All the girls. At the same time.

Title: Braving the Estrogen
Challenge: Bball fic
Genre: Friendship/Humor
Rating: PG13 (or R for language)
AN: Written pertaining the 2009 NBA playoffs

Of all the guys, Nolan and Zander were the ones who did not mind spending time with the girls.

Meaning all the girls.

At the same time.

Kaden always seemed overwhelmed by all the talking – which he probably got more than enough of from Mina alone. Jareth always managed to spew out an "estrogen overload" muttering after about an hour and a half and to walk away in frustration – though Nolan could swear it was mostly a 'Rei overload' that had occurred. And Darien – well that poor man had spent his teen years surrounded by teen girls who were not willing to have sex with him as he was (mostly) placed in the friend-slash-untouchable category: the man had suffered enough.

So, when Nolan's work schedule for the next week showed hours when he would be missing games, he asked Lita if he could record them at her place and watch them later – there was no way the guys would wait for him to watch the game, but there was every possibility they'd tell him who won without him even having watched a second.

Lita shrugged. "Usually, when you guys do your male-sports thing, the girls come over here when they don't feel like bearing witness."

"So that's a 'no'?"

Lita smirked. "It's an enter-at-your-own-risk." Over her shoulder, she threw, "Bring your own beer – we have a system."

Slightly worried, Nolan had asked Zander if he'd want to come to Lita's and watch the game a little later, enticing him with free home-cooked Lita food and free beer. Zander declined. Even though he wasn't much of a basketball fan, he had this thing where he didn't like watching game recordings:

"Why are you cheering for something that already happened?"

Nolan didn't see the difference, as the cheering was solely at the tv either way, but Zander hadn't seen it that way, and Nolan had to suck it up and brave the estrogen for the Conference Finals alone.

Nuggets v. Lakers : Game 1

Nolan settled comfortably onto Lita's couch. Propping his feet up on the ottoman, he sighed somewhat resentfully at his salad topped with flank steak before digging in.

In the first quarter, he laughed at the sporadic seating in the Staples Center.

'Fucking bandwagoners.'

In the second quarter, the girls spread out around him, seemingly to watch the game. Someone mentioned something about the screen being dark, and he absentmindedly made it so the brightness was turned up all the way.

All Nolan was really concerned about was watching Miller slam-swat the ball away from Kobe, rejecting him completely. Nolan stood up with a deep "Ooooooh!" When Carmelo got a hold of it and dunked it, Nolan let out a "MEH-Low!"

Lita rolled her eyes and asked if she could have one of his beers.

In the third quarter, Nolan had drunk two of his beers, and the girls had managed to drink the rest of his 12-pack.

'So much for a system.'

When Ariza batted the ball away from the Nuggets (again!) and passed it to Fish to finish it off, Nolan groaned. "Stop giving the fucking ball away!"

In the fourth, with eight seconds left, when Billups hit a three with Bynum's gigantic hand in his face, Nolan bounced up, yelling, "FUCK yeah!"

Raye raised a fist in victory from where she was tapping away at her laptop, but Nolan figured that it may have been sarcastic: her other hand hadn't stopping typing, and her eyes hadn't shifted in the least.

Though the Nuggets had lost, Nolan thought it wasn't so bad watching ball with the girls if all they were going to do was drink his beer and mock his yelling.

Magic v. Cavaliers : Game 1

During the first quarter, as Nolan waited for shot clocks to be rolled onto the court and after he'd eaten beans, rice, and at least six fish tacos, he wandered into Lita's room where laughter rang off the walls and carried into the living room. Five sets of colorful eyes swung his way questioningly.

"Just wondered where you'd all gotten to." Self-consciously, he said, "I thought you guys were going to watch the game with me. You know, so we could bond and stuff." He softly mock-punched Amy in the arm – she was the only one within distance.

The girls exchanged looks, eventually glancing at a smug Lita. Nolan completely missed the 'oh-he's-lonely-that's-so-cute' look being returned with the 'I-told-you-he-could-be-sensitive' look.

Without a word, the girls tumbled off Lita's bed and went to find seats, kindly leaving Nolan the spot he had been sitting in. He laughed when he saw that, explaining to the curious faces, "The guys would've jacked me quick, fast, and in a hurry if they had the chance."

"We're not boys," Mina reminded him.

Settling in, Nolan slung his arms around Mina and Serena. Happily squeezing them, he agreed, "No, you're not."

During the second quarter, when West made a three-point shot from way the hell over on the other side of the court with only seconds left in the half, Mina casually said, "Wow. That was a good shot."

From the standing position he had jumped up to, Nolan looked at her incredulously. She was already flipping through her magazine again.

He chanted quietly in his head. 'Not a boy, not a boy, not a boy, not a boy…'

During the fourth, when Lewis made the last three of the game over Varejao, his third in one quarter, Nolan had yelled at the tv. "Fucking stop him, you idiots!"

Mina glanced up, saw the replay and threw her arms up in exasperation.

He threw her a look that said she should not mock so far into the game, but she returned, "Kaden's rooting for the Cavs too. If they lose, the sex will not be as great as it normally is."

Nolan was still struggling between blank and surprised when Serena chimed in. "Ha! You have to have make-him-feel-better sex."

Mina made a face. "I know. I like happy-fun-celebration sex more."

"Unless you're on the receiving end of feel-better sex."

"Well, duh. 'Cause then you get all the attention."

"Exactly."

"Exactly."

"What?" Nolan finally formulated.

"Watch the game, Nolan," Serena dismissed.

