Bounce Back

Chapter 60

Ryan's POV

UCLA were playing Louisville and the day of the game I woke to find that Tyler wasn't sleeping beside me. I rubbed my eyes slightly before sitting up and glancing around the room. I couldn't see him in the room so I wasn't sure where he was.

I had only been sitting there for a minute when I heard the door open. Tyler shut the door behind him and I gestured him sit down beside me.

"You were awake early," I said.

"I'm just nervous," he admitted, handing me a paper bag.

I investigated in the bag and found a croissant and I quickly started to eat it.

"Fair enough," I told him between bites.

He rested his head on my shoulder and we ate in silence for a minute. It was nice to have him close to me so we continued to sit there.

"How long did you sleep for?" I asked.

"Not that long."

"Was it your insomnia?"

"No, I think that it was just nerves. It's definitely been better recently," he said.

I wrapped an arm around him and my hand slowly rubbed up and down on his arm.

"You are going to be amazing," I reassured him.

We didn't talk much more and like the other games we moved around each other in silence and we didn't talk on the way to the arena for the last time. The whole team was really nervous before the game and it was understandable. This was the biggest game any of them had played in and if they won they wouldn't have lost all year.

Coach made sure to keep warm ups light and focus on just doing what we usually do. The tension was high in the locker room right before the game and there wasn't as much chatter as normal.

Coach said his last things before the players headed out onto the court. I took my usual seat on the end of the bench. It seemed like longer until the game finally started. Louisville was a good team, clearly by the fact that they were here, so the game was tough.

Everyone wanted to win more than anything so it was physical. There would a few players that weren't going to be back next year so this was their last chance to win and they wanted to go out on top.

I could help but notice that they weren't taking any long shots. Most of their points were coming from dunks and shots very close to the bank. There was one player that took a couple of threes but that was it. I passed my thoughts along to Coach and I knew that he told the players during the next break.

I felt useless throughout the rest of the quarter. I didn't have anything else to add. The team was up by three at the break.

"Anything to add?" Coach asked.

I shook my head and he added a last couple things before the players took the court again. I took my seat again and since he wasn't on the court Tyler took a seat beside.

"You've looked good out there," I told him.

He smiled slightly and patted me on the knee. We didn't talk anymore; instead we faced the court and watched the game in front of us. It wasn't long until Tyler got called onto the court and the longer the game went on the more nervous I got.

It was close and there was a couple of shoving incidents in the middle of the quarter and it was tied when half time came. I followed the team up the tunnel and took a seat next to Tyler inside the locker room.

"This is the last half of the season so give it everything that you have," Coach called before the team headed back out again.

The whole next quarter was just as tight and the players had to be broken apart in the middle of it. The final quarter was much the same and once again my knee started bouncing. The time was ticking down very quickly again and the teams were close.

I felt like I couldn't breathe once the clock ticked under a minute. With thirty seconds left the team had the ball and where trying to get points to get ahead and chew up as much time as possible.

With five seconds left on the shot clock Tyler put up a shot and it went in leaving Louisville ten seconds left to score. Everyone was on their feet on the bench and the crowd was counting down the seconds.

All they needed to do was stop them scoring once more and I was really nervous. The seconds seemed to slow down and the defence was going well and with a second left one of the players put up a long, last hope, shot and it bounced harmlessly away.

UCLA had won.

The whole bench stormed the court, including me for once and everyone started hugging everyone else. It took me ages to reach Tyler since he was in the middle of the group and by that point I had hugged a large portion of the team.

"Congratulations," I told him.

He wrapped his arms around me before kissing me on the middle court. I wrapped my arms around him and once we broke apart we kept our arms around each other.

"Are you sure about that?" I asked.

"Of course, I've been thinking about doing it for a while," he told me.

I kissed him once more but then we had to separate and he was being called for by a heap of different people. I didn't really mind because I knew that we would have time together later and I let him go and talk to everyone.

I moved out of the group and ran into Coach.

"Will we be seeing you again next year?" he asked.

"Of course, I couldn't imagine doing anything else," I told him honestly.

We both stood there and watched everyone else and honestly I couldn't imagine being anywhere else.

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The Wise One