It’s so surreal to watch your best friend, the person who’s had your back since the day you picked up sticks, to move up like that. The video call pops up onscreen, and Jordan speaks on receiving the opportunity to do right by the sport of lacrosse, and finding the passion to proceed forward. If anyone deserves it, it’s definitely her.

The first round flies by, and before we know it, we’re on the eighth pick, last of the round. Every limb in my body feels like it’s full of lead.

‘On the clock now are the New Haven Woodchucks.’

‘Holy shit.’ Colt’s flipping out next to me, basically hyperventilating. ‘The Chucks are picking. Okay, May. No pressure. No pressure.’

‘You look like you’re the one waiting on the draft, not me.’ I slug him in the arm, but he’s the outward manifestation of all the anxiety zooming around inside my body right now. The next four minutes are agony as we wait for the announcer to declare the Woodchucks’ pick.

My eyes are squeezed shut. I decide I’m going to rely on my sense of sound. I can’t look. Mumma’s hands knead the tension in my shoulders as the announcer clears his throat.

‘With the eighth and final first-round pick in the 2025 Women’s MLL Draft, the New Haven Woodchucks select Manmayi Velasco, the University of Oklahoma City—’

‘OH MY GOD!’

I don’t register that the scream bouncing off the walls of the boardroom is mine at first, at least until people are jumping up out of their seats all around us, my parents and Coach in hysterics behind me, Jordan shaking me by the shoulder from the right. The presiding members of the Woodchucks are absolutely ecstatic; Rod is holding Talise and dancing her around the room. Colt practically keels over dramatically before standing again, looking at the ceiling in disbelief, hands on his head like someone’s shocked uncle.

‘MAY!’ he howls, cupping my face in his hands. ‘MAY, YOU’RE A WOODCHUCK!’

I don’t even care how weird that sentence sounds. I leap right out of my chair and into Colt’s arms, hanging onto him for dear life as he spins me around, and I plant an adrenaline-fuelled kiss smack on his lips, one that he returns readily.

‘Start picking colours for our picket fence,’ he teases as the announcers, in the background, crack a joke about how our boardroom looks like it’s about to lose its roof.

‘Our picket fence?’ I grin, my fingers tickling the back of his neck, finding the cold metal of his necklace among the stupid little waves of hair that peek out past his ears. ‘Are you sure about that? Are you ready for my mess, CJ Bradley?’