Chapter Text
When she heard that Gabby Williams was going to join the French Team for the EuroBasket tournament, Marine didn’t think much of it. Well, she was happy to have a player this skilled to play by her side. And maybe, during the few times they met in the WNBA, Marine caught herself admiring the tattoos covered arms and the pretty eyes of her Franco-American opponent. But that was quite normal, she told herself, which lesbian with eyes wouldn’t do so. So yeah, Marine didn’t think much of it.
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Gabby was trying to repress it, but she was nervous. The moment when she was going to step in the French facilities was coming dangerously fast, even if her cab was still navigating the streets of Strasbourg. Gabby knew how much she wanted this place in the French team, and how hard she fought for it, but right now the stress was overcoming the happiness she felt when they broke the news to her.
The cab slowed down in front of the hotel where she was supposed to stay, and the driver helped her unload her luggage. She thanked him with a slightly shaking “merci”, took a big breath and started walking toward the hotel.
A woman of the French staff was waiting for her, and explained how the day was going to unfold. She was talking a bit too fast for Gabby, whose French was still a bit rusty, but she understood the most important parts of the woman’s speech.
It was 10 am (or 3am in the west coast her jetlagged brain calculated), and she had one hour to unpack in her hotel room before the team meeting. The other girls were already in their room, so she took the elevator to directly go to hers. Once she put most of her belongings away, she sat on a chair to read one of the books she took with her, trying to both resist her tiredness and calm her nerves. This strategy didn’t work very well, as she couldn’t stop checking the time on her phone. At 10:40, she couldn’t take it anymore, and decided to make her way to the briefing room. It was unsurprisingly empty, as the meeting was set to start 15 minutes after she arrived.
She tried to relax by taking deep breaths, as her sport coach advised her once as a way to calm herself before particularly stressful games. A few minutes later, some of the French players started to arrive, they saluted her but didn’t interact really more than that with her, seemingly caught in an intense discussion about who was better in board games. And then a blonde girl, who Gabby recognized immediately, walked in. Her fellow WNBA player walked straight to her, and sat by her side.
Giving her a smile, Marine introduced herself. “Hi Gabby, I’m Marine, I hope that you remember me?”
Gabby felt a bit reassured by the niceness of Marine and answered “I mean you sent a three on one leg right over my head the last time we played against each other, you’re not really easy to forget”
“I’ll take the compliment” Marine said “I never heard you speak French before, you have a cute accent, it’s a bit weird but I like it.”
Trying to keep her composure, Gabby tried to justify herself “Hey, be nice to me, I don’t talk in French as often as you.”
“I’m just kidding” answered Marine “you’re doing quite good honestly, and it’s not like my English accent is particularly good.”
“Oh yeah? Tell me more about it.” said Gabby, switching to English.
“Oh no no no, don’t try to speak English to me, I’m going to fully take advantage of being here to finally be able to speak French all the time, I’m tired to have to struggle to find my words every day in New York.” answered Marine, and she added playfully, “And as I said, I like your accent, I want to hear it again.”
Okay, Marine was a menace thought Gabby, trying to refrain herself from blushing. Luckily, she was saved by the training staff, who entered the room.
They explained to them how they were going to organize their training, between basketball focused sessions and lifting ones. They were also going to have friendly games against some of the teams participating in the tournament. Even if talking with Marine helped her with her stress, Gabby felt a bit overwhelmed with the amount of informations.
When the meeting came to an end, Marine turned to Gabby and told her “Come on, let’s go eat something before the afternoon training. The whole team is going to eat at the hotel restaurant for lunch.”
Gabby nodded and followed Marine. When they arrived to the team table, the other players were starting to sit. Gabby was a bit overthinking, was it okay to sit next to Marine or was she supposed to try to meet more people? Her train of thought was rapidly interrupted by her new friend who invited her to sit by pointing to the chair next to her.
