A Game Worth Watching (22 page)

***

Emma
didn’t get much sleep. Considering she was at the mercy of seven girls who
majored in slumber party sabotage, the idea of falling asleep haunted her. She
spent most of the night staring at the ceiling, listening to the deep breathing
of girls around her, waiting for the sun to creep above the horizon and shed
light on a new day. As soon as it did, she packed her things and fled to the
park, the freshman in tow.

The
cure for post-girl-slumber-party madness was a few hours with the guys, kickin’
back and shootin’ hoops. Riley. Jerry. Cy. Carson. Alex. Ben. Even Tom. No
sight was more refreshing than the guys on a basketball court. No
girls—with the exception of Ashley—allowed. Emma exhaled, half
convinced last night was just a nightmare. But then she saw Jerry nod to Tom,
and Tom smiled like an idiot to Carson, and Carson missed the easiest shot in
the world, which caused Cy to stop talking and stare at a spot behind Emma.
Something was wrong. Slowly, Emma turned.

No!
This was
not
happening. No girls—especially not
those
girls—were going to invade her
Saturday basketball game with the guys. Emma stomped across the court to where
four girls from the team stood. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

Madison
held up her hand, declaring peace. “Relax, Emma. We’re just here to watch.”

Emma
didn’t care. She didn’t want to be anywhere near girls right now. One night was
bad enough. “Sorry, but this is a closed game.” Emma’s eyes narrowed. “No
gawkers allowed.”

“It’s
a free country and a public park.” Christi sat on the bleachers, declaring her
unwillingness to leave. “We can do anything we want.”

“What’s
the matter, Poverty Child?” Lauren strutted past Emma and sat next to Christi.
“Afraid of a little…competition?”

Madison
put a restraining hand on Emma’s shoulder before Emma could step forward and
smack the grin off Lauren’s face.

“Stop
it, Lauren.” The high-pitched whining was gone from Madison’s voice, and the
warning look she threw Lauren was enough to silence even Emma. What had
happened in the past hour since Emma fled from the slumber party? Madison had
never stood up to Lauren before, so why now?

Madison
refocused on Emma. “We’re just here to watch. We promise not to interfere.”

Yeah,
right. Their mere presence was interfering, especially when Emma so desperately
needed guy time. The girls had spent the last eighteen hours together. Didn’t
that warrant at least a forty-eight hour break to ensure Emma’s sanity remained
intact?

Everything
clicked into place then, and Emma took a step back to examine the girls in
front of her. “This is because of what I said at the stupid slumber party,
isn’t it?” She shook her head and laughed. “Do you honestly think the guys are
going to talk about anything with all of you here?”

The
girls exchanged looks with a couple of shrugs. Unbelievable!

“They’re
going to be too busy showing off for you to even play a decent game of
basketball, much less reveal their innermost secrets.” Emma tried to put it all
into perspective for them—tried to get them to leave—but they stood
their ground and stared back at her.

“Look,
if the squirt can watch,” Lauren motioned toward Ashley, “we can too.”

Were
these four girls that desperate to gain attention from the male population?

“Sorry
we’re late.”

Emma
turned at the sound of another girl’s voice to see Peyton and Steph join the
herd. Emma shook her head. Her teeth clenched so tightly she couldn’t speak.

“Hey,
Em,” Tom said, stepping beside her and resting his arm on her shoulder. “Your
friends come to play?”

Emma
watched as Tom flashed one of his I’m-too-cute-to-resist smiles, and the girls
laughed like they were actually flattered by him. Gross. “No,” Emma said
coldly, glaring at her teammates. “They were just
leaving
.” She shrugged off Tom’s arm and
spun around to join the guys on the court, ending her conversation with the
girls and not giving them time to contest her decision. So what if they hated
her more? She refused to let her two worlds collide.

Distracted
by the anger coursing through her body, Emma almost smacked into Shiloh who
appeared out of nowhere to block her path.

“What?”
Emma barked.

Unaffected
by Emma’s outburst, Shiloh glanced over her shoulder at the other girls like
all she had was time. She cocked a hip and an eyebrow in the manner of someone
with a bad idea. “You know, if we plan to beat Evergreen, it might not be a bad
idea to let us stay and watch.” She shrugged. “Who knows? We might learn a
thing or two from you and your friends.”

