The Experience Buddy [Completed]

Chapter 32

Somehow news about Hero saving his girl spread like wildfire and his fanclub seemed to have grown in numbers. Good thing was, nobody really paid much attention to the negatives of the scenario, but rather, they just zoomed in on the "heroic" act (no pun intended, okay maybe half-intended) and drooled over their own fantasies.

Turns out that Sierra told Chuck that she can ask her dad to influence and put pressure on the coach to remove Hero and make Chuck captain if he does her bidding. Hero went to confront her and warned her fiercely to put a stop to all her nonsense. She admitted that she didn't like Hero in the romantic sense but she couldn't stand seeing him fixated with some other girl either. Nevertheless, he told her to stay away from me but couldn't make her apologize to me.

"I don't need her apology, I just want her to stay away." I told Hero when he shared with me what he found out. He did make Chuck apologize to me though, very reluctantly, and he did so right before the final match at Regionals.

I went with the gang to cheer on Hero for the match. Then I pulled out a banner from my backpack that I had prepared a few days ago. Hero's face was largely printed on it with the words "Stanford's Champion, My Hero". The rest of them laughed uncontrollably when they first saw it.

"You make me speechless once again, little miss scholar." Hugh chortled.

The idea of it seemed really great when it was just in my head. In reality, to be honest, even I myself was getting slightly embarrassed holding up the banner. But then, I saw there were others who held posters and pompoms, they made me feel better.

Before the start of the match, the players on both teams were allowed to go on to the court for warm up practices. I love the Hero Fiennes Tiffin off court and now, I fell in love with the version of him on court as well.

It's so unfair. The things he does effortly to my heart.

The whistle blew to signal the end of warm ups. Players who were not part of the first line up returned to the benches. There were five from each team who stayed on the court and they greeted each other quickly before assuming their positions. And of course, Hero would be playing for Stanford right from the first half.

A referee waltzed in between two players facing off each other with a basketball in his hand and a whistle in the other. Hugh explained that basketball matches begin with a tip off.

Beep! The whistle was blown. The ball was tossed into the air vertically. Two players made a jump for it and...

Hero managed to get the ball!

So proud of my man! I got too excited that I stood up, blocking the people behind me, causing them to click their tongues in annoyance. I turned to apologize and sat back down, feeling embarrassed.

"It's only been 3 seconds into the match." Cheryl giggled.

Hero did teach me a couple of terminologies pertaining to the sport. Like how the players are moving or standing on the spot while bouncing the ball at the same time is called dribbling. Another way to get the ball across the court would be to make a pass to another player.

The ball changed hands much faster than I expected. While everyone was busy tracing the ball with their eyes, mine was fixated only on one man. I couldn't care less about where the ball was. The pace of the match was faster than my brain could process. Points were going up for both teams continuously such that not one team could maintain the lead for long.

Between all the bouncing, passing and throwing, which I could barely keep up with, much less understood, when the final buzzer went off to signal the end of the last half, I at least could tell from the scoreboard that Stanford has won.