For The Love Of Basketball Read online

  “Good, I couldn’t sleep but a couple of hours a night for the first whole week when I first went away to college. My sister and I had always shared a room, we were really close and I missed her terribly.” Harriet chews on the end of her pencil with a faraway look in her eye.

  “I’m an only child, but I certainly do miss my friend David.” Tessa likes how Harriet is already opening up and share little personal details. She tries half-heartedly to admonish herself for the downright giddy feelings rising up inside her. Instead of giving in entirely to the nervousness rolling around inside her she tries to focus on something, anything except Harriet and how nice it would feel to be in her arms. Tessa pulls the pendant from beneath her shirt and rubs her fingers over it. The action is somewhat soothing.

  “Oh, David, is that your boyfriend?” Tessa can’t be sure if she detects a tone of disappointment in Harriet’s voice or if she is just letting her imagination run wild.

  At any rate she has to laugh at how ludicrous it sounds to even suggest her and David might be together romantically. “He’s my best friend and he’d probably be rolling around on the floor in hysterics by now at the suggestion of us being in a romantic relationship.

  “Oh, I see, does he have a girlfriend?” Harriet has laid her pencil down seemingly very interested in the conversation.

  “Um… more like a different boyfriend every weekend, if you can call them boyfriends.” Tessa can’t wait to tell David that Harriet actually asked if they are together.

  “Oh okay, do you have anyone?” Harriet looks down at the papers on her desk and traces her finger around the loops of the circles she had been drawing earlier.

  Again Tessa has the idea that Harriet could be on the borderline of flirting but she tries to dismiss the idea. Harriet is now looking her in the eyes expectantly waiting for the reply to her question. Tessa decides to get it over with and make her sexuality clear. “I’m single, no girlfriend here. Do you, do you have someone?” She knows the question is bold but the answer has become of great importance to her.

  Something crosses Harriet’s face that Tessa can’t quite read, definite hesitation but maybe something else, something more. “Yeah, I have a girlfriend. Well its nearly time to begin practice, everyone should be filing in.” She closes the papers in front of her into a notebook and stands up abruptly.

  Tessa notices a definite shift in atmosphere as Harriet puts on her Coach Lewis face and begins ushering her out of the small office. Tessa can’t help but feel like she’s done something wrong to cause the immediate shift in attitude. “I’m sorry, your relationship status isn’t really something I should be asking you.” Tessa ventures mostly to see if that was in fact the thing to change Harriet’s demeanor.

  ‘I asked you first, no worries.” With that Harriet leaves the office and walks across to the locker room door pushing it open and stepping out of view behind the closed door. Tessa is left a bit dumbstruck still standing in the office. She snaps out of it as quickly as possible and jogs after her coach ready to get practice underway.

  Chapter 4

  Practice goes well for Tessa as does the next one and the next one after that. She talks with David every night on the phone about her growing attraction to her basketball coach but she and Harriet don’t have any more heart to heart conversations, in fact its honestly as though Harriet is avoiding direct contact with her. Tessa works closely with Brittany, the captain of the team while Harriet works one on one or in small groups with some of the players that need the extra help. It occurs to Tessa that they are two weeks into practice and Harriet has not said a single word directly to her since that first day of practice in her office. There is definitely a problem but Tessa can’t be sure what it is. She’s been too afraid to straight up ask but her courage is gathering daily. She didn’t come here for run of the mill repetitive drills with a fellow teammate. She came to learn and be a better basketball player. She came to eventually claim a spot in the WNBA and she wants to learn from an attentive coach. Of course aside from that she is extremely curious as to why the friendly, chatty, very personable coach turned into someone that doesn’t even give her the time of day.

  At the end of practice after its officially been a full two weeks of Harriet not uttering a word to her Tessa decides she can’t take it any longer and hangs around the locker room dragging her feet so that she can stay behind after everyone else and ask Harriet herself why she has stopped communicating whatsoever.