Seriously?
Had Emma not made herself completely clear? “I don’t think so.”

Emma
turned to go, but Shiloh grabbed her arm to prevent her from leaving. “Emma,
wait.”

Shiloh’s
whole demeanor changed. Bowing her head, her confidence gone, Shiloh cleared
her throat as if trying to gather courage. “What I really came to say was…I’m
sorry. About what happened last night. Lauren was way out of line with what she
said about you and Riley.”

Okay,
that was…different. Emma didn’t know what to say. She narrowed her eyes at
Shiloh, questioning the girl’s motives. Emma waited for the catch, something to
indicate she was being set up for more humiliation, but she couldn’t detect
anything amiss.

“I
should’ve said something or done something.” Shiloh raised her eyes to Emma.
“You didn’t deserve that.” Unlike most girls, Shiloh didn’t do the longwinded
babbling thing to get her point across or defend her actions. She said what she
had to say and then left it up to Emma to respond. Emma liked that about her,
but she still didn’t understand why, in the past five minutes, two girls had
broken free from Lauren’s authority to actually be civilized toward her. Could
a stupid slumber party make that much difference?

“Don’t
worry about it,” Emma muttered.

“So,
we good?” She held out a fist, a peace offering.

Emma
sighed and tapped her knuckles against Shiloh’s. The last thing she wanted was
more drama. “Yeah, we’re good.” What else could she say?

Despite
how much she didn’t want the girls invading her Saturday morning with the guys,
Emma softened as Shiloh gave her a sincere smile. She looked at her teammates,
then back at Shiloh. She bit her tongue and shook her head, knowing she was
going to regret this. “And I suppose you can all, you know, stay.”

Shiloh’s
eyes widened with surprise and hope.

Emma
stepped closer, her finger pointed at Shiloh so the girl would take her
seriously. “Just make sure they don’t act stupid, and keep them out of my way.
One strike and you’re all out of here.”

Shiloh
smiled and tapped Emma’s shoulder with her fist. “You got it.”

So
much for only having to put up with them at practice. Shiloh jogged over to
tell the girls the good news, and Emma went to find Riley.

He
stood a few feet away, watching the whole situation. “Looks like you’ve got
groupies,” he said, staring over her shoulder at the intruders.

“Don’t
start.”

Riley
laughed.

“Will
there ever be a time when my two worlds don’t collide?” she asked. Guys were
guys except when girls were around. She endured five days a week with the
girls. All she wanted was some guy time. One day. Was that wrong?

The
girls spread across the aluminum bleachers, and Emma forced herself to look
away before nausea overpowered her. Why did girls always ruin everything?

How
a team as dysfunctional as Bradshaw could hop onboard a winning streak and not
be bucked off was a mystery to most people. News spread like wildfire after
each of their wins. They weren’t the best in the league—that title still
belonged to Evergreen—but they were known as a team to beat. Some called
it luck and some said the competition lacked, but for the girls at Bradshaw
who’d come from a history of losing, winning was winning. After their loss
against Evergreen, the Bradshaw team stopped making excuses and started getting
good. The school couldn’t believe the girls’ basketball team had actually won a
game much less five in a row. The crowd grew at each of their games, people
wanting to witness their success directly to ensure the rumor wasn’t fictional.

Teachers
kept Emma after class to talk about the latest game, goals for the season and believe
it or not, strategy, like coaching suddenly became part of their credentials.
Kids who’d ignored her for the better part of seventeen years learned her name
overnight and would nod or slap her on the back like friends to congratulate
her on the latest win. It all freaked Emma out, especially when it escalated to
the point of school-wide recognition via an assembly.

The
only thing good about school assemblies was the shortened class periods. When a
student had no school spirit and no popularity status, assemblies held no
importance. Emma usually sat in the bleachers next to Riley and the guys, one
face among a thousand. She’d never actually been front and center during an
assembly with everyone’s eyes on her.