The lunch went well, the girls were nice and tried to involve Gabby in the discussions as much as they could. When Gabby couldn’t fully understand the rapid and informal French used by her teammates, Marine gave her the needed explanations, even accepting to switch to English on the rare occasions that Gabby didn’t know a word. Gabby couldn’t help herself to retaliate to Marine earlier jokes, and whispered to her “you have a cute accent too”. She saw some red discreetly colored Marine’s pale cheeks, and smirking a little bit, Gabby thought to herself that Marine was not the only one able to play this game.
The afternoon training felt brutal to Gabby, still exhausted by her journey, but Valérie, their coach did take it into account and wasn’t too hard on her. She let her sit down for a little bit, while the rest of the team was still doing scrimmages. She watched how her teammates played, trying to get her brain to remember the little details who were going to be useful during the games they were going to play together. Her eyes did tend to go back to the slim figure of Marine and her graceful way of playing. Well, she was her opponent in the W, rationalized Gabby, she was just taking advantage of seeing closely how she executed her tricks. Most of them still stayed a mystery to Gabby, who didn’t really understand how Marine was able to make some of the hardest shots she’s ever seen.
After the training, they saw the team physios and then went back to the hotel cafeteria to eat, Marine still seated on Gabby side.
When all was said and done, Gabby was finally able to go back to her hotel room, and didn’t really think about her day, as she immediately crumbled into her bed and fell in a well-deserved sleep.
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The rest of the week of training went in a blur, alternating between playful moments with the team and training sessions that often-left Gabby exhausted. She started bonding with all of her teammates, she laughed with Alexia and Iliana, Marine’s closest friends, took the advices of the vets and was even able to gain enough confidence to give her point of view, often a little different due to the fact that her game was shaped by her American training.
But mostly, she spent time with Marine. Being with her felt so easy, talking about everything from her mixed heritage to her favorites mangas, and listening as Marine spoke just as freely as her, talking about how hard it was to live so far away from her family and her love for Justin Bieber. Marine made her laugh, and Gabby found her so beautiful she often caught herself staring like she had be hypnotized.
And even though Gabby had been with a few girls (which was quite easy when you are living on the UConn campus, where apparently half of the girls were queer), none of them made her heart accelerate as fast as a simple smile of Marine. God was she fucked.
They sat next to each other in the locker room, and sometimes it took all of Gabby’s will to not keep her eyes lingering where they shouldn’t. “Get it together Gabrielle” she often scolded herself “stop being a weirdo.”
So yeah, it took only a few days for Gabby to realize that she had a major crush on Marine Johannes.
Before getting close to her, Gabby already suspected that Marine was also queer, because one she had a great gaydar, and two the lesbian network of the WNBA was very active and every gossip circulated quickly (special thanks to Stewie, who seemed to know approximately everyone business, and Jonquel who tended to spread every piece of info she heard).
Since then, her suspicions have been confirmed multiple times by Marine, when she told her about her worst Valentine’s date, her first heartbreak (Julie, her middle school best friend) and other anecdotes of her slightly chaotic love life.
That was the great news, she didn’t have a crush on a straight girl, like she had before. However, she was really afraid to scare Marine off and ruin everything if she told her right away about how she felt. Herself might have it find weird if one of her teammates told her one week after they met that she really wanted to kiss her, wake up next to her and make her laugh and smile, as often as possible.
One week before the start of the competition, they started to play their first friendly games. They struggled a lot during the first one against Italy, and were only able to get the win in overtime.
“I thought you were going to dunk on your last bucket” said Marine, right after Valérie finished the debrief is the locker room, “I was disappointed.”
“Oh, Madame was disappointed” answered Gabby “start by dunking yourself and then I’ll think about doing it.”
“You know that’s not fair, I’m not the one who was qualified as a high jumper in the fucking Olympics” said Marine, half whining half laughing, “and you already do it when we’re training!”
“First I was only a sub’” Marine rolled her eyes “and second, training is somewhere where I can fully control how fast I’ll execute it, to the opposite of when I’m running in the middle of a game” added Gabby, “I would like to keep my knees intact.”
“You’re saying that your knees are more important than my amusement?” joked Marine “I’m hurt.”