  When the last girl has left the locker room Tessa separates her things shoving some clean shorts and a couple of sports bras into her locker then packing her dirty jersey and shorts into her gym bag to wash later. Harriet has never been back to the locker room since practice ended but Tessa knows she has to be around still because she can see her car keys on her desk through the glass door.

  Tessa moves slowly and deliberately out of the locker room, as she approaches the bleachers she can see Harriet sitting on the bottom bleacher on the opposite side of the court. Harriet is on the phone and she doesn’t seem happy. Tessa waits and watches Harriet not wanting to interrupt what looks like a much less than enjoyable phone call but also honestly just enjoying the view.

  Tessa marvels at how amazing Harriet looks even when she is visibly angry. She has begun shouting into the phone and the creases on her forehead are prominent signs that she is more than a little distraught. Her blonde hair that was once pulled neatly into a smooth ponytail is now wild from her running her hands through it. Wisps of hair stick out around her face. Suddenly Tessa hears her scream the word ‘fine’ and then she launches her phone across gym. It makes a reverberating thud accompanied by a cracking sound. Despite the obvious seriousness of the situation Tessa can’t help but smile to herself marveling at Harriet’s throwing ability.

  She decides to take a chance and hurries out of her hidden spot walking briskly toward Harriet. “Wow, your three pointers must be on point.” Tessa jokes trying to lighten the mood.

  “You saw that?” a shocked and shaken Harriet shakes her head and lowers it into her hands for a moment before straightening back up trying to regain some bit of composure. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. At least not about that.” Tessa eases herself down on the bleacher right beside Harriet.

  Harriet visibly stiffens and moves a couple of inches away from Tessa. “What do you mean ‘at least not about that’ what should I be sorry about?”

  “That, that thing you just did. I sat down and you moved away from me. I sat down and you became visibly uncomfortable. Things started out so well and I thought you liked me. Now it’s been weeks and you haven’t even spoken to me. I just don’t get it.” Tessa tries to control herself but her emotions are becoming uncontrollable. She gets up and paces back and forth in front of the spot they’ve been sitting in.

  “Don’t you have any idea Tessa?” Harriet looks Tessa in the eyes portraying all kinds of emotions in that one look. “Sit down, I’m sorry, I know I’ve handled things wrong, we can talk about.”

  Harriet seems almost like she is on the verge of tears but she keeps it together. She angles her body in the direction the spot Tessa was sitting in and pats the bleachers beside her. Tessa reluctantly sits back down and angles her body toward Harriet waiting for some explanation of Harriet’s behavior.

  Harriet begins. “Tessa, I’m sorry, I…” she pauses seeming unsure of how to phrase whatever it is that’s churning around in her head. Her hand drops down to cover Tessa’s on the bleachers between them. “Oh what the hell…” one second after the words have escaped her lips those same lips crash into Tessa’s.

  At first Tessa is taken off guard but she quickly regains her bearings and begins kissing Harriet back. She puts her hands in Tessa’s hair furthering the damage to the disheveled pony tail and Harriet slides her hands up Tessa’s back beneath her shirt.

  Now that the kiss has been initiated Harriet cannot stop herself she moves down to Tessa’s neck kissing a trail down her jawbone before her l
ips arrive at their destination. Her hands move around to the front sliding beneath Tessa’s sports bra and kneading her breasts beneath.

  Tessa is in shock but the surprise is an extremely pleasurable one. Soon she lets her body decide all the moves as well. She arches her back and throws her head back to give Harriet greater access to her neck. Her fingers knead Harriet’s back beneath her shirt, slipping lower and lower until the fingers of both her hands have slipped beneath Harriet’s waistband. She squeezes fueled on by the low guttural moans escaping Harriet’s lips. Harriet had moved her lips once again, she has Tessa’s shirt pushed and bra pushed up and the vibration of her moans can be felt against Tessa’s nipple that she has now taken between her lips. Tessa pulls Harriet closer into her and slides her hand down deeper into Harriet’s pants so that she can rub her middle finger against Harriet’s clit. Her finger glides up and down over the hardening nub encouraged by how extremely wet Harriet has become. Harriet shutters a bit against her and hastily scrambles to get her own hand into the front of Tessa’s shorts. When she succeeds the two rub at each other’s clits in tandem. There is something desperate and frantic about Harriet’s ministrations.

