Page 42 of End Game

So if I happen to have a sex dream about my best friend the night I sleep beside him in his bed… totally not a big deal. It’s not the first time. It probably won’t be the last. If I happen to come alive at the feeling of his thick dick pressing into me and imagining he was pressing into me…

“A few of us are going out to McRory’s tonight,” Emma says. She’s my partner on the defensive side more often than not. We don’t talk much off the field. “You want to come?”

Are they only being nice to me because they think I hooked up with someone last night? Maybe. Am I going to look a gift horse in the mouth? Hell to the no.

“Sure, I’m down,” I say casually.

Fully dressed, we head to the gym for weights. Today is lower body, so squats galore. I like squats. I would much rather work out lower body than upper body. Our workout is written on the whiteboard. Our practice facility is connected to the indoor tennis court and the natatorium, so we share the weights room with them. Only a few sports are lucky enough to have their own personal weight rooms, like football.

There are a few straggling swimmers finishing up their cardio. One tennis player, so identified by the Newton Tennis on her shirt, is doing bicep curls. For the most part, we work out as a team during the season—once the season has ended, as long as we log our assigned workouts, they don’t care when we do them so long as we do them.

Emma nods at me. “Partners?”

“Sure.”

I can spot her if she wants. Normally I get someone who clearly doesn’t want to help me spot. It would be dangerous to try to lift two hundred pounds over my head without someone there to help me if I need to bail.

Lifting weights is—well, it’s not exactly easy, but it’s something I’m capable of. I can lift, I can bench, I can squat. I’m strong, both physically and mentally. I’ve been working out for a long time. This is something I am capable of, no matter what team is on my jersey or if I’ve made friends yet.

Emma and I cycle through the rotations Coach has set up. They’re all exercises I’ve done before. None of this is new, even if the sequences are different and the weights are heavier. A squat is a squat is a squat.

We don’t chitchat. She has on her giant headphones and chomps on her gum, bobbing her head to whatever song is playing.

I don’t know much about her. She’s a junior, originally from Colorado, and is allergic to nuts, same as I am—we get special allergen stickers on our sandwiches when we have travel games. I know nothing of substance about her as a person. She’s a decent defensive player. I don’t hate playing alongside her.

There isn’t any room for me at Johanna’s table in the social hierarchy. I’m not a yes girl, that’s not me. The other defensive players haven’t exactly been welcoming. Lukewarm, perhaps. I don’t hold it against them. It’s hard to let someone new into the fold, I get that. Still, I think maybe this could be my ticket into the cool kids’ club. Wearing a guy’s shirt to practice? Fuck, I could steal half of Barrett’s closet and he wouldn’t notice—he’d probably give them to me if I told them what I wanted them for.

I want friends. My own friends, not just his. I want to prove I belong here, that I deserve to be here. I’m more than just Barrett’s friend; I’m my own person, and I have contributions to make.

McRory’s pub is a casual, laid back bar that serves amazing food. Barrett has brought me here a few times. Somehow, it is both the definition of a raucous college bar and a laid-back local pub at the same time. The staff know their regulars and treat all of the college kids as if they are regulars, too.

There are eight of us out tonight—Mischa is a freshman and underage, so while she can get in, she can’t drink, and it’s not fun to be surrounded by people drinking when forced to abstain.

“Fuck, girl, I wish you were in our house,” Emma says.

This makes me raise my eyebrows. She’s been perfunctorily kind, but she hasn’t gone out of her way to engage with me off the field.

“Defense should stick together,” Ashton chimes in.

Quickly I do the math. There are eight of us. There are six bedrooms in each house in Athlete’s Village. That means one of them isn’t in the defense house.

“I’m in with the goaltenders and two forwards, we’re all sophomores and juniors,” Terri says. “Robin was in an overflow house last year—she was with me and some people from other teams—but she wanted to bunk in with the seniors this year.”

I wonder why. She doesn’t go out of her way to engage with Johanna or her minions. She doesn’t really talk to me. She keeps to herself.

Maybe she’s just an introvert. Maybe she’s shy. Maybe she hates us. I won’t know unless I ask her directly, and I’m not sure I want to open that door.

The waitress delivers our drinks and I take a sip of my vodka soda. I’m not trying to get drunk, I only want to have a good time.

The girls talk about people I don’t know and events I wasn’t invited to, maybe because they were before my tenure here. I don’t think they’re purposefully trying to exclude me, not like Johanna and Rachel, Rebecca, and Robin have.

“We should make this a regular thing,” Emma says out of the blue. She tips her head in my direction. “You should come out with us more often.”

“I don’t think I can go out drinking every Monday night,” I admit. I’m already a little worried about what tomorrow will bring.

She laughs. “We can go out on other nights, too.”

I want to ask why this is the first time they’re really talking to me outside of practice. We’ve played in two games and had one overnight road trip. Nobody talked to me then outside of the bare minimum. At meals, I sat with Johanna and her minions as they ignored me, and during our free time, not one person suggested doing something together.