“Stop saying dumb things and hurry up” sighed Gabby while smiling “I’m hungry, I’m going to go eat without you if this continues.’”
“Nooo please don’t leave me” said dramatically Marine. And of course, Gabby waited for her.
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The next day, as they were taking a break during the morning shootaround session, Marine seemed to notice that Gabby was starting to feel a bit nervous. They had a rematch planned against Italy in the afternoon. Coming closer to her, she touched Gabby’s shoulder, “You know that everything is going to be okay right? It’s just a training, there’s nothing on the line right now.”
An absent minded “Yeah yeah” was the only answer the Franco-American gave her.
“Look, a bird!” half shouted Marine, pointing her finger up in the air. By reflex, Gabby turned her head to look in the direction that Marine pointed. There wasn’t of course any bird, but before she realized what was happening, Marine stole her water bottle and started to run.
“Noo give it back Mar’ “pleaded Gabby. She was the one who started to use the nickname, which confused a little bit her French teammates, who didn’t understand the obsession of Americans for finding a way to shorten names. But Marine didn’t complain a bit so she kept using it.
“Come get it!” Mar’ answered with a big smile.
“If I die from dehydration, I’m going to sue you” menaced Gabby, as she started chasing Marine.
She was quick to catch her, and both of them started loudly laughing as Gabby started to crowd Marine to grab her bottle. Once she secured her bottle back, they realized how physically close they got and stilled for a second. A breath later, they were walking side by side back to the bench, as their teammates watched them amusedly.
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The rematch went way better than their first game, the pointers given by their coaches helped the team avoid the mistakes they made the day prior. Satisfied with herself and their collective progress, Gabby headed to the locker room. However, a member of the staff caught her before she could walk away.
“Hey Gabby, you don’t remember? You have an interview planned right now; the journalist is waiting for you.”
In fact, Gabby saw on the other side of the court, one guy with a camera and another one setting up chairs. Great, thought Gabby for herself, exactly what I wanted to do right now, answer precises questions in French.
She walked toward them, and as she came closer, she recognized the interviewer. He had been in the facility since the first match against Italy, taking pictures, sitting courtside during the training and talking to some of the players.
He started by asking about her nickname ‘Spooky G’ and followed by asking her about how Valérie announced her selection in the French team to her. Then they started to talk about how she felt being the new one in the team.
The French reporter interrogated her about her relationship with Marine “So, you seem very close to Marine Johannes? How long have you known each other? Did you meet in the W?”
Laughing a bit nervously, Gabby answered him that they actually only knew each other for a week.
“You seem to get along very well!” insisted a little bit the interviewer.
She tried to deflect, saying that everyone was great, but couldn’t fully hide how fond she got of Marine. She realized, a bit mortified, that she hasn’t been as discreet as she attempted to be.
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After that, the different scrimmages continued to go their way. They defeated Sweden twice, and proceeded to do the same against the Slovenian team.
Valérie still warned them after their last game “Don’t get too cocky, I know you gained confidence these past few days but during the competition, some teams are able to make unexpected upsets. So, let’s stay focused!”
After having consciously listened to the feedback of their different coaches, Marine and Gabby both headed to their physio session. Once it was done, they got back to their hotel to drop their bags and change before dinner.
As they waited for the elevator, Marine started to complain “Ugh, I’m feeling so physically exhausted but my mind is still racing somehow. I hoped the stretching would help but it didn’t really work.”
Taking it as an opportunity, Gabby, her heart racing like she was going to jump from a cliff, asked her “Do you want to come watch a movie or something with me after we ate with the others?”
“In your room?”
“Yes, in my room Mar’, I didn’t plan to go to the movie theater tonight.” joked Gabby (she still noted it in her head, if maybe, hypothetically, one day they went on a date).
Rolling her eyes, Marine smiled and told her “Sure, I’d like that.”
After the dinner, everybody went back to their room, and Marine didn’t go right away to Gabby’s. Trying to think about what they could watch together, the French-American was nervously walking around her room, trying to put each of her belongings in order, throwing away the empty candy packaging left on the table. She finally heard a light knock on her door, and rushing a little, she went to open it.
