POSE - Paige Bueckers

3- we've met before, haven't we

August 5, 2022, Summer before Junior year of College

"Hurry. The fuck. Up!!" I hear from my room as I attempt to finish curling my bangs, they simply aren't cooperating today. "I know, I know I'm trying." I respond hastily while wrestling with the curling iron, "Girl you're literally going to be late on your first day if you do not leave in the next 5 minutes." Angie reminds me.

"Thanks, Ang I had no idea!" I reply sarcastically, poking my head out the adjoining bathroom and into my messy room, watching as Angie flops back onto my bed in frustration, taking her phone out of her pocket. Waking up early was never my strong suit, and today was no different. I take one last look in the mirror and finally decide I'm ok with how my bangs look. Emphasis on the ok, not loving.

An image I still only half recognize stares back at me. Whether it's the makeup and hair combo, something I rarely have the energy for, (I always say put your time into one or the other, unless it's a special day. I deemed today a special day), or the fact that I'm still not used to looking as grown up as I do, half still expecting to see my braces wearing 13-year-old self staring back instead of the mature brown-eyeliner-wearing-baggy-jeans-and-uconn-baby-tee 19-year-old self.

I check the time on my phone as I turn off the light in my now messy bathroom. It reads back to me 9:16 am, no not necessarily early, but let's be real anything before 11 is early for me ever since I was finally able to escape 8 am classes. If I needed to be at Gampel for 9:45, and it's around a 15-minute drive from my off-campus apartment, Angie's right, I need to leave.

I quickly grab a coconut Redbull out of the fridge in the kitchen as the short brunette follows me out of my room, "Don't forget your keys this time, I have work at 11 so I won't be home to let you in later." Angelina oh so helpfully reminds me. "Yes. Keys." I say, totally remembering to grab my lanyard off the hall table. Wallet. Check. Keys. Check. Phone. Check. Camera bag and accessories. Check. Most importantly? Redbull. Check.
"Good luck you airhead, they're gonna love you." She says before handing me my airpods, knowing I prefer to shoot while listening to music. "You're a godsend, and I hope," I reply before shutting the front door.

I totally wasn't nervous at all. Moving across the country for this job wasn't the hard part, I had moved dozens of times before, but making friends and getting the only slightly daunting women's basketball team and coaches to like me? Might be slightly harder. I mean I'm not exactly worried I'll do a bad job, I know I'm a good photographer, I'm hella good at social media, and my writing hasn't won awards for nothing. However, I have a tendency to come across as cold or bitchy, but I swear I just have a really bad RBF and a swearing problem. My car starts and Treacherous By Taylor Swift blasts at me. Jumping slightly and turning down the volume, I pull out of the lot and towards the quiet road.

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Adelaide wasn't expecting this job to just be handed to her on a silver platter. She knew she would have to work hard. Between traveling with the team, keeping up with school, and creating her final project, a 30-45 minute long highlight reel and promotional video of the team along with the entirety of all social media work she does for the official team socials, both of which will be graded by her professor back home at UW Seattle, Ad knew this year would be a handful.

But seeing, and realizing she technically now works for a girl she kissed twice in Colorado when she was 17, the two younger teens only in town for a journalism convention, conveniently at the same time the FIBA U19 women's basketball finals were being held, was not on her list of things she expected.

'Oh, you have got to be shitting me.' Adelaide thought as she turned the corner into Gampel stadium, seeing a certain blonde she never expected to see again, let alone here. At her job. Almost four years later. 'After all these fuckin years' she thought. "Yay me," the freckled brunette mumbled under her breath as she shouldered her camera bag and attempted to fake confidence, strutting onto the basketball court and towards her new boss, Geno.