Then Trent walked into the stadium, and stood directly in front of me as he paid his game fees. I collected the rebound and dribbled the ball across to where Caroline was shooting inside of the three-point line, left of the key.

Trent came towards us and said, ‘Hey Caroline,’ shooting her his hot smile. And then he said, ‘Hey,’ to me.

‘Hey,’ I replied, trying not to smile too much or stare.

‘Caroline, your bro’s party is soon. You going to be around?’ he asked.

‘Don’t know anything about it,’ Caroline replied coolly, ‘but I guess so, since it’s my house too.’

‘Your olds going to be there?’

‘Don’t know,’ Caroline said again.

I was sure that Trent was about to ask me something when Jamie, covered in sweat as usual, dribbled his ball straight over to me and said, ‘How are you going?’

Jamie knew how I was going; he’d seen me all day at school. It wasn’t like I was sick or recovering from an operation or anything like that.

‘You hitting your shots?’ he said, looking up at the backboard.

I grunted in reply. I just wanted him to go away. And then when he eventually said, ‘Well, enjoy,’ and turned to head to the other end of the court, Trent walked off with him before I even really got to speak with him. I was disappointed but I did end up getting to sit on the bench with my teammates and watch him train for a while.

When Trent lifted his shirt to wipe sweat from his forehead, exposing his tanned and muscular stomach, I realised my jaw had dropped. I wished that the ball would roll over to me again with Trent chasing it so that I could pass it back and see him smile at me again. Except nothing like that happened. The boys finished training, collected their things from the benches and left.

Caroline handed me her phone to listen to the Led Zeppelin song that got her pumped up before a game and then we started our training session.

I knew I’d trained well, getting into good positions during our scratch match and hitting shots. Our coach Suzy gave me two thumbs up and Caroline said, ‘The Led Zeppelin worked, hey?’ I knew that seeing Trent again was what had got me pumped up.

I was in a dream world when I walked home from training, wondering if I could get Caitlin to take me to McLean’s Organics again so I could get another glimpse of Trent before the end of the week.