Page 10 of Anatomy of a Meet Cute
“There are only four teams?”
“Yup! Basically, we play each other once a week for four months, have a championship tournament, and call it a day.”
Sam snorted. “At least it won’t be much of a time commitment.”
“That’s the spirit,” Duke said as they approached another large set of double doors, the sound of basketballs already pounding the wood floor. Sam waited for Duke to open the door, the muscles in her body beginning to vibrate with the echoes of dribble drills, the swish of nets, and the familiar sounds of people joking over the chaos. As she walked through the doors, the fluorescent lighting of the gym strained her vision and caused Sam to blink a few times at the guy shooting from the top of the key. His mechanics were excellent. If this was the Flyers point guard, she had her work cut out for her. A teammate fed him the ball as he jogged to the two spot, and Sam stopped short, causing Duke to swivel around so they wouldn’t crash into one another.
“Ugh.”
Of course the guy with excellent form had to be Grant. For the last few weeks, Sam had been congratulating herself on not having to ask him a single question. Mostly because they had not been scheduled for the same shifts, but still. And yes, she had checked the schedule for him. She needed to know when and where to avoid him.
“Why’d you stop in the mid—oh.” Duke looked down at her and began laughing before giving her a shove out of the doorway. “You still holding that grudge?”
“There is no grudge. I just don’t feel like reliving my most recent lowlights or asking for any more help from him.” Sam’s lip began to curl like a preteen’s, and she snatched the look off her face before Duke could register it.
“You are so stubborn. You have got to find a way to get over that,” Duke said as they shuffled to a set of partially extended bleachers. Sam was careful to keep herself in line with Duke’s frame. He was wiry and didn’t provide nearly as much cover as she would like, which, in this case, was a giant tent to hide under until after the game.
“Easy for you to say. The first person who thought you were a medical professional wasn’t high off of some ill-advised mushrooms at forty thousand feet in the air.”
“Technically the first person who thought you were a medical professional was Grant. Who wasn’t high at all.”
“Who wears sunglasses on a plane?” Sam hissed, pulling her basketball shoes out of her bag and slipping off her old-school Adidas slides.
“Apparently, senior fellows.” Duke shrugged, mirroring her motions as they tied their shoes.
Standing up, Sam unzipped her jacket and stuffed it in her bag before adding, “Honestly, that is the flight attendant’s fault. He should have been more specific.”
Duke shook his head. “Well, here’s your chance to beat him at something.” Looking over her head, he winced at the sound of another shot falling. “I hope you like playing defense. Come on, Raphael isn’t here yet. Let’s warm up.”
“I never should have agreed to this,” Sam said, reaching for the ball in her bag before following him to the opposite end of the court, where two other people were already warming up. She recognized one of them as a nurse named Theo from the NICU. After introducing herself, she learned the other man was a surgery tech called Alan. Both men seemed to think they would be playing post, but Sam suspected she’d have a floor full of power forwards and Duke as her only actual post. UnlessRaphael had a strong three-point game, she would have to put in serious work to negate Grant’s jumper.
Sam felt her eyes flick to his side of the court. He had moved to practicing midrange jump shots, his motions fluid, as if the ball were an extension of himself. The muscles in his back rippled as he bounded off the floor, releasing the ball in a perfect arc. She tried not to stare at the flex of his shoulder blades through the practice jersey he wore. It was like staring at a perfect diagram of back muscles in motion. If she were forced to admit it, and luckily no one was forcing her, Sam could see how some people would consider him beautiful. Graceful, even.
The sound of a ball smashing into the board behind her caused Sam to jump and broke Grant’s concentration enough that he actually turned around to see what was happening. For a fleeting second their eyes met, and he smiled. Sam wanted to dive into the six inches of space between the bleachers and the floor. Did he know she’d been staring? Had he been experiencing that someone-is-watching-me sensation the whole time she was appreciating—no, scratch that—appraising his well-developed rhomboids? She was a doctor. It was basically hardwired into her to appreciate a well-defined anatomy.
The smile she offered in return was more of a baring of teeth than a friendly gesture. Adding a dramatic look left, then right, for good measure to cover her tracks, Sam turned her back on Grant just in time to catch the rest of her teammates taking turns at a running slam dunk.
Shaking her head, Sam called, “Y’all are gonna hurt yourselves with that.”
“He might.” Alan pointed at Theo before firing off a wild shot from the far corner of the court.
Sam smiled to herself, letting the ball spin in her hand for the first time. Her fingers adjusting to the feel of the leather whirling in her palms, the familiar motion intensifying her focus. Who cared if Grant was there? Duke was right: sooner or later she’d have to let the plane go. And what better way to do that than crushing a man’s pride oversome good-natured intramural basketball. Sam stepped to her favorite spot just outside the free throw line and fired away. The sound of the net swishing was so satisfying that she almost wanted to turn around and yellHa!at Grant.
Luckily, she didn’t need to, because Theo shouted, “Sweet!” then jogged over to retrieve her ball, like Sam’s personal hype man. She let off another few carefully placed shots, sinking each specifically because they were the shots she knew she could make. The kind of baskets most likely to intimidate an opponent. Not that she was trying to intimidate anyone.
“Sorry I’m late.” Raphael jogged over to where the rest of the team had gathered, including Kyle and Evan from pediatrics. “Are we ready to do this?”
“Sam’s ready. She is fire,” Theo said, smiling so big that she could see his perfectly even bottom teeth.
“Don’t believe him.” Sam smiled, shaking Raphael’s hand.
“Duke said you can play. And that’s good. We lost our point when she took a job in North Carolina at the end of last season.”
“I wouldn’t trust Duke, but I’ll try and make y’all proud.” Sam rolled her neck as the team stripped off their sweatshirts and walked toward the center of the court. On the other side, Grant stood huddled with his team, which managed to have three women, two of whom she planned to track down for coffee on a slow night, once she learned their names. The only people she recognized, besides Grant—who she wished she didn’t recognize—were a guy named Danny, an RN in the ob-gyn department, and a woman named Kelly from emergency. Giving Danny a genuine smile, Sam found her spot, a little way outside center court, farther into Flyer territory.
She was just beginning to visualize the first play she would set up when Grant walked into her space. Sam shifted a few feet away, trying to give herself a little extra room to think, but he followed. Not close enough to be guarding her tight, just close enough to talk.
“So you’re the new point guard?”
