Hook Shot (Hoops #3)(108)

He sits on his heels and runs a hand over his face, dropping his head back and contemplating the ceiling before returning his gaze to me. The moon reveals the stark masculine beauty of his features. It reveals his disbelief.

“I’m gonna blow these candles out before you burn down the damn house.”

He jumps out of the bed and runs his foot through the salt, disrupting, destroying the circle. All four candles snuff out at once.

Dread starts as a knot in my chest and blooms over every limb.

“What the . . .?” He looks from the extinguished candles to my face and back again. “These trick candles don’t fool me so—”

“They’re not trick candles, Kenan,” I tell him solemnly. “I know you don’t believe me, but—”

“Of course, I don’t, Lotus.” He sighs. “Baby, what do you expect me to think when I wake up in the middle of the night surrounded by some candles and salt and you chanting? I . . . it’s too much. Tell me you know this isn’t real.”

We watch each other in mutual obstinacy, the silence an impasse hanging like a broken bridge between us. I won’t say it’s not real. I don’t know everything. I don’t always know what’s true, and I can’t always interpret what I sense, but I know there is more beyond the limits of the three dimensions we see—that the walls between one dimension and another aren’t as thick as we might believe. Beyond this life lies eternity, infinity, time that’s not measured by minutes, hours, days or years.

“I can’t lose you, too,” I finally whisper. My hands tremble around St. Expedite, the little statue I found at the bottom of MiMi’s chest. “If anything happened to you, I . . .”

The stiff lines of his shoulders, the inscrutable expression softens. One strong arm scoops me from the end of the bed and into his arms, into his lap. He rocks me like a baby and kisses my hair.

“Nothing’s gonna happen to me,” he says in what I’m sure is supposed to be a reassuring voice. “We fly out tomorrow. Let’s get some rest.”

I bury my face in his neck and swallow my tears, letting him think he’s comforting me, but long after he falls asleep, his heartbeat evening out under my ear, I lie awake. In this house, I learned to peel the film from my eyes—to discern beyond what’s right in front of me. I may not be able to see the threat, but the threat sees me. I show it my rabid heart, prowling in a fiery, salted circle, my teeth bared. Vigilant. A psalm on my lips, and the little saint who guards the grave clenched in my hand.





41





Kenan





Lotus and I are exiting the airport, headed for the car my assistant, Davis, arranged for us when the first reporter approaches.

“Kenan,” he says, the phone aimed at me to record, audio or video, I’m not sure. “How’d you feel about tonight’s episode?”

With the fast trip back from China, going down to Louisiana, and our idyll in the bayou, I’d forgotten the first episode of Baller Bae aired tonight.

Dammit.

“No comment,” I mutter, lowering my head and pulling Lotus closer.

“Lotus, is it true what Bridget said?” another tosses out. “About you and Chase Montclair?”

Lotus’s head jerks around in the direction of the question the reporter hurled at her. “What are they talking about?” she asks, looking up at me with wide, angry eyes.

“Ignore it, babe.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Don’t give them anything.” I spot the car service ahead. “Banner’s blowing my phone up. I’ll call her in a second. Let’s get out of here.”

I settle Lotus in the back seat and hand our bags to the driver so I can escape the glare of any cameras as soon as possible. It’s not the chaos that followed the scandal, with a hundred cameras and questions catapulted at my head every time I stepped outside, but if we don’t get this shit under control now, it could be.

I call Banner back as soon as we pull off.

“B, what the hell is going on?”

“Where are you?” Banner asks with that forced calm I’ve learned to see through over the years.

“Just landed in New York, but heading back to Cali day after tomorrow.” I frown and lean forward. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong, per se.”

“The hell, Banner. You don’t call me four times for some ‘per se’ shit, and reporters harassed me as soon as I stepped outside the airport doors. What’s going on?”

“You checked any TV, social media? That kind of thing?”

I stiffen. “No,” I say, dragging the word out. “Why?”

“I’m sending you a link. Don’t lose your temper. It’s nothing, but I wanted you prepared.” Banner hesitates. “Is Lotus with you?”

I told Banner about Lotus soon after we officially became “more than friends.” She represents me best when she knows what’s going on in my life and what’s important to me, so she definitely needed to know about my girl.

“Yeah, she’s here. They had questions for her, too.”

Lotus glances up at me, something that is concern, but not quite worry, in her expression. We’re both exhausted. Waking up in the middle of the night to some Angel Heart shit didn’t exactly make for a good night’s sleep. We haven’t discussed it further, thank God. Things have been relatively normal all day. Until all this not normal hit us.