The Secret

Chapter 9

November 14

Paige POV:

It's the season opener vs Arkansas today. We're playing at the XL Center instead of Gampel so even though it's our arena we are the away team for some reason.

We took a bus last night into Hartford where the XL Center is located, since it's an evening game that way we didn't have to wake up super early to drive here.

We just finished our team lunch and are on the bus to the arena to start shoot around.

"You ready?" I ask Sky who's sitting next to me on the bus as we get to the arena

"As ready as I'll ever be" she answers giving me a quick kiss as we stand up to get off the bus grabbing our backpacks

I can tell Sky is a little nervous for the game since she's not sure how people will like her since she's Geno's daughter but I just keep reminding her she's here because she earned it, not because her dad is the coach, but I know she won't really believe me until after the game when all the reporters will be talking.

Once we step off the bus I'm shocked to see there are reporters already here videoing us walking into the arena. I'm assuming it's because it's the first game of the season and everyone's excited to see us play.

Once we get into the locker room we put all of our stuff down and change into our shoot around gear which is just a uconn shirt and shorts.

Once shoot around is over we head back to the locker room to fuel up on some food and change into our uniforms and now that I think about it I don't know what number Sky chose to wear.

"Wait Sky, what number are you?" I ask as she's standing next to me getting changed

"12, since my birthday is December 12" she explains

"Wait really, I like that" I say. I knew her birthday was December 12 but it's cool she chose to wear 12 because that's the day she was born.

About 30 minutes has passed and we are heading out of the locker room onto the court for warm ups in our warmup sweats. As soon as the crowd notices us jogging on the floor they all start clapping and cheering.

We start stretching, then do some shooting drills, and just get in the game mindset. Arkansas is the one team we lost to last year in the regular season so I feel like it's going to be a tough matchup today because neither of us want to lose our first game.

A couple minutes later we head back into the locker room and take off our warmup sweats as coach tells us the starters and the game plan then we jog back out in our uniforms as the student section and fans go crazy.

They announce all the starters. Starting for us is Liv, Evina, Christyn, Sky and me. I'm the last one they call so I stand up and high five the empty bench behind me, as a joke, before I turn around and high five my teammates on both sides of me as I jog over and shake hands with the opposing player.

After that I walk over to Sky who's already looking at me and we do a handshake we recently created. We both tap our heart three times as if we were saying 'I love you' then we both pinky promise each other. It's a promise to both play hard and have each other's backs while we are playing.

We both get into position for tip off and the whistle is blown, signaling the start of the game. We win the tip and it lands in my hands and I pass the ball half court to Sky who's running to the basket, she catches the ball and puts it in the hoop for the first points of the game as the fans start cheering as we go on defense. On the way back I quickly high five Sky before guarding my player.

The first half has gone really well for us. We're winning 16-24. I haven't shot the ball that much and when I did I haven't made the shots so I've just been passing the ball.