Blood, Sweat, and Tears (Camren)

Chapter 32

"Good evening and welcome to the first round of the Lauren Jauregui Basketball Training Camp Finals. Tonight, the Red Hots face Blackout in an epic collision of talents. Blackout, the camp top dogs so far, have finally met their match in the equally skilled and talented team intricately put together by some of the best basketball coaches and trainers in the world. Though only formed at the beginning of the summer, the Red Hots have shown that they have what it takes to take home the Championship title, and defeat a legendary three-time title winning team in the process. Stay tuned, this is bound to be a good one."

"It's official. I hate her," Dinah grumbled beside Camila who was sitting on her chair and nervously dribbling the ball back and forth behind her legs.

"Who do you hate?"

"Lauren. Why the hell does she need to bring in these corny ass announcers? Is it really necessary? Shit is dramatic enough without this fake ass Craig Sager about to tell me everything that's going on as I do it."

"Dinah calm down, it's supposed to lighten the mood."

"Well it isn't working because I feel heavy as shit!" Camila snorted and shook her head at Dinah's poorly veiled anxiety. Leave it to Dinah to channel her nervous energy into talking shit about something or someone else. But as long as she wasn't hurting anyone, Camila just let her go on with her rant.

"Go shoot some layups, it'll make you feel better. Or drink some water. Or just sit down, you've been stretching for like thirty minutes."

"One can never be too loose, Chanch."

"I know I'm not into dudes, so I could be wrong, but isn't it bad to be loose down there? I mean, isn't that where the whole 'throwing a hotdog down a hallway' phrase comes from?"

"Okay, I hate you too now. You two really are perfect together. Bunch 'a' assholes." Dinah walked away and Camila couldn't help the laughter that bubbled out of her. At least Dinah wasn't freaking out anymore so she took the victory. Hopefully one of many for the night.

Now that Dinah had brought up Lauren, Camila scanned the crowd for her. Just as she suspected, she was in her usual spot, close to the bottom, right across from her. She was facing Diane and the two of them seemed to be in a serious conversation. Or so she thought because then Lauren started cracking up and Diane pouted with her arms crossed. She wondered what they were talking about because Lauren's laugh was so loud she could faintly hear it from the other side of the court.

It was amazing how many people showed up for them. She could see her father, who had flown in the night before, sitting on Diane's other side. Next to Lauren was Michael, then Skylar, then Megan, and Ally was on the end. The whole lot of them were dressed in red, except for Lauren who had gone with a plain black and white baseball t-shirt and jeans, but Camila could see the red armband she always wore to her games at the end of the black sleeve.

What surprised her the most was Chef Hannah sitting one row behind them with a red flag next to a brunette who she had never seen or met before with red war paint on her cheeks. And then next to them was Alex Morgan and Hope Solo both in red and white. Lauren had started talking to the two soccer players and Camila was overwhelmed by the amount of attractive people in one conversation. She remembered them mentioning that they wanted to come see the end of the season tournament but she didn't think they'd actually show up. Much less repping Red Hots. She had famous fans and the thought made her giddy.

The fact that they had people supporting them at all was mind boggling for her. In the next section over she saw the Silver Foxes all wearing her team's practice jerseys and holding up their sign they made earlier in the season to show their support. And then Tori rivalling Diane for biggest Red Hot fan with her own giant sign and what looked like flames on one side of her face. Even some of their friends from the Purple team and Blue team were showing their support by waving around the red noisemakers being given out at the concession stand and sitting with their other supporters. Now more than ever she felt the pressure to play her best game with so many people watching.