In front of her was Marine, looking comfy in her gray sweats, her hair put in a messy bun. “Hi” she said not too loud “are you going to let me in or are you going to keep standing here like an idiot?”
Gabby snapped out and invited her in. “Do you want to watch anything in particular?”
“Hmm you can show me one of the animes you spend half of your time talking about” suggested Marine.
“Half of my time? You’re sure you’re not exaggerating a tiny bit?” said Gabby “But yeah that’s a great idea Mar’…Have you ever watched Attack on Titan?”
Marine shook her head. “Perfect! I’m sure that you’re going to love it!”
It turned out that it might have been a bit of a brutal introduction, as Marine first grabbed Gabby’s arm when she saw the titans approaching Eren and his family, and then proceeded to cry a little when Eren’s mom was eaten by a Titan. When Gabby pressed pause to comfort her, she was met with teary but accusing eyes “What the hell is this? Why are so many people already dying? It’s just the first episode!” said Marine, looking kind of outraged.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had a soft heart like that” apologized Gabby, trying to refrain herself from smiling as how cute a slightly angry Marine looked.
“Don’t laugh at me! I don’t have a soft heart, watching people getting killed is just not a hobby to me” said Marine, overplaying her irritation.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m going to put on something less brutal” apologized Gabby a second time.
Marine looked at her suspiciously “I’m not sure I trust you anymore…I’m considering leaving right now” she pretended.
“I swear you’re going to like this one for real” pleaded Gabby, while putting on one of her favorite Ghibli movies, Ponyo.
“Okay okay, I’m staying but only because it’s you” mumbled Marine.
As they started to watch the movie, Gabby could see with relief Marine starting to relax. They were separated by a small gap and Gabby spent most of the movie trying to the build the courage to bridge it, but couldn’t get herself to do so.
The next day, Gabby learned a new information about Marine: if doing the same drill over and over in silence didn’t annoy her, she hated media and picture day.
“Come on, stop whining it’ll be over before lunch” Gabby said, trying to cheer her up.
“It’s easy to like picture day when you look like a photogenic super model” answered a still moody Marine. Gabby was always confused when Marine complimented her that way. She still couldn’t decide if Marine was messing with her, genuinely complimenting her in a friendly way or flirting with her. She heard her complimenting other teammates before, so she didn’t want to overinterpret it.
“If you stop whining, I’ll take you out to buy an ice cream after dinner.”
This seemed to worked on Marine, who (almost) stopped complaining for the remaining part of the morning.
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The group phase went well, the team was working well together, led by Endy, their captain. They still often struggled with the beginning of the games, but with their strong defense, they were able to exhaust their opponents and close easily during the second half time.
Outside of the basketball aspects, they also had a lot of fun, the locker room was filled with laughter, they shared meals and they often played board games together when they had a little free time. Gabby was feeling like she was always meant to be there.
Marine and her started to have their little routine. Gabby went to Marine’s room (which tended to be way more orderly than her) every other night. They watched something together and then talked about everything that came to their head.
After defeating Slovenia, Croatia and Russia, they were directly qualified for the quarterfinals, to their relief, as it gave them a very much needed extra rest day.
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The evening before the quarter finals, Gabby was laying down in her bed, trying to focus on her novel, when she heard the familiar buzz of her phone. It could only mean that someone on her do not disturb list exception texted her, which included her family, her close friends and potentially a cute French player she met two weeks ago.
Checking her notifications, she saw a text from Marine. "Can I come see you tonight too? I’m really anxious.”
She texted her back “yeah ofc, u can come whenever”
As soon as she opened on the door, after hearing the now familiar sounds of the steps of Marine, she was met by Marine with her hair down and a nervous look on her face.
Before she could say anything, there were pale arms circling her and blond hair tickling her cheek. As if they did it a thousand times before, Gabby hugged Marine back. She whispered ''Hey hey everything is going to be fine, we did great in the group stage and we are going to continue to do well.''
