Go for Gold

3

That week of boot camp was probably the longest week of my life because Tobin and Kelley wouldn't stop tormenting me about my crush on Y/N, yeah, Kelley got me to tell her that I liked Y/N. but both Tobin and Kelley swore not to tell, which I was grateful for. The entire coaching staff seemed to be impressed with Y/N, and it looked like thy were going to continue calling her up. When we got back on campus, we had missed practice and dinner, so Y/N asked me to go with her to get In-N-Out, like, she did one of those 'best friend mock date request' things that happen in movies, I'm not gonna lie, I swooned and blushed so hard, so here we are, sitting in the burger place, eating food we shouldn't be eating, and bonding.

"So how do you think I did this past week?" Y/N asks, insecurity shining in her blue eyes.

"I think you did extremely well, that you exceeded expectations and bonded well with most of the team, I'd say look out for another call up. We do have plenty of time to train before any kind of game takes place." I say and Y/N nods as we throw our trash away and leave, heading back to campus, and to the dorms where we get ready for bed as soon as we're in or dorm.

In the morning, we wake up at our new normal time to get to practice and work hard on that before following pretty much the entire team's example and showering here in the locker room post practice because we've all got early classes basically so there's not really any time to go back to the dorms. Of course Y/N and I leave neighboring shower stalls at the same time and she's already in shorts and a bra, as am I. But my view has me incapable of thinking clearly, we both toss on clean shirts and decide to head to class together. We had different classes, but they were in the same building. During the free period we all had, the team was doing fitness of course, and luckily, I had no other classes for the rest of the day, and neither did Y/N, so we both decided to work out a little longer.

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Y/N
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Three weeks after my first full national team boot camp, UCLA had a championship qualifier game against University of Miami, and it was a home game. While the teams were warming up, one of our girls didn't control the ball correctly before passing it to me, so I had to chase the ball, and as I was chasing it, I passed the coach and a player and heard them talking.

"Take out number 9." The coach said and I tripped over myself before getting back up and getting the ball, taking it back over to the team where literally everyone gave me a weird look.

"Leave me alone." I say and they hesitate before listening, and as we all gather at the bench to rest a little before game time, I wait until we finish getting the coach's speech, that I speak up as coach walks off. "Alright, I know I'm not a captain and I shouldn't be speaking right now, but I don't have a good feeling about this game. We need to watch each other's backs tonight. We're all sisters on this field tonight, so we need to look out for each other like we're family. Can we do that?" I ask and everyone nods, so I nod and let the captains talk. I was starting tonight, up top, right next to Mal, and I was determined to keep her out of harm's way. She's the superstar here, not me. I could afford to get hurt, she couldn't.

And that's exactly what happened, in the second half at about the twenty minute mark, Mal had the ball and was on a great run, but I saw UM's number 5 headed for Mal, and she wasn't looking at the ball, she was looking at Mal's ankle, so I stopped my supporting run and screened her. Like, the basketball kind of screen, I could've also made a run that took the girl away from Mal in hindsight as a foul is called, but I had to think fast. It was either give up possession or let this girl break Mal's ankle. I'd rather give up possession for a few seconds in exchange for my teammate's ankle. And maybe, just maybe, it'll take the target off of Mal's back and put it on mine, I'm fine with that, because if something happens to me, I'll just tell the refs that the coach was targeting players from the opposing team and see what happens from there. The next subs were for Mal and I, so as we came off the field, I was pulled aside by Coach.