Chapter Forty-one
“What does one wear to a game?”
Lily spun herself around on Severine’s computer chair. “Well, not a clubbing outfit. I’ll tell you that much.”
“You’re not helping.”
Lily stopped spinning and pointed to Severine’s body. “Just wear that. It might be Thayer’s best game to date.”
Severine didn’t even bother looking down at her bra and jeans. Her fingers rifled through each hanger as she talked. “You’re in a chipper mood.”
“Correct! I am. And you know why?”
Severine turned and raised an eyebrow.
Lily hopped off the chair without falling over, “My best friend, who, by the way, has sworn to never attend any sport activities, has now decided to go to a basketball game. It makes me more than curious.”
“I never swore not to go to games. I just said I’d rather not.”
Lily moved next to her and started moving hangers around. “I think your exact words were that you’d rather watch the Antique Roadshow than ever go to any game. Ever.”
“What. Do you record our conversations secretly or something?” Severine asked sarcastically, and held a black turtleneck against her body.
“Uh, please don’t wear that. Are you going to a poetry reading after this?” Severine took Lily’s brutal advice and hung the sweater back in her closet.
“So you’ve lifted the ban of attending sports games. You don’t think I’m just a little curious?”
Severine silently held out a white v-neck, button up sweater. Lily nodded her approval. “Please. Let’s not pretend there’s any other reason for me going other than Thayer,” Severine finally muttered.
“Wow. I didn’t think you’d admit it so quickly.”
Severine lifted both shoulders in a shrug and sifted through her makeup. “Well, I’m evolving, ever-changing, if you will.”
“And soooo...when the game ends? You’re just going to leave the game and be on your merry way?”
Severine shook her head no and paused to stare at Lily. “I would tell you, but you flapped your jaw to Anne.”
“It was an accident! It came out of my mouth before I could stop it.”
“I’m not telling you anything anymore.” It was a weak warning. Severine knew she’d tell everything to Lily.
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I just need to know what’s going on.”
Severine sat down on her bed and put on her ankle boots. “He wants to meet after the game.”
Lily slowly grinned. “And are you gonna?”
With one shoe still in her hand, Severine pointed a finger at her. “Okay. That! That right there!”
Lily’s eyes went wide, and she smiled curiously. “What are you talking about?”
“That smile. When I mention Thayer and me together, you’re supposed to tell me that this is completely messed up and that I need to walk in the other direction.”
“Maybe I don’t think that you should walk in the other direction,” Lily pointed out.
“What do you think I should do?”
“Don’t ask me. I’m not a Magic 8 ball. I have no answers for you.”
Severine tried to envision a boring night without seeing Thayer. It wasn’t going to happen, at least not tonight. “I’m seeing him,” Severine said with a quick nod of the head.
“My opinion wouldn’t have mattered, would it?”
Severine smiled. “Probably not.”
* * * * *
“Ugh,” Severine groaned out. “The noise. I’m already getting a headache.”
“Pipe down, will you?” Lily squeezed her body through their row, toward their seats, carrying a pile of candy and popcorn. She tossed the candy at Severine. “I got you some DOTS. I figured that’d shut you up.”
Severine caught them with one hand and grinned. “Thanks.”
“But I swear, if you complain once, or tell me you wanna go, I’ll take them away.”
Severine ripped open the box and looked around the building. It was massive. Around them sat thousands of people. And when Severine said thousands, she meant thousands. “Why are there so many people here? There are way too many people on the Earth. And is this seriously a gym where they play basketball all the time?”
Lily made a funny face at Severine. “This isn’t a gym, genius. It’s an effin Arena. Did the banner above our heads that says, ‘Welcome to Rosen Arena,’ not tip you off? Also, stop being such a freak. If you keep making odd comments about the world’s population, people are going to start thinking you’re a Unabomber.”
“I’m not weird! This is just so many people. It’s too much.”
“The game hasn’t even started, and you’re already complaining.”
“Leave me to my DOTS, then.”
Lily threw a piece of popcorn in the air to catch with her mouth. It hit the old man in front of them. Lily ignored his glare and ate her food like a normal human. “I’m just familiar with your work. We’ll be here for an hour, and you’ll be all, ‘Oh, my butt hurts, let’s go.’ Or, ‘Why is this so long?’ I’m staying for Ben, and that’s that.”
“No, I’ve only complained when it came to football. The movie Titanic is quicker to watch than that sport.”
Lily nodded her head to the music blaring from the speakers. “So true. Cut an hour off the game and I might watch it.”
Severine held her fist out for Lily to hit back. “This is why I love you.”
“So does Thayer know you’re here?”
“Nope.”
“Are you trying to be incognito?”
“Kind of.”
“Then you should’ve thought of that before you chose to sit next to me. We’re in the fourth row, my friend. He’s gonna notice you.”
