Close Behind || Aaron Minyard

29

They pulled into Belmont's Universities stadium
parking lot and Naomi stopped talking finally. She hadn't even realized she'd been talking the entire time until she saw the stadium.

She glances over at Renee who's grinning wide at her, Naomi turns away to look at Allison again and finds her already looking at Naomi with a small smile. The biggest she'd had the entire ride.

They disembarked from the bus and Naomi let herself lag in the space between the two groups as was her place on the team. Neil walked a few paces forward and met her stride. They walked in together.

Her grip on her back pack straps tightened as she saw the guards at the door. The two of them led the team where they needed to be, one left to notify the other team of their arrival and the other stayed behind to go over rules.

After that they got to disperse themselves again towards the two locker rooms. Naomi followed the girls with a quick step and locked herself into a bathroom stall inside. Sure it might have been weird but it was her only option to avoid the girls.

She made quick work on stripping her top layers and replacing them with her guards and jerseys. Naomi strapped her neck guard on and let herself breathe easier after that. The rest of her body was mostly clean enough that if someone were to walk in now she wouldn't fully have a panic attack.

Naomi pulled on her shorts and shin guards, pulled her socks up and folded them over her knees because it made running awkward. Sue her.

Then she wandered out as she was pulling her arm guards and gloves on. In the middle of the room everyone was waiting except for a boy or two.

She sauntered over and stopped next to Aaron, a little in front of him, as she fully pulled up her last arm guard. His eyes were stuck in place and Naomi belatedly remembered the cigarette burns.

Neither of them said anything, though, so she just pulled on her orange bandanna and tightened it underneath her ponytail. Good enough, really.

When Allison and Renee walked out of the locker rooms they lined up behind her, Naomi turned and shot a confused look before remembering she was the starting dealer for the night. That didn't help her nerves at all. Neil was placed right in front of her.

"How long do you think you can keep that up?" Andrew called from behind. Naomi whipped around, confused.

"Can you crash already?" Neil said through gritted teeth.

"All in due time," Andrew mused in return.

"Shut up or I'll quote Hawthorne at you," Naomi called lightly.

Andrew made some noise to show how spooked he was by the idea and then started laughing. It ended the argument well enough for them not to keep arguing so who cares.

They walked into the stadium through a complicated system that didn't match the simple tunnels of the Foxhole Court.

The team walked over to the benches first, Naomi looked towards the field to find Katelyn. She wondered if Aaron was looking too. The Vixens were nowhere to be seen.

Instead, the Terrapins mascot wandered over to them and started making exaggerated thrusting motions. Which Nicky enthusiastically mimicked until Wymack smacked him upside the head for it.

Deserved, if you asked Naomi.

She kept staring out at the court, becoming more terrified by the second at the fact that she would be starting and she would be playing striker in the second half of the game.

It was a bad idea. Naomi wasn't good enough for this. She'd never be able to score on the other teams goal in the second half. She had managed to score on Andrew only a handful of times in the weeks she'd been there. Naomi was good, sure, but not that kind. The Foxes needed someone to be able to score and that wasn't her at all.