  When Tessa’s moves her fingers slipping two of them into Harriet and beginning to pump them gently inside the older woman Harriet yes widen and the two lock gazes for a few short seconds before Harriet’s eyes slam closed and she begins to rock along with Tessa’s movements thrusting her entire body in synch with Tessa’s own thrusts.

  The bleachers moan and crack along with the two women and when a particularly loud cracking sound reverberates around the empty gym Harriet pulls back quickly freeing herself from the tangled mass she and Tessa have become.

  Tessa is left stunned with an aching in her crotch and an equally demanding aching in her heart. The look on Harriet’s face seems like something very closely related to terror if not completely terror. Tessa’s heart begins to sink as she watches Harriet’s eyes darting everywhere around the empty gym while she straightens her clothes.

  “I’m sorry. God I’m so sorry.” Harriet looks at Tessa as though Tessa is a wounded puppy.

  “I’m not sorry.” Tessa sits up straighter and attempts to put her hand over top of Harriet’s but Harriet moves her hand opting to use it to try to straighten out her hair, now more wild than ever. Tessa continues on despite Harriet’s unwillingness to take a moment to calm down. “I’ve been attracted to you since that first day we met in front of my dorm. You’re witty, and beautiful, and amazing, and a pretty great basketball coach, or so it seems from a distance. You haven’t been actually coaching me that much.” Even though she knows that last statement won’t help to make Harriet feel better Tessa can’t help but add it in.

  “I, I was attracted to you straight away too Tessa, that’s why I’ve been trying to distance myself. I just I could lose my job and you could get hurt being in the middle of it all. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to be the reason anything else hurts you.”

  “It’s hurting me for you to deny your feelings. It’s hurting me to watch you actively ignore me. That’s what’s hurting me.” Tessa stands up and resumes her pacing from earlier.

  Harriet looks like she is going to reach out to Tessa but instead wraps her arms around herself. “If all that’s not bad enough, if all that’s not reason enough, I have a girlfriend Tessa. I admit the relationship is not good, that was her on the phone.” She sweeps her hand toward the center of the gym where her phone lies broken and useless. “But it’s not fair, it’s not fair to her or you or even me. She gets up and starts toward the middle of the gym to retrieve her broken phone. “I’m sorry I haven’t been carrying out my coaching duties adequately. I’ll do better.”

  She doesn’t say anymore, she just walks to the center of the gym and picks up her phone and then walks right past Tessa without another glance. Tessa can hear the thud of the locker room door and then only a couple of minutes later she can hear it again followed by the echo of the gymnasium door. She stands there frozen, bewildered, and near tears with the sound of Harriet walking away echoing through her head.

  Chapter 5

  The weeks move on and Harriet stays true to her word. As far as her role as a coach goes she is exemplary. In spite of the agony Tessa is feeling she is actually learning a lot as a player and when the playing season actually comes up she has faith that her team will be nearly unstoppable.

  Outside of practice and class Tessa becomes a zombie of sorts. She eats only to stay alive, she studies religiously just to take her mind off of things, and she hasn’t even been picking up most of David’s phone calls.

  She’s lying on her bed with her history book open mostly only staring at the wall when her phone starts ringing, a quick glance tells her its David. It’s almost always David. She curses her heart for how it jumps for that short moment before seeing the caller ID thinking of the remote possibility that it could be Harriet. Why would it be Harriet? She doesn’t even have her phone number and she’s made it very clear what kind of relationship they have. They are student and coach, nothing more. She doesn’t even really smile at Tessa anymore.

  At the last moment before voicemail picks up Tessa pushes the accept button on her phone and raises the phone to her ear. “Hey.” She clears her throat trying not to sound like she wants to cry. She’s absolutely always shared everything with David but she has felt too defeated to even talk about this to him.

