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The ball arced through air, spinning backward on perfect rotation, and dropped through the net without touching rim.

Swish.

The crowd erupted. I tuned them out, already tracking back on defense, my mind calculating rotations and help-side positioning before the opposing point guard even crossed half court.

Except.

Except this time, during the timeout before the fourth quarter started, I made the mistake of scanning the stands.

And there she was.

Harper sat courtside again, in the same seat where I'd first noticed her weeks ago. But this time she wasn't on her phone. This time her attention was locked on the court, on the players, on the game unfolding in front of her with a genuine focus I could read even from across the hardwood.

She was actually watching.

Our eyes met. The arena noise compressed into a single point of awareness—her dark eyes meeting mine, recognition sparking between us like electricity finding ground.

She smiled.

Not a defensive smile or a challenging one. This was genuine, almost shy. A curve of her mouth that said I see you and good game and I'm paying attention now all at once.

My heart squeezed.

She knew. She knew I was attracted to her. I'd admitted it five days ago while crying on a park bench, sleep-deprived and desperate, and now she was here watching me play like that confession hadn't scared her away entirely.

Like maybe she was curious.

I turned back toward the bench, tried to focus on Coach Lopez’s timeout instructions about defensive rotations and transition offense. Heard approximately forty percent of what she said because the other sixty percent of my brain was still processing the fact that Harper was here, watching, smiling at me like maybe, just maybe, she was willing to give me another chance.

"Cam, you good?" Trish asked, handing me a water bottle.

"Yeah. Fine."

"You sure? You look weird."

"I'm concentrating."

"You look like you're about to pass out. Or throw up. Maybe both."

"I'm fine," I repeated, taking a long drink and trying to calm my pulse down to that of a professional athlete rather than a hopeless teenager with a crush.

The whistle blew. Fourth quarter.

I jogged back onto the court, found my defensive assignment, and proceeded to play the best fifteen minutes of basketball I'd played all season.

Every pass threaded through impossible gaps. Every cut timed to perfection. Every defensive rotation executed with accuracy that came from reading the game three moves ahead. I hit a step-back three from the wing that had no business going in. Stole a lazy pass and took it coast-to-coast for a layup. I set up Trish for back-to-back threes with passes so perfectly weighted they landed in her shooting pocket like I'd placed them there by hand.

I was in the zone, that rare mental state where both thought and action merged into pure instinct, where the game slowed down and I could see everything. Every angle, every opportunity, every weakness to exploit.

And maybe—maybe—I was showing off.

Just a little.

Because every time I made a play, every time the crowd roared, I could feel Harper watching. I could feel her attention on me like a physical weight, like gravity pulling me toward a reality I didn't fully understand.

We won by eighteen. I finished with twenty-four points and nineteen assists. Season highs in both categories.

In the locker room afterward, my teammates were euphoric.