“He might be one of those really intense players.”
“Maybe. Or maybe...shh!” Lily whacked Severine’s thigh like she was the one talking. “Warm up time. This deserves my full concentration.”
A sarcastic retort was ready to pass through Severine’s lips, but she turned her attention to the court and stared along with Lily. On the right side of the court stood Thayer, next to his teammates.
Severine’s smile was faint as she watched him stand in line. He moved toward the basket to catch the rebound. He jumped higher than Severine ever could, and firmly held the ball in his hands before passing it off and running to the opposite line. Everything around him was invisible, as his eyes were focused and completely in the zone. With his hands on his hips, Severine took in the long sleeve shirt that had their University on the front and his number, fifty-five. Above it was the name Sloan.
Part of her smile died off when she saw that she wasn’t the only one noticing him. A few of the cheerleaders on the side pointed at him. She didn’t have to wonder what they were saying. She had probably said it herself. The possessive side of her wanted to stand and point out that she knew more of him than they ever would. She kept still and bounced her legs up and down with anger.
“What’s up with them?”
Lily leaned on Severine’s shoulder and kept her face on the court. “Who?”
“Those.” Severine flung her hand towards the cheerleaders. “It’s like slut-a-palooza over there.”
“Oh.” Lily rolled her eyes. “Yeah, they’re always at games. I say we get some male cheerleaders that rah-rah around shirtless with baby oil on their chest.”
A random girl in front of them leaned back. “I’d agree to that.”
“I’m such a genius,” Lily muttered.
A buzzer loudly went off, and the teams went to their side of the court, opposite of each other. Thayer took off his warm up shirt and tossed it on the chair behind him. His back was to her as he listened to his coach speak.
Everyone rose around her. Cheering and shouts rang around the room as the announcer’s voice came through the speakers to announce the starting players. Thayer sat in his seat, waiting for his name to be called. Severine wanted to shout out that she was behind him, here to watch him. Instead, she squelched her anxiousness and listened to his name being called.
“And now, our very own starting center forward.” The crowd surged with more cheers, and the student body sections jumped up and down. Severine clapped her hands in front of her, slowly getting into the spirit. “At six-foot-nine, Thayer Sloan!”
He ran through the line of his teammates and met the rest of the starting four on the court.
Everyone started shouting and chanting as the refs walked onto the court. Thayer rubbed the bottom of his shoes and solemnly kept his focus on the court.
Severine watched alongside everyone else as the referee threw the ball in the air, between the two players. Thayer caught it with his palm and aimed in the direction of his teammates. Severine stood, without even knowing, for the first time at any game.
* * * * *
“Ohhh.” Lily bounced back and forth on her legs.
Severine looked over the shoulder of the person in front of her, to look at the court. She spoke distractedly. “What are you doing, Lily?”
“I have to pee like a freakin’ race horse.”
“Go to the bathroom.”
A teammate of Thayer’s made a shot. Applause and whistles rang everywhere.
Lily groaned and squeezed her thighs tightly together. “I can’t do that. The line to most ladies rooms is ridic. The line at an Arena? It’s nuckin’ futs. I’d rather squat down and pee in my cup.”
“That’s what you get for buying a drink the size of a Big Gulp. You also go pee a lot. Are you sure you don’t have a bladder the size of a Skittle?”
“This game can’t end fast enough.”
“I’m staying for Ben, and that’s that,” Severine announced in a nasally voice. “Do you remember saying that?”
“That was before my bladder was being crushed like a freakin’ pancake.”
“Well, there’s a minute left. Hang tight, and in the meantime, think of a waterfall streaming down toward a large ocean.”
“Can it!” Lily snarled.
Severine smiled and looked at the basketball court. The whole game she was able to sit back and watch Thayer unaware. It gave her a thrill to see Thayer on the court, to watch him do something with such talent.
A player from the opposite team passed the ball to his teammate. Thayer snatched the ball in mid-air and took off dribbling toward the other basket. When he moved closer, he jumped, turned slightly, and his hands hung onto the rim as the ball went through the net.
Severine stared with wide eyes as he jumped back down. The crowd screamed, and Severine smirked with pride. He turned and pointed his finger straight at her.
Her blood felt frozen, and she felt like she had just been caught.
A smile was on his face as he ran back down the court. Not once did his eyes leave her face. “Uh...is he pointing at you?” Lily asked. Her bladder issue was forgotten as Thayer drew attention away from the game and toward a spectator.
She knew she was the spectator, but the people rows up and across the floor didn’t know. Her heart beat wildly, as a woman in front of her smiled up at Severine with a look that said, ‘Well, aren’t you two just the cutest.’ Severine wanted to kill him, but it was a fleeting feeling, not with the happiness rushing through her.