  “Oh wow, so you’re not dead? I can quit skimming the obituaries for your name I guess, and I’ll call and cancel that suit I was going to rent for your funeral.”

  “I’m still very much alive David,” it makes Tessa feel even worse to lie to David. In fact she doesn’t feel very much alive. She has a pulse, she’s still breathing and she makes from one day to next but she doesn’t feel alive.

  “Well good to hear, now where the hell have you been? What the hell have you been doing?” David’s voice is raised an octave above his normally loud pitched voice and Tessa holds the phone away from her ear while rubbing at her temples with her other hand.

  “I’ve just had a really heavy workload with my classes and basketball practice.” Tessa lies and hopes David doesn’t catch it. They’ve known each other forever and David can usually tell when something is wrong even over the phone.

  “Oh okay, so you’ve been keeping some secret love affair, haven’t you? And you haven’t told me about it. Tessa that hurts, you’re supposed to tell me these things, but I forgive you, if and only if you’ll tell me now.” David just keeps talking through Tessa’s silence carrying on a one sided conversation, too wrapped up in thinking he has it all figured out to wonder what the silence really means. “Oh, oh, oh, oh my god Tessa the freaking hot basketball coach. You’re carrying on a torrid affair with your coach aren’t you? I mean you gushed about her for a week and then you dropped off the face of the planet, now I’m really hurt, give me every detail of your forbidden affair you slut.”

  Of course all of David’s words are in jest and Tessa knows it but he really hits a nerve bringing up Harriet and she almost bursts into tears on the phone but she controls herself. “I’m not with anyone David, especially not Har…coach Lewis. The only date I have is with the history book in my lap.” She attempts a halfhearted chuckle.

  “Fall breaks coming up. Mine is the exact same week as yours if I’m not mistaken and I want to see you. I won’t have it any other way. I’ll drive up and we can get a hotel with a pool. We’ll spend the week catching up and seeing what kind of trouble we can get into. Of course unless you plan to spend the whole week with you, ahem, history book.”

  Tessa knows it’s useless to argue and honestly she could use some time with David. Maybe she’ll actually tell him what’s been going on with her. She tries to make her voice as happy and excited as possible. “That sounds great David. I can’t wait.”

  “I’m so excited, I’m gonna hug you for an hour straight I’ve missed you so much Tessa. Oh and guess what…” he paus
es only for a second to draw in a much need breath of air not even giving Tessa the time to ask him what it is. “I went on a real date last night, can you believe it? Not just some frantic grope in the back of my car under the guise of a date but a real date. I met this guy in my biology class and he asked me out, he picked me up, brought me a daisy and held my hand during a movie. He kissed me when he dropped me off back home and that was it, he even wants a second date.”

  “Wow, that’s really great David. I’ll have to meet him over Thanksgiving break if you make it official.” Tessa tries her hardest to sound happy. She really is happy for David she just can’t seem to get over everything with Harriet and move on to a place where she can be happy herself.

  “I have to go for now, that second date is happening in an hour and I’ve got to put my face on.” David jokes and Tessa actually cracks a real smile imagining David running around his ‘basement condo’ as he likes to call it, probably in his underwear getting ready to see this guy that he obviously really likes. “I’m so excited to see you in just one week and you’d better be prepared to spill on what’s been going on with you cause I’m not taking no for an answer.”

  “I can’t wait either. Have fun on your second date and call me later to tell me all about it.” Tessa smiles to herself thinking about how she didn’t even have to lie. She really can’t wait to see David. David is home to her and she takes comfort in looking forward to that hour long hug. She even catches herself smiling again thinking about it.

  They say their goodbyes and Tessa gets off the phone with a renewed hope for life. She’s still confused and heartbroken and maybe all her positivity will fly out the door at tomorrow morning’s practice but for now she can smile without it being forced or faked and she’s genuinely excited to spend a week coming up with David.