friend, Beck. Anderson was laughing about something. Beck appeared to be smiling but she couldn’t tell. She had yet to see his face look anything but expressionless.
The gym was nice. The hardwood had recently been refinished and it shone in the bright lights. A huge bulldog was painted at center court.
She hopped onto the edge of the stage and loosened her shoelaces. These 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 a few were sophomores or even younger. Then a pack of four came in, and she knew right away that these were the four returning starters from last year.
The girls walked right by her. A couple sent her looks she couldn’t really identify. They took up residence several yards down. A couple sat on the stage, and the other two leaned against it as they talked. Two of the girls were tall. One was probably almost six foot, while the other one was only a few inches shorter. One of them had to be the center. The other two girls were average height but one of them seemed to have leadership qualities. Carmondy guessed she was the point guard.
Carmondy tried not to look at them. They were still sending her funny looks, and she didn’t want to get on their bad side. She had enough problems with teamwork as it was.
A few minutes later, the blonde she had guessed was point guard approached her. “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. 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 hardcore. 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,” Carmondy 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 newcomers until they 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 hadn’t meant her comment to be offensive but it dawned on her that the other girl was totally right. It had been uncalled for. “Yeah, sorry. 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, they didn’t particularly get along, and they didn’t know each other very well off the court. “The only teams 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.
As tryouts started, Carmondy was blown away. She had never been around so many talented players. 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, but she had a hard time keeping up during the drills and an even harder time during the two-on-three or scrimmaging. Everyone on the team was in a rhythm except her. They knew exactly when to pass and when to expect passes, seeming to speak to each other without using words. It was baffling to Carmondy, who 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 a 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 names, just the numbers on the practice jerseys the coach had given them. Her number was fifteen, and she heard a very distinct voice cheering for her, 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 only moderately tired but her brain was fried 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. Make sure to stretch sometime 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 girls’ balls in the rack while the boys were trying to squeeze past her to get to the boys’ basketballs.
Car was trapped between a guy 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 and then handed them each a ball, satisfied when they walked off. 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 all just dive in and wrestle for the balls. Whatcha doin’ in there?”
“I got trapped.” She handed him a ball and 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 leaned against the wall. “Anyway, 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 gave a disgusted shake of her head.
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. His long basketball shorts swayed from side to side as he casually dribbled his ball between his legs. She couldn’t help but feel disappointed that he hadn’t spoken to her.
“Oh yes, you caught him on a happy day. 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 found herself surrounded by a bunch of insanely tall boys, all looking at her.
She shot him a dirty look, but he just smirked back at her before turning to swish a three-pointer.
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 thirties, and 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. Your cardio is fantastic. 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 talent but that is only about half of this game. The other half is teamwork; knowing your teammates and them being able to trust you, as well. I keep teamwork 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 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?”
“It’s just an elective. I’m sure I could switch.”
He nodded. “Many players do switch. It’s pretty much an unspoken basketball class for varsity players. I think it will do you some serious good to scrimmage 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 to.”
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 guys’ practice like the rest of the girls. It will give you a chance to get to know them and you can observe the boys’ team. They have amazing team skills. Now get lost.” He smiled as he dismissed her.
Carmondy headed upstairs to the balcony with the rest of the girls. If Coach hadn’t mentioned it to her, she probably would have just gone home, but she figured it was only fair that she stayed. Like he said, it would give her a chance to examine teamwork and bond with the other girls at the same time.
The girls all looked at her when she reached the balcony. She waved awkwardly but then did her best to put the awkwardness aside and be confident. “Hey, guys. Good practice, huh?” She approached them casually.
After a moment, Kendall nodded. “Yeah, you gonna watch the boys? Come on over, sit down.”
Carmondy was excited. This was the core group of girls, the backbone of the girls’ team.
“Have you met the girls yet?” Kendall asked. “This is Torie and Sydney. They’re posts, obviously, and that’s Alli, a wing.”
They all nodded at her politely but looked more interested in the practice going on below them.