Borrowed Time

Chapter Ninety Four

One thing that was nice about her coach giving them all the week off for finals was that Juliette could just take a nap during the time that she was normally at practice... She could also leave, but Esme was working every night this week except for Wednesday, so she wouldn't have much to do.  Instead, she chose to wait for Shelby who always woke her up in the kindest way possible.

By kicking her in the leg.  She opened her eyes with a wince and looked up at her, yawning.

"Oh.  Hey." She said, and Shelby held out a hand to her.

"Hey.  Let's get out of here, yeah?" Shelby asked with a sigh, smiling down at her as Juliette let herself get hauled to her feet.  God, sometimes she forgot that Shelby was strong enough to just practically lift her without even breaking a sweat, it wasn't like she had to help pull herself at all, it was just stabilization... Which meant that if need be, Shelby could probably just pick her up and throw her.

Terrifying.  She wasn't the only one who could do that of their friends, but it was always a good reminder to stay on Shelby's good side.

"Fine by me." Honestly, she felt bad that Shelby still had to practice while trying to juggle her finals, it just seemed cruel.  "Can't believe you still have practice during finals week... Even my coach gave us the time off to focus on our studies." Juliette said, and Shelby shook her head, sighing as she hiked her gym bag higher over her shoulder.

"Oh, we don't.  I'm doing extra drills because we're going against Franstend after break." She said, and Juliette was impressed.  She couldn't imagine willingly doing extra work for a sport that you're in... She always prayed to god that she'd just break her ankle or something so that she could get out of practice, but Shelby seemed to thrive off its very existence.

Also... Franstend.  Juliette knew exactly what that meant.  She nudged Shelby lightly and gave her a small, knowing smile.

"And you wanna impress your partners don't you?" She asked, and Shelby let out a sigh and smiled, shaking her head... There was no hiding how utterly in love she was with both of them, so Juliette was not surprised by the smile in the slightest... Who could really blame her?  She'd managed to pull three of the hottest people that Juliette had ever seen, and she hadn't even really intended on falling for one of them, Emma fell for her before Shelby even realized that there was anything there.

"Partially that, and I also partially just want to beat them, we've lost to them for the last three years, it's the only team we consistently lose to." Oh.  Yeah, that was a good point, Franstend had a fantastic basketball program, they were nearly unbeatable. "But I think we can beat them this year." She said, which made sense.  There had only been four games so far this year, but Shelby had fucking killed every game that she'd been involved with, she was doing amazing and if she could just get her team to work with her more, they'd win by bigger margins too.

"With you on the team, anything's possible." Juliette said, and Shelby shrugged, like she didn't quite know about that... Well, that didn't matter because Juliette knew that that was true.  She knew how capable Shelby was, and she wasn't going to pretend like she didn't just because Shelby herself wasn't too sure of her abilities.

"Been on the team for the last three years, they haven't ever respected me enough for us to work as a cohesive team before."  Oh.  Good, so it wasn't that she was insecure about her own skills, she was just insecure about her team's ability to act as a team.  That was fair, but there was also a first time for everything.

Juliette was trying to be more optimistic... So far, she hadn't been doing great, so this was the best thing she could offer.

"But they could start." Juliette tried, which made Shelby sigh as she shook her head, kicking at some of the snow that was packed into the ground of the parking lot as they made their way towards her car.