With a hesitant start, she dribbles twice with her right hand before switching to her left. I’m too far away to steal it without moving so she takes her time dribbling in place before she takes a step to the basket.

I let her come to me. When she’s less than an arm’s length away, I place a hand at her hip. It’s a small amount of contact that I do almost instinctively when I’m defending, putting pressure on the offense and letting them know I’m not going to allow them to go where they want, but my fingers tingle as she presses back into me, pushing me toward the basket.

Sydney is fairly tall. I’m over six feet and the top of her head, even slightly bent over with the ball, comes up to my chin. Her frame is slender but strong and she doesn’t seem intimidated despite how impressive she thinks my stats are.

Oh, and she definitely played ball at some point in her life. She naturally turns, angling her body to keep the basketball farther away. Her blonde hair brushes against my bare chest. She smells like cotton candy—sweet and addictive.

“What position did you play? Guard?” I guess.

She backs me up to the foul line where I refuse to give up any more ground quite so easily. And I’m not going to lie, her body pressed into mine is foreplay I didn’t even know I was missing. I’ve never dated a chick who played basketball, or that had any real athletic ability. Now I wonder if I’ve missed out on a bunch more things because I’ve never been this excited about the idea of kissing someone.

“Forward.” Sydney plants her left foot between mine and turns so she can get a half step in front of me and pulls up for a shot. I could block it, but I don’t. I watch as the ball rolls off her fingertips and sails through the air, and the look of excited anticipation while she waits to see if it’s going in. And I keep on staring, not really caring if it goes in or not, as she raises her arms in victory.

2

SYDNEY

When I was a little girl, the boys loved having me on their team. Kick ball, tag, soccer, it didn’t matter. I wasn’t afraid to get dirty and play hard. I didn’t even know that made me somehow different from a lot of other girls until I started school.