“Yep. I’m a good girlfriend, Nic,” Ariana said. “My girlfriend deserves the best. Right now my attention is on basketball. There’ll be plenty of time for romance after I retire if the right woman comes along.”
“After you retire!” Nicole exclaimed. “That’s years away. What if the right woman comes along now?”
Ariana thought about Nicole’s question. She wasn’t sure what she’d do. But she wasn’t looking for a girlfriend and wasn’t interested in anyone, so how could it happen? Therealquestion was how would she know if the right woman did come along?
“Ari?”
“I’m here,” Ariana said. “I don’t see how the right woman could come along when I’m this focused on basketball. I don’t know what I’d do because I don’t think it’s possible.”
“Okay, but—look, it’s not my business, but waiting until you retire seems like a very long time.”
“What about you? You don’t have a girlfriend,” Ariana said.
“I told you. It’s hard with my travel schedule.”
“Are you a good girlfriend, Nic?”
“No, Ari, I’m not,” Nicole replied. “That’s why I don’t have a girlfriend.”
Ariana furrowed her brows. Nicole had been nothing but nice to her. She found it hard to believe she wouldn’t be a good partner. “You’re not?”
There was a pause on the other end of the phone. Ariana could hear Nicole sigh.
“I’m like you. Focused on the season.”
“And if the right woman came along?”
“Why are we talking about this?” Nicole asked with frustration in her voice.
“Why are you getting upset?”
“Last week Kate and Shealyn both mentioned my dating habits. They don’t seem to understand that a woman can be happy without a partner.”
“Oh, so it's a sore subject,” Ariana replied. “I’m sorry. Wait—why am I apologizing? You’re the one who brought it up.”
Nicole groaned. “Guilty. My apologies.”
Ariana chuckled. “It’s okay. Really. I do want to make it clear that I do not sleep with random women when we stay over after a game.”
“Oh, Ariana,” Nicole said. “I never thought that.”
“Good,” Ariana said. “Can you say the same thing?”
Nicole chuckled. “Yes, I can. I do not sleep with random women.”
“I think we’ve found another thing we have in common,” Ariana said. “On top of that, this conversation really didn’t have anything to do with basketball.”
“We were talking about groupies at a basketball game,” Nicole stated.
“Yeah, but we were really talking about our dating lives.”
“That’s true.”
Ariana smiled. “Surely you have women asking you out all the time.”
“Not really.”
“Okay, maybe we can talk about this another time,” Ariana said, suddenly curious about the type of woman Nicole foundattractive. “And uh, going forward, I may not be as thoughtful as I was last night.”