She heard Marine respiration slowing down "You're sure?"
"I mean God still didn't give me your magic powers, but I strongly believe so'' answered Gabby, trying to lighten the situation.
''Pff you're an idiot” Marine laughed while getting out of Gabby's arms, who discovered a new kind of longing.
They sat down side by side on the bed. While following the lines of Gabby arm's sleeve with the tip of her fingers, she asked her ''Does it have a particular meaning?"
''No, not really. I just liked this tattoo artist and I gave him carte blanche.''
''It's a bit crazy to do that. But it suits you, it's beautiful.''
''Thank you for the compliment.''
''Oh no don't think I was complimenting you, Williams; I was just admiring the work of your tattoo artist.''
''If you say so'' Gabby answered while rolling her eyes.
''And this one?" asked Marine while caressing the shoulder of Gabby where it was written ''Nothing can separate us''. It was starting to be a lot of touching for Gabby's poor brain who was struggling to focus on what Marine was saying.
''Uhmm it's for my French family, I wanted a physical trace of our bound, to remember that even if there's an ocean between us, the love still exists. It's one of the first tattoos I got.''
''That's really sweet'' commented Marine ''So you don’t have a mysterious French lover?”
“Not yet” answered Gabby with a wink. She cringed right after, feeling a bit embarrassed her disastrous flirting attempt.
Marine pointed to a slightly wonky tattoo. ''And where does this one come from?"
''Oh, one of my friends did it with my tattoo gun.'' explained Gabby.
''You have one of those?"
Gabby nodded. Marine looked like she was hesitating a little bit before saying:
''I have to ask you something then.''
''What?"
"If we win an Olympic medal together, can I tattoo you?''
Gabby was caught out for a second, but she finally replied ''Sure, I'd love it. But you have to think about a good design because I don't want Olympic rings like every other tattooed Olympians.''
''Okay I'm going to think about it.''
They chatted for a little while, their shoulders brushing. When Gabby started yawning, Marine told her with a soft smile that she needed to go to sleep. As Marine opened the door, Gabby heard her name.
''Yeah?"
"Thanks for tonight" Marine said "it was really nice."
"Anytime, you don’t even need to text next time” replied Gabby ''Sleep well Mar’''
''You too.''
In her bed, it took Gabby a few moments to fall asleep, the feeling of Marine touch still replaying in her head.
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The quarterfinals against Bosnia went well, following the same scenario as the previous ones, despite Jonquel Jones, Marine’s teammate, giving it her best fight. The French crowd cheered for them one last time, as the rest of the competition was set to be played in Spain.
Gabby was sitting in the airport, chatting with Iliana and Alexia, Marine had left to find some Pim’s. At some point in their conversation, Alexia lowered her voice:
“Gabby, do you like Marine?”
“Of course I like her, why wouldn’t I?” Gabby answered, a bit surprised by the question.
“No, do you like her, as like do you have a crush on her?” reformulated Alexia
“What are you even talking about?”
“I mean Gabrielle, you have the biggest case of heart eyes I’ve ever seen, at this point you might want to consult an optometrist.” laughed Iliana.
Realizing she had been caught, Gabby opted for an honest answer “Yeah, I think so, but I don’t want to scare her off, we only met two weeks ago… Do you think she likes me?”
Gabby couldn’t get an answer to her question, as Marine was back from her quest, holding a box of Pim’s in one hand and a bag of Dragibus in the other. She threw the candies to Gabby “For the people here who lack taste”. Gabby rolled her eyes “You’re the weird one, nobody well-adjusted likes Pim’s.”
Then, Valériane called them to play Uno, an epic battle that Gabby was not able to win.
In the plane, Gabby tried to sleep, but the pressure of the semi-final coming up and her confusion about her relationship with Marine kept her awake. Desperately in need of a distraction, she decided to watch the latest episodes of My Hero Academia.
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They had three days of rest and training before the semi-finals. Gabby tried to make the most of the time she had left with Marine. Sometimes she was scared that Marine was going to start being annoyed by them being always together, but it seemed more like she was seeking her company as well.
