“Noolllaaaaa!” Colette jumped on the bed and swiveled her hips.
“Ido notwant to kiss Nola Young,” I protested, because this was a slippery slope with my little sisters. I couldn’t overreact or they’d use it against me forever. I couldn’t underreact because then they wouldn’t be satisfied until they got a reaction out of me. “We’ve been rivals longer than we were friends.”
“Since when were y’all friends?” Amir pondered. “I only met her on draft night.”
“That international tournament I did before I left for college?” I reminded my brother of the under-19 girls basketball tournament I was selected for. I didn’t know I was being that closely watched until scout season but getting selected to represent my country was outside my realm of imagined possibilities.
That’s where I met Nola Young; before the platinum twists, before we grew up, got drafted, secured big sponsorship deals, and gained millions of followers across socials.
“Bee-sting would never. They’ve been fighting since we were going to her college games. Peoplebeton how many fights for the season those two would get into.”
Fight was a strong word when all we’d done is get into each other’s faces, chests touching, mouths close together, neither of us relenting on ending our trash talk. Nola and I had never had to be held back, but we paid the league a healthy amount of fines between delay of game fouls, technical fouls, and anything that occurred during post-game press.
Nola and I were equals in every sense in the sport, but we would never admit how and why we got under each other’s skin.
CHAPTER FOUR
Bee
Seven years ago
U19 Tournament
I thought I was doing a good job at hiding the butterfly migration that was currently moving from one side of my stomach to the other. I had spent the last two months mentally preparing for this.
Preparing to compete in my first everinternationaltournament.
This wasn’t like play-offs in high school, or attempting to win the state championship. This was basketball on a world stage. The only more worldly I could get was the Olympics and,dear God,I think I almost just vomited at that thought.
My high school career was everything I wanted it to be. Made varsity as a freshman, won state championships twice,andgot scouted by one of the best basketball programs in the country. I should’ve been mentally preparing for my move to California. But then I’d gotten the call: an invite to play at anunder-19 basketball tournament representing the United States of America.
Holy shit.
If USC prospecting me didn’t cause enough of a stir in whatever overbearing parents for basketball group chats existed, getting called up for a tournament in Spain probably caused an earthquake.
I grew up getting shuffled to basketball camp while my siblings got dropped off at band camp or theatre camp or some art intensive off in the mountainside. I played with my brother’s friends at the park and worked on my skills there. Plenty of coaches begged my parents to put me on travel teams but those all just went in one ear and out the other. Lita and Oscar knew I was good, but they didn’t knowhowgood. Then high school came, and whatever trajectory I was on couldn’t be stopped. People I never thought of, nor knew, were putting me on lists. I was getting invited to camps I only thought uber rich prodigies could afford, and yet here I was.
I rode my flight solo since no one else was traveling from Charlotte, but it didn’t take me long to find the group of athletes all waiting by a man in a suit with our home country on his little whiteboard.
“Be yourself, no matter what it could cost.” My mom’s phantom voice said in my ear as if she made the trek with me. It was something she said to all five of us non-stop, burdened with the pressure of being the only Filipino girl after her parents immigrated to the south. My mom would be damned if anyone tried to get in her way, and she made sure to instill that same energy in all five of us.
I made my way over, curly hair carefully and artfully parted into space buns on either side of my head, my new post high school look I told my little sisters would look great on TV, “Hi! I’m Brittney Lee.”
The other four girls stared at me like I was the first voice that spoke all day. I mean, it was only eight in the morning our time back home, so we were long past rise and shine. I stalked everyone well enough to know there was Lucy Lane, a shooting guard headed to Iowa, Katie Barnes, a center going to Louisiana, Farrah White, another shooting guard coming to USC with me, and the superstar herself, Nola Young.
It was hard to not know who Nola was if you weren’t in basketball. She didn’t just come from one set of impeccable genes, buttwo.I was absolutely above fan-girling people my age, and I was going to stick to that standard. Nola already probably had a big head and I definitely wasn’t going to fill up with more air.
It was impossible to ignore the way her dark brown hair was pulled into a ponytail that accentuated her cheekbones and angular jaw. Just from her silence I could tell she thought highly of herself. I was used to people like her, the cocky players who didn’t come to make friends, but get wins and go on to play at top schools. They had no life outside of basketball, and Nola’s heritage made her appearance even more untouchable. But she was beautiful, the type of face that could make you do anything if she asked nicely. But I wasn’t here forthat.
I was scared no one was going to bite on my greeting until Farrah stretched out her arm to dap me up. Maybe she pitied my early morning enthusiasm falling short, or she was just glad to have someone here who’d come with her to campus soon after—nevertheless, I was grateful.
The driver counted our heads and announced, “Alright, all five are here, let’s head to the shuttle and get you to your rooms.”
We made our way outside to the mild spring day and headed toward a sprinter van with three rows behind the driver. As a middle child, there probably wasn’t a second in the day I wasn’t smushed between two other bodies, but as I followed Nolatoward the middle row, Lucy and Katie already in the furthest row, Nola put her bag down next to her.
“I have to sit alone,” she said without apology.
“That’s what the front is for,” I stated, becauseno way was she getting her own entitled way.
