“Good run,” Kenan says, slamming his locker closed. “You’re getting better, Rook.”
“I’m pretty sure a player in his third season,” I say, closing my locker, too, “is no longer considered a rookie.”
“It’s got such a ring to it, though.” Kenan’s deep chuckle rumbling in that massive chest of his coaxes a grin to my lips.
“Why were you in a shitty mood today, West?” Valdez, the back-up point guard, asks. I suspect he resents me at least a little. He’s been in the league for a decade and probably doesn’t appreciate playing behind me.
Oh, well. It’s like that sometimes.
“It’s a chick, huh?” Valdez asks with a taunting grin. “That tennis player? Pippa Lee?”
“I doubt Iris would appreciate that.” Kenan laughs and hefts his duffle bag on his shoulder.
“Iris?” Valdez’s eyebrows rise dramatically. “I heard Caleb Bradley’s baby’s mama, Iris DuPree, lives here now. You don’t mean that Iris?”
My teeth clench. I already know this conversation’s gonna go to shit if he starts with Caleb. I just look at him and walk past, deciding it’s better not to respond. Iris won’t even tell me half of what happened with Caleb. I’m certainly not discussing their relationship with this motherfucker, and there’s even less of a chance I want to discuss our relationship with him.
“Wasn’t trying to start nothing, Rook,” Valdez says behind me.
I ignore the name. Kenan teasing me that way is one thing. He and I have an understanding. I’m the face of the team, but he is the heart of it. His maturity and accomplishments have earned my respect, and he leads so well from behind. This dude—not so much.
“I’d be careful if I were you is all I’m saying,” Valdez persists. “She already trapped one baller. Now she’s fucking you. Better wrap it up or you’ll be paying for some pussy for the rest of your life. Not worth it, no matter how good it might be.”
His voice, his words behind me pause meaningfully.
“And I’ve seen her,” he continues. “That looks like some good pussy.”
I turn before I even realize it. His T-shirt is bunched in my fist. His face only inches from mine.
“You crossed the line, motherfucker,” I grit out. “You ever talk about her like that again, you’re gone.”
“What the—”
“Don’t act like it can’t happen.” I drop him but don’t step back. “You are here at my discretion, Valdez. One word to Deck and you’ll be traded, cut, whatever I say, and you know it.”
“You son of a—”
“Your game is adequate, at best, on a good night,” I snap. “You’re lucky to be drawing base pay, but if you ever talk about Iris again, you won’t even have that. Not here.”
Resentment and bitterness twist his features. “Glad, tell this kid he better back up.”
Kenan shrugs, adjusting the strap of his duffle as he stands by the locker room exit.
“If he doesn’t follow through on the threat,” Kenan says, “I will. You don’t talk about a teammate’s girl like that. That’s how you get your shit messed up.” He cocks one dark brow. “And it’s the quickest way to ruin a team’s chemistry. That I can’t have. Not in this locker room.”
Kenan would know. He’s still haunted by his ex’s affair with a teammate on his last squad. Valdez glances between the two of us, muttering and scowling, before stomping out of the locker room.
“Thanks for having my back,” I mumble, my hands stinging with the need to punch a hole through that son of a bitch.
“Nothing to it.” Kenan pauses. “But he might have a point. Chicks can make you believe anything when your dick is in their mouth.”
I wheel on him, angry words queued up and ready to slice.
“You better learn how to handle your shit better than that, Rook,” Kenan says calmly. He walks down the hall toward the exit, and I follow him. “If you can’t even take it from me, I’d hate to see you when we play Caleb and the Stingers on Thanksgiving Day.”
My anger ebbs as I realize he’s testing me, and I’m failing.
“You think there won’t be speculation when people find out you’re dating Caleb’s girl?”
“She’s not his girl.” She’s mine.
“She had his kid. I assume he’s still in their lives and supporting them financially.”
“He’s not.” The opposite actually, which I still don’t understand and Iris still won’t tell me. We reach the exit and head toward the parking lot of the training facility.
