End Game

Ten

"Cliffo!" Michael jumps slightly as he hears Calum yell, pounding on his door as well.

Taking a moment to finish up attaching his laptop to the tv screen in his hotel room he wanders to the door, opening it to see all three of his bandmates grinning at him. "Can I help you?" He laughs.

"What are you doing tonight? We want to hang out." Luke asks.

"Jordan's game starts in ten minutes and I am going to watch it." He shrugs.

"Ooh! Can we watch too?"

"I didn't get enough snacks for all of us." Michael chuckles, letting them past him into the room.

"We brought snacks!" Ashton grins, holding up a couple bags of food.

"I don't care if you're bored, we are not changing the channel." Michael announces, moving back to his laptop to get the Amazon Video app going and find the game, grinning as the sound of basketball warmups fills the room, glad that he'll finally be able to really watch a game.

"We're mostly going to be watching you swoon over Jordan." Calum chuckles, "That will be entertaining enough to get us through the whole game."

"Also asking about a million questions, because I still don't understand basketball as well as I probably should." Ashton responds.

"You have never had a reason to understand it or a desire. I like basketball, and now I really like a beautiful basketball player. So you get to deal with it or go hang out somewhere else." Michael falls back against his bed, eyes tracking the red and black team on the screen as his bandmates fill in around him. Ashton opts to pull a chair over rather than squish into bed with the others.

"Which one is she again?" Luke asks.

"Black jerseys, number ten." Mike grins, locating her on the screen as she takes a long shot, sinking it easily.

"None of their jersey numbers are visible right now." Calum points out.

"Top of the key, dark hair pulled up in a bun, white shoes." Michael points her out just before a buzzer sounds and the teams run off the court.

"Well at least when they come back they'll have their jerseys on so we can actually find her." Ashton laughs, tossing Michael some snacks when he makes grabby hands.

"They'll announce her name too, she's in the starting lineup." Michael nods, "If you miss it after that you are on your own."

The teams both disappear into the locker rooms for the next ten or so minutes, coming back out as the announcer starts talking about the game, announcing the lineup for the Minnesota Lynx before the Aces.

"I found her!" Luke yells out when they announce Jordan and she runs between her cheering teammates onto the court.

"I don't think that counts as finding her." Ashton laughs, "They put her front and center and told you it was her."

"I still know who she is now." Luke rolls his eyes.

"Would you guys stop fighting over the girl I'm kind of dating and just let me watch her play." Michael rolls his eyes.

"Sorry." They mumble, silence falling over the group as they start to watch the game.

Michael gets really into the game, watching Jordan mostly, but her teammates as well. He can tell she's not having her best game, but she's playing a team game and that is noticeable as she starts passing instead of taking shots that aren't landing.

"Wait, is she doing okay?" Ashton asks, "She doesn't seem to be taking a lot of shots. Don't you have to score to be good?"

"I think she's off her game a bit today, it happens. But she's playing well as a teammate, and she seems to understand that she's off her shot and can be better as a passer and defender tonight." Michael waves him off, "She's doing fine."