They spent all their evenings together, and they got even more comfortable with each other. The second evening, they were watching an episode of Top Chef when Marine fell asleep, her head on Gabby’s shoulder. The next evening, they talked for a while, Gabby’s head on Marine’s lap, with Marine massaging her scalp and playing with her hair.
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They won the semi-finals, Endy leading the way with one of the best performances of the tournament. After the end of the semi-finals, the team went to sign the jerseys and the flags of the French fans who travelled to Valence to watch them play. At some point, Gabby noticed that Marine was talking to a red-haired woman that she never saw before. They seemed very comfortable with each other, Marine was laughing and the other woman hands kept brushing Marine’s forearms.
Nudging Alexia with her elbow, Gabby asked her “Who is Marine talking with?”
“It’s Charlotte, her ex-girlfriend. She’s French but she moved to Barcelona two or three years ago. They split up one year ago, but they stayed friends, you know, in true lesbian fashion. I think the main problem was being long distance so much” said Alexia, looking very happy to gossip for a bit.
“Oh okay…”
“Why? You’re jealous?”
“I’m never confiding in you again if you start being annoying with it” menaced Gabby.
“Okay okay…” answered a semi-apologetic Alexia, who seemed to very much enjoy the situation.
They both went back to the locker room, Marine arrived only later, just in time to listen to Valerie speech about the game. She was not fully happy with their performance, and told them that they needed to step up their game if they wanted to have a chance to win.
After dinner, Gabby did what she had been doing for the past few days. She went back to her room to change in more comfy clothes and then headed to Marine’s room. But when she knocked on her door, nobody was there to open it.
She texted Marine “Heyy, I’m at your door, where are you?”
After ten minutes, she finally had an answer “Hey sorry, I won’t be there tonight, I’m having tea with an old friend. Have a nice evening!”
Gabby could easily guess who was the old friend. It broke her heart a little, she knew she had no right to be jealous but it still hurts. She went back too her room, and decided to facetime her sister.
“Heyy Gabbs, how are you doing?” was how she was greeted, 2 seconds after pressing the call button. Thank God for sisters.
“Hi Kayla, I’ve been better to be honest, and you?”
Her sister didn’t even answer her question “What’s going on with you?”
“I don’t know, there so many things…we have the final game tomorrow and I don’t want to lose. It’s my first selection, I want them to trust me so I can come back here, I love this team so much...”
“Gabby, what are you even talking about…You had a great tournament, and even if you loose tomorrow, you’ll still be a silver medalist, which is like the same result than at least the last two EuroBasket tournament”
“I know, I know, but our coach said we didn’t do enough today, so I feel like shit.”
“Stop putting so much pressure on yourself, you’re a team, you’re going to go through that together.” Gabby saw her sister study her face. “There is something else, am I wrong? I know it’s your first time in the French team, but you’re usually not that nervous before big games.”
“How are you so perceptive?”
“Big sister magic” said Kayla with a smile and a wink.
“Yes, there’s something else” admitted Gabby “I met this girl, and I think I like her…”
“So, what’s the problem then?”
“I thought we had something going on, we spent every evening together, but tonight she left me alone to spend time with her super-hot ex-girlfriend”
“Yikes…” commented her sister “You know that if she breaks your heart, I can break her knees if you ask me.”
“Hahaha no she’s too good at basket for you to do that, it would be a crime.” laughed Gabby, her heart feeling a bit lighter.
“But maybe it’s nothing personal, with a schedule as packed as y’all, it’s not easy to make room for everybody.”
“Yeah, you’re right...”
“Always am” answered Kayla with a giggle
“Whatever. There’s also a second problem, Alexia told me… you remember who’s Alexia?”