By the time the Cavs had lost, Nolan had forgotten about sports-sex. He was too busy burying his head into Lita's lap in disbelief.

She patted his hair and said, "At least it was a good game."

He closed his eyes, trying to tune out the blasphemy. 'Not a boy, that's why I love her, not a boy, that's why I love her…'

Nuggets v. Lakers : Game 2

This time, Nolan dug heartily into the homemade pizza with only vegetable toppings. He was absolutely ravenous and had quickly come to understand that girl-time equated to 'not-eating-the-crap-that-the-guys-eat-because-we-have-no-excuse-since-they're-not-here' meals.

In the second quarter, Nolan wanted to throw his red plastic cup full of strawberry margarita across the room when Bynum caught a transition pass and dunked it while surrounded by four blue jerseys.

"Wake the hell up!"

"Nolan!"

"WHAT?" he practically roared.

Instead of an equally noisy reply, Raye looked up at him with a deathly glare. His frantic movements had interrupted the careful painting of her toenails.

"I'm doing a French pedi," she said, as if that were supposed to mean something. "Do you mind?" she cut at him, clearly indicating that he needed to go find somewhere else to flail.

Moving away from her and grumbling to himself, he tried to ignore the smell of nail polish remover and the taste of sugar-laced alcohol.

He started missing more than just beer.

In the fourth quarter, Kobe sunk a jump shot that tied the game at 101, and Nolan clutched a throw pillow desperately to his chest, leaning forward, and shaking a knee nervously.

As the Nuggets got ready to inbound the ball, the screen blacked out and in the lower right hand corner, a bright blue box politely asked:

Would you like to delete this recording?

Nolan turned desperately to Lita, who frowned at Raye, who missed the look momentarily because she was too busy admiring her toes.

Noting the silence, she looked up, first at Nolan, then at Lita, then at the tv. Almost completely unapologetic, Raye said, "Sorry. I guess I forgot to record an extra half hour or whatever. But," she tried to comfort dabbing at the edge of one toe, "you're only missing, like, 45 seconds."

Nolan almost wept.

Magic v. Cavaliers : Game 2

After having learnt that sometimes girls like to eat ice cream as a meal – just ice cream – Nolan fully immersed himself in the game, trying to completely tune out the madness going on around him: Mina attempting to give Serena cornrows, Serena's fingers typing quickly and texting somebody who, ideally, was not in the room (but Nolan honestly couldn't be sure), Raye reading a poetry book, and Amy plucking her eyebrows while holding a small mirror.

Lita sat next to him sewing a button onto a shirt, but it was his shirt and he'd asked, so he couldn't complain too much about that.

Instead, he cursed when Turkoglu made a wide open three to tie the game at 93, and when LeBron's shot wasn't counted because of a travel, he was so mad he threw his hands up and mumbled to himself instead of yelling at the tv – that was how annoyed he was.

"UH! Just be over already!" Mina wished aloud, ignoring Nolan's silent, dark glare. "I just want to know who wins! WHY is basketball so LONG?" she whined.

Serena looked up from her texting. "Mina, the game's over. This is a recording, remember?"

"Zander already texted me who won," Ami added, putting down the mirror and tweezers.

Nolan put his hands over his ears and shouted, "OTHER ROOM!"

He released his ears when they disappeared.

Before he could resume the game though, Mina bounded back into the room moments later. "Ciao!" she sang, skipping out the door.

"Fuck! AMY!"

Amy poked her head out with confused guilt, not quite sure why she was being yelled at and completely unfamiliar with the concept.

"Now, I know who won!"

Lita stopped stooping over her sewing. "She didn't tell you anything."

"There's only one reason Mina would be that happy. She's happy Kaden's happy; Kaden's happy the Cavs won; they're going to have crazy happy monkey sex and now I know who won the fucking game!"

Lita threw his shirt at him with disgust and stood up. "You don't yell at Amy," she told him sternly.

Sulkily, Nolan crossed his arms. The previous built-up excitement had disappeared with Lita's reprimand. He sat back, slightly ashamed, but too annoyed to do anything about it. In the back of his mind, he recognized that his circular logic and random blowing up may have something to do with spending four straight nights with girls drinking pina coladas, margaritas, and mojitos.

Lita ushered the remaining girls into her room.

'Probably to talk about me,' Nolan petulantly hazarded a guess.

Focusing once more on the television, he watched Turkoglu make another shot, bringing Orlando ahead by two. "Go back to Instanbul," he muttered under his breath.

As the Cavs prepared to inbound the ball with one second left, Nolan felt himself perk up at what was sure to be an awesome play.

And then the tv shut itself off.

"Lita! LITA! LIII-TA!"

The girls came rushing back into the room to the sound that was far more distraught than the usual stupid-play-slash-lost-game cry.

Nolan was on his knees in front of Lita's high-definition tv, frantically and repeatedly pushing the power button on the remote control. "What. Happened," he panted.

For a moment, no one spoke, and then Amy timidly offered, "The bulb burnt out?"

Nolan looked at her with disbelieving eyes.

"Oooh, that's why the screen's been so dark," Serena stated.

Comprehension sunk slowly into Nolan, until he finally came to his senses. Lunging at Amy, he grasped her arms.

"Do you know how they won? How did they win? What. Happened."

Lita slowly pried her boyfriend off of her friend and led him away. He mumbled something about "one second" and "down by two."

Lita couldn't bring herself to tell him that she'd actually seen LeBron's amazing last second shot.

Maybe now he'd stop recording the games at her place, and she'd be able to stop hiding the fact that she watched them all live anyway.

Who the hell cheered in games that were already over?

end