“For real?” He turns his lips down at the corners. “What’s that about?”
“I don’t know. She . . .”
Iris’s piece-of-shit car, the one we argued about this morning, is parked beside my truck. She’s leaning against the hood, watching us walk up.
“Speak of the devil,” Kenan says under his breath, then speaks loud enough for her to hear. “Hey, Iris. Good to see you again.”
“Hi, Kenan.” She glances between the two of us quickly, biting her lip when she meets my eyes. “Hey, August.”
“When’s your cousin coming back in town?” Kenan asks before I can speak.
Iris and I both turn shocked looks on him. Since his wife showed her ass cheating on him and is putting him through hell in custody court, Kenan is notoriously gun-shy when it comes to women. I mean, I’m sure he’s getting ass somewhere. A baller bouncing from city to city—that’s not hard to do. But for him to ask about a girl? A real girl? Unusual.
“Um, you mean Lotus?” Iris asks, just to make sure.
“Yeah, I think that was her name.” He shrugs as if he’s not sure, except Kenan is always sure of everything.
“I guess . . . I’ll probably see her at Thanksgiving.”
“Cool,” he says with a nod.
“Should I, um, I don’t know,” Iris says, “tell her you said hi?”
“No.” He looks at her strangely. “Why would you do that?”
Iris and I exchange a look, and I give a subtle shake of my head, telling her not to try and figure out Kenan.
“I’ll see you on the plane tomorrow, Rook,” Kenan says, walking toward his truck. “Don’t be late.”
Once he’s gone, Iris and I stare down at the same patch of concrete. I assume she found out about the raise and is here to rip me a new one. What-the-hell-ever. There’s no way I’ll stand back and watch her struggle raising Sarai by herself on that measly paycheck.
“I got a raise today,” she finally says softly.
“Oh yeah?” I drop my duffle bag to the ground and cross my arms over my chest. “That’s nice.”
“It was more than nice.” She looks up, a slight smile on her face. “It was kind. It was more than I deserved after I was so ungracious.”
I hope she doesn’t expect me to stop her.
“Thank you, August.” She reaches for my hand and holds my eyes with hers. “I’m sorry I was so hard to help.”
“So is Jared.” I laugh, but he really was ready to disembowel me when I called demanding a raise for all the entry levels.
The laughter fades, and we’re back to awkward. I wanted Iris for years and thought if I ever got my shot, we’d never run out of things to say. I don’t want to say the wrong thing, something that would drive a wedge between us. We had our first fight, but I’ve never been happier than I am with her.
“August, Caleb was . . .” She stops herself and looks off to the side, avoiding my eyes.
I’m on high alert. We never talk about him. That’s a blessing and a curse because even hearing her say his name drives me a little crazy.
“What about him?” My voice is about as pleasant as rat poison. I should fix that, but I can’t. When she doesn’t talk about him, I have questions. When she does, I’m a jealous prick.
“Nothing Caleb ever gave me was truly mine,” she says, biting her bottom lip. I want to gather her in my arms, but she’s stiff, and I sense she won’t continue if I touch her.
“He used everything against me to control me.” When she looks up at me, her eyes hold a million secrets, and I want to know every one of them.
“I know you signed an NDA,” I start.
“I did.”
“But,” I continue, “it feels like you and Caleb have these secrets that I know nothing about. All this stuff I’m not in on, and I hate it.”
She twists the line of her mouth into a hard curve. “The only thing Caleb and I have together is Sarai,” she says. “And I do everything I can to keep him away from her.” She squeezes my hand and takes another step closer. “I want nothing from him, August, except to be left alone. I promise you that.” She studies my face for a few seconds. “Do you believe me?”
“Yeah. I do.” I rub the ends of the braid hanging over her shoulder between my fingers. “You won’t find me complaining about Caleb not being in our lives.”
I should be careful. I don’t want to scare Iris off by making her think I expect her to share her life with me. To share her daughter with me. To move in with me soon. To marry me someday.