“Yeah, you texted me about her like two days ago”
“Okay okay, I just wanted to make sure” said Gabby “well she told me that they broke up because they didn’t like being long-distance. So even if I wanted a relationship with Marine, it wouldn’t be possible…”
“Oooh so the girl is Marine, I knew it!” shouted her sister. Gabby sighed. “Sorry I know it’s not the important thing here” apologized Kayla “But Gabby, you can just take things as they come. Maybe it can work, maybe not. But if you self-sabotage, it’s sure that it won’t work” she added “You don’t need to tell me that I’m right, I already know it.”
“Whatever Kayla” answered Gabby “No, I must admit you give great advice, thank you”
She chatted for a little while with her sister, listening to her complain about the weather and her boss.
A few minutes after they hanged up, Gabby heard a soft knock. Behind the door was Marine, looking as pretty as ever. It was not easy to stay mad at Marine when she looked at her with her sorry blue eyes.
“Hey, I’m sorry for standing you up, I should have told you sooner that I was going out”
‘Have a spine Gabrielle, have a spine’ thought Gabby before answering a bit harshly “Don’t worry, you don’t owe me anything Marine”
“Hey don’t be like that Gabby, you know I love spending time with you.”
“So why weren’t you there? The finals are tomorrow, we won’t see each other for a while after the end of the competition and you left me to hang out with your ex-girlfriend?”
“Okay okay, let me in, so we can talk like adults” Gabby saw that Marine was trying her best to stay calm.
“Please enter if you need to.”
Marine rolled her eyes and stepped in. She sat on the bed but Gabby stayed standing, keeping a distance between them.
“Okay, I have something to tell you Gabby” started Marine “I like you, like I really like you.”
Gabby heart was racing so fast she felt like it was going to explode. “I really like you too.”
“But I have something to add that you’re probably not going to like” followed Marine” We met three weeks ago, and I feel like I have known you for so much longer. Being with you, spending time with you were everything to me during this tournament. But we’re professional basket players. When we don’t play in the WNBA, we spend our off-season in the Euroleague. We never get to choose where we live. I’m not sure I can be in a relationship with someone that I can only see a few weeks during the year. And tonight, I felt like the only person I wanted to see was you and it made me panic.”
This was a lot for Gabby to proceed. The girl she liked just told her she liked her back. She even thought about a potential relationship between them. But then she proceeded to tell her very clearly why it couldn’t happen. She needed to sit down.
Gabby took a big breath. "I hear what you say and even if I don’t forcibly agree with your point of view, I really understand where you’re coming from.”
“Thank you for saying that.”
“But I want to ask you about two things,” said Gabby. Marine was looking at her, but Gabby wasn’t really able to guess what emotions she was feeling at the moment.
“One, can we be friends? Like real friends, not just commenting insta posts and sending a good luck text once in a while.”
“Of course we will be, I didn’t even consider the opposite” answered Marine.
“And second thing” Gabby continued, her voice trembling a little “if I one day you’re ready to reconsider things, can you tell me? “
“Of course, I’ll tell you’ Gabby registered Marine’s words. She didn’t know if Marine was playing nice or if she wasn’t fully opposed to things evolving in a different way. She chose to believe it was the latter option. A girl can dream.
Gabby still needed to get one thing off her chest.
“When did you know that I was interested in you like that? You seemed very confident by the fact that I would like to be in a relationship with you.”
“Gabby, you’re like the opposite of subtle, which I must admit, is really endearing” said Marine, “and also Alexa loves to gossip.”
“I’m going to kill her.”
“I guess she’s also the reason you know that Charlotte is my ex-girlfriend?”
“…yeah” sheepishly answered Gabby “why were you seeing her by the way?”
“Oh, we just hadn’t seen each other in a while, I wanted to check in and I needed to think about something else.”
“But….”
“No Gabby, there’s nothing still going on between us if that’s what you want to know. She even has a Spanish boyfriend named Joaquin.”
“I’m sorry, that was a bit intrusive” apologized Gabby.
“It’s okay, I get it. And you look cute when you’re jealous.”
This only being friends thing was going to be difficult thought Gabby. But it looked to her like it was not easy for Marine either. Gabby was going to respect her decision of course, but deep down she didn’t believe that this was going to be the end of their story.