Emma
hated crowds, especially ones high on school spirit. Now, as she stood on the
gym floor with the rest of her team under the scrutiny of the entire student
body, she was anything but invisible. Jerry, also known as the student body
president, revved the crowd with stats about their winning season. The rest of
the team surrounded Emma, smiling and waving to their friends in the bleachers.
It was all part of the plan—the reason she agreed to join her teammates
in the spotlight. Wave and smile for a minute or two to give people something to
cheer for and then exit stage left. Time had to be running out.

No
sooner had she looked at the exit door closest to her than she heard Jerry
speak her name—right into the microphone. The crowd applauded and she
cringed. This was so not part of the plan.

“How
does it feel to be part of a winning team?” Jerry shoved the microphone in her
face. All she could do was stare back at him feeling a thousand pairs of eyes
burning through her. Jerry knew she wasn’t into this whole look-at-me moment.
He was the one who’d promised her she wouldn’t be singled out, just wave and
smile.

“You
told me I wouldn’t have to talk.” Even though she spoke quietly to Jerry, the
microphone took her words and amplified them for the entire school to hear.

Jerry
and everyone else laughed. Great.

“Sounds
to me like our star player has a bit of stage fright.” Again, Jerry spoke into
the microphone, addressing all those in attendance and giving them something
else to laugh at her about. “Emma Wrangton,” he said loud and clear with the
biggest grin on his face. “Tell us what it’s like to be a superstar!”

Shouts
erupted around her. Again, so not part of the plan. Shaking her head, Emma’s
eyes narrowed into slits, hoping Jerry got the message that he better cut it
out. No, he just grinned at her and shoved the microphone in her face again.

“I’m
not a superstar,” she mumbled into the microphone, her face burning in
humiliation.

Lauren
stepped beside her, grabbed the microphone without hesitation, and slung her
arm around Emma’s shoulders like they were lifelong friends. So not true and
not even headed in that direction. “I think what our fearless captain is trying
to say,” Lauren said, squeezing Emma’s shoulder, “is that we’re a team. We win
and lose together and, come Friday, we’re going to win!”

Her
speech ended with a thunder of noise from the bleachers. Were a few words
yelled into a microphone all it took to get a thousand high school students to
act like groupies at a rock concert? It didn’t matter. Emma was grateful to
exit stage left and hide in the shadows while the assembly droned to an end.

Once
they were safely out of the spotlight, Emma inched toward Lauren. As much as
she hated the thought of approaching her archenemy, Emma knew she owed Lauren a
thank you. Taking a deep breath, she tapped Lauren on the shoulder. “Thanks for
saving me out there.”

Lauren
scowled at her. “Someone had to. You were making us all look bad,
captain
.” She
spit out the last word with contempt on her tongue.

As
students flooded onto the gymnasium floor toward the exits, Lauren rammed her
shoulder into Emma’s and vanished into the crowd. How Lauren could turn on and
off her emotions for the public eye, Emma didn’t know. Must be a girl thing.

Emma
watched as kids exited the gym, talking and laughing. A few of them
acknowledged her with words and head nods, but she ignored them, knowing it
wasn’t her, but the prospect of winning they appreciated.

Hands
clamped down on her shoulders from behind. “Nice job out there, Em,” Jerry said
not even trying to hold back his laughter. “You really have a way with words.”

She
spun around and punched him.

He
rubbed his arm, trying to gain sympathy by scrunching his face in pain. It
didn’t work.

“Thanks
for throwing me under the bus out there,” she snarled. “What was that? You know
I don’t talk in front of people.”

“You’re
famous now,” he said, as if that explained it all. “You better get used to it.”

No
sympathy! Unable to take another second of his superstar nonsense, she pinned
him against the wall, her eyes blazing into his. Jerry was one guy she knew she
could overpower in a heartbeat. He stood a couple inches taller than her, but
muscles had yet to find him. Besides, he didn’t have the impulse to hit a guy,
much less a girl. She would never intentionally hurt him, but he didn’t need to
know that. “Listen, Jerry, I appreciate your support and all, but I’m
not
a
superstar. I’m just a basketball player. So unless you want to explain to the
world how a girl gave you a black eye, you’d better stop with the whole
superstar business, you got it?”