Game Theory × NH

097 | berkelium

× Horan

I was late for practice. Mainly because I just really didn't want to go.

I've had a hard weekend; most of it spent sulking and sleeping which was why I skipped out on the practice yesterday. Just the idea of being in the same general area as Lynn made me want to crawl into a hole and never resurface. I didn't even go to my classes for the past two days and instead emailed my instructors to send me any assignments that I might have missed. But I knew if I skipped out on practice one more time I would get a hard lecture from coach, and possibly some triple plyometric drills which would result in an ice bath afterwards, so I figured I should go.

I was only fifteen minutes late, which I thought would be okay since all we did for the first twenty was do stretches, and since I ran all the way from my car to the locker room, I figured I got all my cardio in anyways.

But as I walked onto the pitch, I was quickly overwhelmed with disappointment at missing out on the conversation that led to the sight in front of me.

All sixteen players were standing in a half circle, facing the field. But that wasn't what made me stop in my tracks and stare; it was how they were posing. Their knees were bent and arms straight out in front of them. They all looked like they were standing on a high dive about to jump into a nonexistent pool.

I looked around for Coach so I could ask him what the bloody hell was happening, but he wasn't anywhere in sight.

"What. The fuck. Is going on?" I asked slowly and loudly.

The second my voice rang out through the arena, the team quickly went back to standing straight and turned to look at me like they were caught doing something they shouldn't.

"Namaste," Dylan said with a lopsided grin as he put his palms together in front of him and bowed slightly.

I stared at him. "What did you just call me?"

Through the throng of players, I saw Lynn standing in front of them, clearly being the leader of this little acrobat show. I couldn't look at her, not without a plan. But I only had about 2.5 seconds to run the scenario/reaction in my head before she was right in front of me and hitting my system with the full force of those damn blue eyes.

"Namaste," she said, watching me carefully. "It's a greeting in Hindi."

It made me feel a little better to see that Lynn wasn't looking like herself, either. She wasn't wearing any makeup, but that wasn't unusual during practice, but it made it easier to see the bags under her eyes. She looked like she hadn't slept in days.

"We're doing yoga," Matt explained. "Coach told Lynn that she was in charge of stretches today and she's making us do this."

Lynn scuffed. "I didn't make you do anything. You all agreed to give it a chance."

"To be fair," James spoke up. "We just wanted to see you bend down in those leggings. But all you've got us doing are these tree and chair poses."

"Anything else is too advanced for you," she argued.

I walked to the bench and sat down, adjusting my knee brace. "No more yoga," I stated. "It does nothing to prepare us for our upcoming game next weekend. We should start-"

"Does nothing to prepare us?" Lynn interrupted, stepping through the mass of boys until she was standing a few feet in front of me. "Do you even understand what yoga is?"