Though these are all the things I expect.
I just need to give her time to get used to them. I have to learn to temper my responses. I think I freak her out with the intensity of my feelings. I mean, I did once hit on her while she was breastfeeding.
That’s not intense at all.
“You said something this morning.” She’s back to studying the concrete.
“We said a lot of things this morning.” I draw and release a quick breath. “Which thing are we talking about?”
“You said I own your heart outright.”
In the tiny shred of silence that follows her words, I don’t know if I want to take it back or say it again in a hundred different ways.
“I’m sorry I didn’t . . .” She swallows and looks up at me, an apology in her eyes. “Well, that I didn’t respond or say anything back.”
“You don’t have to say anything. I get it.”
“No, you don’t get it.” She shakes her head, an impish smile curving her lips. “I should have said that I’d play you at the five.”
My blood is fizzing, like someone dropped an Alka Seltzer in my veins. Little pops and tiny explosions occur under my skin while I wait for her to continue. Iris and I have had too few moments alone together over the years, and that day in the gym playing HORSE was one of my favorites. Second, of course, to that kiss in the closet. I know what I meant when I said that. My heart goes loud and hard like a bass drum in my chest to think she might mean the same.
“I never realized how cryptic that was,” I say, tucking a few escaping tendrils of hair behind her ear. “Until right now when I’m trying to figure out if you mean what I think you do.”
She reaches up, framing my face between her hands, and I’ve never seen her more earnest. “I don’t want to be cryptic,” she says. “I’ll just say it so there’s no doubt.”
She folds her lips in and closes her eyes, taking a deep breath as if she’s preparing to jump out of a plane. “I love you, August.”
I doubt the world actually stops, because based on the laws of physics or whatever governs the Earth’s axis, that isn’t possible. That’s how it feels, though, when she says those words. Like all of creation has tuned in to hear this—a universal pause to acknowledge possibly the greatest moment of my life. Not winning the NCAA Championship or being drafted by the Waves. Not being Rookie of the Year. And when I finally win my ring, it won’t even compare. None of those things are as monumental as the words coming out of this beautiful little angel-witch who cast a spell on me the first time I saw her, one that has never worn off.
“I didn’t quite hear you,” I say, staring at the top of her head.
Her eyes pop open and then narrow. She smacks my chest, a wide grin stretching her mouth. “Just for that, I take it back.”
“Oh, yeah? It’s like that?” I ask laughingly. “How you just gonna take it back?”
I pick her up, ignoring her laughing screeches, and deposit her on the hood of her car, standing between her spread legs. Our breaths hitch, part exertion, part passion. My thumbs discreetly trace the underside of her breasts, and her lashes drop over the desire growing in her eyes. Glancing around the empty parking lot, she slowly slides her hand down to the front of my sweatpants and grabs my dick through the thick cotton. I squeeze my eyes closed tight against a rush of carnal pleasure. I dip to take her mouth with mine, entangling our tongues. We shelter urgent touches between our bodies.
A door slams across the parking lot, and we look up to find one of the trainers getting out of his car, trying to pretend he doesn’t see us just about fucking on the hood of Iris’s car.
I clear my throat, looking up to find Iris’s eyes laughing back at me. We sober simultaneously. I’ll never forget this moment when I understood, truly understood, that the basketball and the money and the fame, they’re all great. Those words she just said to me, though, eclipse everything else.
“I can’t remember if I said I love you, too.” I look up at the sky, as if I’m trying to recall.
“You didn’t actually,” she says.
I cup her chin, bringing her close and kissing her slowly, tasting her love, those words still resting on her tongue.
“I love you,” I say against her lips, kissing down her chin and behind her ear and any place I can get to that won’t get us arrested for indecent exposure.
“We made a memory on the hood of my car,” she says, her eyes wide and pleased. “See? It’s not so bad.”
My smile drops, and I shake my head.
“No, babe. This car’s still a piece of shit.”
