We're down by three points and there's only two minutes on the clock. Stanford is a hard team to beat but we always manage to find a way to be undefeated every time. Although I do admit that they put up a good match.

Roman swiftly dribbles the ball down the court, the sound of sneakers squeaking across the newly polished floors. All I can hear is the cheers of the crowd and the sound of my heart drumming in my ears as we try to catch up to the scoreboard. Roman makes a break for it when their defence is not paying attention and makes a dunk into the basket.

Two more left. Stanford's small forward has the ball, makes his way down the court, and passes it to their shooting guard. Before he can make it to their side of the court, Travis makes a steal for the ball and begins jogging down the court towards me. He passes it to me, and I make a shot from the three point land, and I can see the count down on the clock. With ten seconds left, I aim for the basket, and it swooshes in effortlessly and we make a win just seconds before the clock runs out.

Our side of the court erupts into applause, cheers, and screams. For our first game we did well even though there was a slim gap between us. All I wanna do now is shower. After our team gathers for celebrations, we grab our stuff and head to the locker rooms.

We enter the change rooms. I at once head to shower, scrubbing off the sweat off my body and relaxing my sore muscles. I'm gonna need to take an ice bath.

When I finally get out, I hear music blasting through the speakers and a bunch of the guys fooling around and dancing. Travis comes from behind me, patting me on the back. "Your girlfriend got the dudes talking, bro."

"My girlfriend?" I ask, with a brow arched at him. Travis gives me a look that says, 'are you serious', "you telling me you ain't heard shit?" My brows raise in curiosity, "I really gotta see her now."

"Be my guest, man.''

"Aight, ladies I'll meet you outside." I say, pulling on a hoodie. I exit the change rooms and turn the corner to the back of the court where people are hanging around after the game. I crane my neck among the mass of people as I look for someone.

When the crowd finally parts, I see her talking to her friends. In an outfit corresponding to the school's colours in a red skirt with gold on the hem and a red top written USC on the front. Her hair is in a sleek back ponytail and on her feet, she has on white socks and white converses.

She looks amazing. She even went the extra mile and got face paint on the top of her cheeks. I walk up to the group, casually putting my arm over her shoulder. The girls' wave at me in greeting and Kiana looks up at me with a smile.

"So, what are you girls' talking about?"

"Our outfits for the party because as usual Kiana never knows what to wear." Sasha looks pointedly at her friend next to me. "Says the person who changes their outfit choice thirty times." Kiana mumbles under her breath that the others don't manage to hear but I do. I laugh silently as I see the guys coming out from the change rooms and join the rest of us.

"So, who's hosting the party?" Amaal questions. "Who else besides Trevor?" Sasha says.

"Trev never gets tired of hosting these things?" Kiana asks, looking up at me and I shake my head. "He's a party animal on its own so he doesn't mind." I shrug my shoulders.

"You'd swear with the amount of parties he throws that his parents don't even exist." Cassie states. "They're always traveling so you could say that." I chuckle.

"Y'all ready to go?" Lucas looks at everyone and we nod.

"But we gotta stop by the apartment first so we can change." Sasha catches up to her boyfriend and links her arm with his. "What's wrong with what you're wearing now?" James blinks at her as we walk behind them. "Are you kidding? Babe, there's levels to this shit, okay?" Sasha tells him and he sighs.

...

After the ladies changed, we made our way to the party, it hasn't even been thirty minutes and the girls are significantly drunk. Travis and Roman have disappeared doing God knows what and Sasha and Jay are loved up in the corner as usual.

I watch Kiana closely; I've known her long enough to know how she is when she's belligerently drunk. She's bound to do crazy shit so I gotta keep my guard up. Cassie grabs Kiana's hand as they both climb onto the pool table and begin dancing on it. Her tight white dress keeps going further and further up her body and my chest tightens when I catch a glimpse of her tattoo on her upper thigh. A reasonable amount of people are watching them both like hungry dogs. I'm about to step in when Travis trudges into the kitchen, drunk out of his mind with an equally drunk Roman behind him.

I don't have the time for this. I bypass them and at once head to Kiana who's still on the pool table, "Kiana, get down." She looks around to see who called her and when she finally sees me, she at once starts laughing. "Nuh uh, I'm having fun. Join me!"

I shake my head, "c'mon, Kiki." I hold my hand out for her to take but she stubbornly refuses and ignores me, continuing to dance. I hear someone yell 'skinny dipping' and my head snaps up at the dozens of people running out back to join in on the 'fun'.

