“Hurry up.”
“So impatient,” she murmured, then blew him a kiss through the smoked glass. “What’s the password?”
“Headline News,” he retorted.
“Nope.”
“TMX,” he said, giving the glass another sharp tap.
“Z,” she corrected. “It’s TMZ, and no. That’s not the password.”
Ty’s chest heaved as he let his curled hands fall helpless to his sides. “I love you?”
Millie unlatched the lock but slid the door open only enough to show her face. “Try again. This time like you mean it.”
“I love you,” he repeated, his gaze unwavering. “Now, if you don’t let me take you to bed, we’re going to give the world something really newsworthy.”
She smirked. “I like a man who thinks highly of himself.” He pushed through the door, slid it shut behind him, and flipped the lock. “Ooh! So forceful and commanding.”
Ty snickered as he dipped a shoulder and threw her over his back in a firefighter’s hold. “And I like a woman who knows when to be quiet.”
Millie laughed as he started for the stairs. “Well, maybe one day, you’ll meet a nice girl.”
“One can always hope. Until then, I guess I’m stuck with you.”
“You are.” Millie spread greedy hands over the ridged muscles in his back. “And I plan on holding you hostage for a while, my handsome Coach Ransom.”
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With her feet spread wide and her lucky clipboard clutched tight to her chest, Coach Kate Snyder tipped her head back and gazed at the scoreboard suspended over center court. She didn’t need to check the display to know they were up a mere three points in these final seconds, but superstition kept her chin up and her eyes locked on the garish display.
She never watched the last play of the game.
The LED display exhorted the crowd to “MAKE SOME NOISE.” The timer switched over from minutes and seconds to seconds split down to hundredths. Her heart beat as hard as the sneakers pounding hardwood.
Without looking, she knew the opposing team’s point guard was driving the ball down court with little impediment. Kate’s players wouldn’t risk a foul at this point. The Wolcott University Women Warriors played smart. They weren’t about to give up any free shots. She’d made it clear she’d prefer to play it out in overtime rather than witness her Warriors exhibiting any self-defeating behavior.
Guard the perimeter. Make them shoot for the tie. Keep it out of the hot hands of the other team’s lethal power forward. These were the key points she’d driven home in their final time-out. Now, she had to trust her team to execute. The increase in noise level told her their defensive strategy was working.
A collective gasp signaled the Huskies had finally succeeded in getting the ball to their shooter. The roar of blood in her ears muffled the mixture of cheers and groans. Two and three-tenths seconds left on the clock.
Then, a sharp slap shattered the preternatural calm. Cheers erupted into unchecked screams. Kate heard the lazy thump-thump-thump of a loose ball and tuned in just in time to see the basketball bounce to a roll, heading for the other end of the court.
The buzzer sounded and the bench emptied.
Staring up at the screen, hoping for a replay, Kate allowed herself to be carried along on a swell of people. Assistants and trainers pummeled her shoulders and back. Three of her senior starters enveloped her in sweaty, tearful hugs. Reporters tried to muscle their way into the throng, but her Warrior Women formed a wall around her.
A stepladder was set up under the home team’s basket. They moved toward it in a clump of jubilation. Someone plunked a hat atop her head. One persistent reporter snaked a microphone through the mass of bodies, but the question was lost in the shuffle. Kate kicked her pumps off at the foot of the ladder and started to climb. One step, two. She’d been able to touch the cool, smooth iron of an orange-painted rim since she was fifteen, but the sensation never grew old. Perching a hip on the highest step, she reached for the gleaming gold-plated scissors her boss, Wolcott University Athletic Director Mike Samlin, passed up to her.
Security tried in vain to herd the players toward center court, but it was no use. They weren’t moving until the net came down. Reporters continued to thrust their microphones in her direction, though how they’d isolate her answers in the cacophony of celebration, she’d never know. Still, she answered one inane question for each loop of nylon she cut through.
Snip. How big a role did strategy play in their victory?
She bit back the first sarcastic answer that sprang to mind. Her friend and university public relations guru, Millie Jensen, would be so proud. “Like flattery, strategy will get you everywhere,” she called down to the milling crowd. “You can’t win if you don’t know how you’re going to play.”
Snip. “Yes, I am incredibly proud of these young women.”
Snip, snip. “God yes, I’ll miss these seniors. We’ve been through a lot of battles together.”
Already impatient to move on to the trophy ceremony, she started hacking at the loops on the far side of the hoop. Snip, snip, snip.
“Of course we expected a fight out of the Huskies,” she answered, trying to hide her irritation with a wide smile. “This is the championship game. We wanted a fight.”
She pretended not to hear the garbled questions coming at her as she worked her way around the rim. There’d be a press conference immediately following the presentation of the trophy. They could wait until then to pepper her.
Mike Samlin beamed at her from his spot at the foot of the ladder. As
