Sex, Love, and Basketball *Books 1 and 2* (Slowly Editing)

33. First Fights and First Dates (Part 1)

I reluctantly got up and opened my door. Jade was mid knock, but let her hand fall to her side when she saw me.

"Finally. You're this close to making me take my date offer back." Jade said showing me the tiny space between her index finger and thumb.

"Fuck your date offer and fuck you." I said going back over to my bed.

"I figured you'd want the date first, but I'm fine with getting straight to it." Jade said putting her stuff on her side of the room and then walking towards mine.

"Do not come to my side. There is an imaginary line and if you cross it, I will give Jayla the go ahead to beat your ass." I threatened and Jade laughed.

"I never got to thank her." She said crossing the imaginary line like she didn't care about possibly getting her ass kicked for it.

"For what?" I asked narrowing my eyes at Jade as she sat on my bed.

"For beating the shit out of Alexis and Naomi. My team mates have been giving me hell since they found out I was coming here. I told one person and she went blabbing to the whole team. None of them fuck with me anymore. But those two gave me hell far before all of this. They're homophobic pieces of shit. This just added fuel to the fire." Jade huffed and I frowned.

"What did they do to you?" I asked curiously. I know homophobia hasn't died, but I figured the least college age people could do was mind their own damn business.

"Mainly talking shit and being unnecessarily rough at practices. They also did childish shit like hide my shoes from me before games, sneak my uniform out of the wash pile, so it wouldn't get cleaned before games, put itching powder in my shorts, and other things. They're bullies and way too old to be doing the stuff they did. And they did it all because I'm gay. Like what's the big fucking deal and what does it have to do with them?" Jade asked. She looked like just talking about it made her upset.

"You didn't deserve that." was all I could come up with, but it seemed to be enough because Jade smiled.

"And you didn't deserve them coming at you like that. I'm sorry about all of that. I'm especially sorry that it cost you the trip to Nationals. I don't know how the game would have turned out had you and Jayla not been ejected, but I know that your team didn't get a fair shot without you two."

Okay, I can't act like her apologizing didn't make me dislike her a little less,
but it's still gonna take time.

"Thanks, but that wasn't really your fault either. I've been blaming you for it, but you didn't make them do that." I admitted. "Besides the team still held their own without us. You guys only beat us by one point."

Jade nodded her head in agreement.

"Look, I know I didn't make a great first impression. But I really want us to start over. Like aside from everything, we're going to be teammates and roommates and I don't want there to be any bad blood between us. Can we just start over?" Jade asked and I thought about it for a second. Hating her won't benefit either of us and more importantly, it could hurt the team. I'm not one to hold grudges anyway.

"Sure."

"Good, so since we're starting over I technically never broke your ankle which means you don't have a reason not to go on a date with me." Jade smiled and I rolled my eyes.