I hear Kiana squeal and take off the strap of her dress and that does it for me. "Aight, that's it." I grab her by the ankle and leg and throw her over my shoulder. "Hey!" I begin walking, ignoring her yells of protest, "put me down!"'

"No can do."

I adjust her on my shoulder pulling down her dress to cover her butt and since she had already given me her purse before we entered Trevor's house. I place my hand on her ass to prevent the dress from sliding upwards as we walk out the front door and down the stairs passing couples making out in corners and a guy passed out on the front lawn.

"C'mon! I was having fun."

"Well, your idea of fun and mine are two different things. Skinny dipping is not one of them."

Then her hand comes down hard on my ass, I hiss, scowling at her even though she can't see me, "What the hell was that for?" She eventually stops struggling and just hangs from my shoulder then I hear her sigh in defeat.

"Well, you have your hand on mine." She retorts and I'm dumbfounded. "That's for a totally different reason though." I can practically hear her eye roll.

"It's a compliment if you think about it, honestly." I can't hold back the laugh at that, "how is that a compliment?" I question, kind of liking the drunk version of her. Sober Kiana doesn't really speak her mind and uses sarcasm to say what she really thinks, Drunk Kiana does no such thing.

"It means that ass is fat." She answers me confidently and I burst into laughter, "y'know I think I like drunk Kiana." With no hesitation, she says, "everyone does."

I laugh once again and unlock my car. Opening the passenger door, I carefully place her in and buckle her seat belt. I hurry over to the driver's side and get in. I start the car and head back to her apartment.

...

Once we get to her apartment, I had to carefully extract a passed out Kiana in my arms. My arms are probably numb right now but I'd rather it be me taking her home than her staying at the party, bound to make choices she will most definitely regret the next morning.

Being in the elevator was the most awkward thing ever because a bunch of people kept staring at me. The elevator music didn't make the scenario any better. When the doors finally opened on her floor, I made my way out as fast as I could. I head down the corridor, which is so fucking long, and I only realise now how far down Kiana and Sasha's apartment is.

I struggle to get the keys out of her purse, carrying a still passed out Kiana in my arm. I get them out and search for the key I think is most correct to the lock and pop open the door. I step in and close the door with my foot and lock it.

I throw her purse and keys on the counter and head up the stairs, upon entering her room I knock her head on the door frame, "shit, sorry." She groans and her eyes flutter open, and she squints at me. "Ow."

"Sorry, mama." I don't stop myself as the nickname slips out. Even in her state of mind, she lazily grins at me with her eyes closed and I can't help but smile at how cute she looks with her dimples popping out.

I open the covers and lay her down, removing her heels. Knowing she can't sleep with her makeup on, I go into her bathroom and look for the closest thing to remove her makeup and its wipes. Not much but we'll go with it, hopefully she doesn't kill me in the morning.

I enter the room again and kneel in front of her and carefully rub the wipes across her face removing my makeup. I rub the wipe across her forehead, cheeks, and chin and a lil bit on her eyelids to get the makeup on her eyes off. Next thing I see is her makeup free face, freckles scattered across her cheeks and nose and a little bit on her forehead. Way more than myself and to be honest that's what I admire most about her when she doesn't put any beauty products on her face.

I use a second wipe to make sure it's properly clean. I throw the used wipes in the trash and put the wipes back where I found them. Lastly, I grab her bonnet from her dresser and carefully put it on her hair. When I'm satisfied, I look at her for a couple of minutes and sigh, I turn to leave but she mumbles something that makes me halt in what I'm doing.

"Stay." I focus my gaze on her a little longer to make sure I heard correctly, and she says it again, "stay." Her hand reaches out to me, barely able to keep her eyes open to look at me.

I remove my denim jacket and place it on her chair. Then I remove my shoes, leaving them on the ground. I go around to the other side of the bed and climb under the sheet from behind her. The sheets only come up to her waist and I can see the freckles on her back as well as her shoulder. She turns over to face me and I see her eyes scan my face before they close again. I move a little closer until I can practically feel the warmth emanating from her body.

Unconsciously, she moves closer to me till we're now chest to chest. She brings up her hand to my chest and she releases a deep breath from her nose, and I sense her whole body relax. It's only when her body rises and falls rhythmically that I know she's fallen asleep, and I bring my lips to her forehead whispering goodnight even though I'm fully aware that she can't hear me.

...

𝐓𝐨 𝐊𝐨𝐛𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐆𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐚 𝐁𝐫𝐲𝐚𝐧𝐭. 🕊️