Swish

Timeout - Eli

"Fuck."

Curses and laughter followed my expletive, though I usually didn't cuss during practice. This was an exception.

Patrick extended a hand down to help pull me up to my feet, a shock of copper tinted hair falling into his eyes, but instead of taking his hand in my grip, I waved him off.  I didn't need his help.  I'd fallen, it wasn't like I'd been fucking injured. 

I had a hard time taking other people's help.  Sue me.

"You alright, man?"

"Yeah," I said, wiping the salty sweat out of my eyes with the back of my forearm.  In reality, that fall hurt like shit, but I wasn't about to let him know that.  I didn't do well with showing others my weaknesses, least of all my teammates.  I knew all too well how they could turn on you on a dime.  It was better to stay closed off to everyone.  Less of a chance to get hurt that way, anyway.

"Alright, whatever you say.  I'm going to stick around and wait on Maddie, but-"

"Okay cool.  I'm hitting the showers," I ground out just as I finally managed to get myself up to my feet. By myself.

I took a calculating glance around the court to see who else had stuck it out as long as I had with Patrick and realized that we were the last ones to finish our workout.  I always made sure I was the last out.  Making captain wasn't because I was good with people, it was because I worked the hardest, wanted it the most, always did what it took to win. 

My eyes almost skipped over Maddie, never wanting to look at her too long in case Patrick thought I was making eyes at his girl, but that time, I was glad that I allowed myself a longer cursory glance.

If I hadn't, I would've missed her entirely.

She was openly staring at me, which did more for my ego than it should have, but a girl that beautiful staring at me like I was a piece of meat, when it should've been me looking at her that way?  Definitely a pride boost for sure.

Beautifully sculpted features, long, dark hair and a generous, full figure with a bigger chest than most girls in our school, I couldn't believe how I hadn't come across her before.  It wasn't like our campus was that big...

I threw her a smirk, noticing she hadn't torn her eyes from me, and just for show I pretended to be overheated, throwing my sticky shirt off my sweaty frame and -just to see what she'd do- grabbed my water bottle and let it drip down my head onto my body.

I was almost to the point of laughing until Maddie snapped her fingers in front of her face and called her by her name.  Virginia.  Huh.  Wondered if she was a virgin...

I rolled my eyes at myself.  Why did my thoughts have to be so immature? 

Plus, getting involved with a girl that beautiful wouldn't be good for me.  At all. 

I needed to focus on the game, focus on getting in good with Coach Bruins, and impressing his entire family so that he'd be willing to take me on.  My last coach had spread the wrong word about me when I hadn't had the chance to defend myself and, let's just say that things got ugly after the incident at my old school.

I didn't want to think about him, though.  I'd survived, and I wasn't going back to that kid that I used to be.  Once May rolled around, I would be eligible for the draft and I'd leave this shithole of Miami and be on to bigger and better things.  My agent had said that the Knicks were keeping their eye on me, so all I had to do was wait it out and hope that since Coach Bruins was in a wheelchair that he couldn't do nearly the same amount of damage as my last coach had...