Hook Shot (Hoops #3)(126)

“What have I been through? I don’t even know how I got here. I was driving, right? I remember that now.”

“You don’t . . .” She closes her eyes and breathes deeply through her nose before looking back at me. “You were driving from Laguna Beach.”

“Laguna Beach? Why the hell would I . . .” Memories sift through the fuzziness. A deadly cascade of cement pipes from the truck ahead of me. A crash. Glass shattering. The grind of metal.

“Simone.”

I force myself to a sitting position, and one of the tubes in my arms jerks against the motion.

Shit! That hurts.

“Stop.” Lotus presses me back into the bed again. “Simone is fine.”

“But I was taking her to . . . something. I can’t remember.”

“A dance camp,” she answers, biting her bottom lip.

My head hurts. I frown, trying hard to recall any of the events leading up to the accident, but it’s all a mishmash of pictures and flashes that I can’t piece together into a timeline.

“It’s a miracle your injuries weren’t worse,” she says. “You suffered significant internal bleeding.”

“That he did,” a doctor says from the door, followed closely by the nurse. “You are very lucky to be alive, Mr. Ross.”

The doctor examines me and tells me I’ll be here for at least another week, maybe longer.

“Doc, when can I get back on the court?”

Three pairs of eyes stare at me.

“Um . . .” The doctor clears his throat. “Your team has contacted us asking the same question. I’ve been in consultation with the Waves’ doctor, and actually have to give a press conference today reporting on your case.”

That’s standard when someone like me is hospitalized—someone who has a stack of insurance policies ensuring my team doesn’t lose money on its investment. My body.

“We aren’t sure when you’ll be ready to play,” the doctor hedges. “As I said—”

“Yeah, internal bleeding. I heard you, but I’m not bleeding now, right?” I ask. “So when? This is our year to make the playoffs, and that can’t happen if I’m sidelined for a long time.”

“Is that all, doctor?” Lotus asks, her tone as sharp as a scalpel. “I mean, do you have anything else you need from him?”

“Not at this time, no.”

“Could you give us a minute then?” She plasters a stiff smile on her pretty mouth.

“Of course.” He nods to the nurse, and they leave the room.

“You listen here, Kenan Ross,” Lotus says, her eyes narrowed and her lips pulled into a flat line. “You almost died. Do you hear me? Died.”

“I get it,” I say wincing at the soreness in the rest of my body from the impact it absorbed. “But I didn’t, so I need to get back to my life. To my job, babe. I can’t let my team down.”

“What you need to do is rest and heal, and you will not be returning to anybody’s court even a minute before the doctor feels absolutely confident you are ready. Who you will not let down is your daughter, who almost lost you.”

Her voice breaks and she covers her eyes with a trembling hand.

“And your girlfriend who almost lost you and cannot,” she says, tears saturating her words, “under any circumstances go through that again.”

Weak as I am, I manage to pull her close. Despite the wires and tubes, she buries her head in my neck and soaks my hospital gown with her tears.

“You’re right,” I say into her hair, pushing it back from her face. “I’ll take my time, okay? I’ll be careful.”

“I can’t lose you.” Her head shakes. Her words shake. “I tried to tell you.”

I glance past her to the floor where something catches and holds my attention.

“Is that why there’s a circle of salt around my hospital bed?” I ask, half-smiling, half-freaked out.

“They wouldn’t let me use my candles.” She sniffs with a weak laugh. “Fire code.”

“God, they’re gonna commit you, baby.”

“No, they actually think I can bring people back to life.”

“Why would they think that?”

She shrugs, her look sheepish. “Baby, I have no idea.”





Epilogue





Lotus



“Look at her now.

She arises from her desert of difficulty clinging to her beloved.”

--Song of Solomon 8:5





Dinner. Tonight.





I press the card with Kenan’s nearly-illegible words to my lips. It’s just paper and ink, but I taste the sweetness of the man behind it. His sincerity and love wrap around me. Even when we’re thousands of miles apart, I feel the protection of his arms.

It’s so good to not be four thousand miles apart today, though. In addition to negotiating a long-distance relationship, we’ve been getting Simone used to us being a couple, and maintaining two demanding careers. The last seven months have been eventful and blissful, and at times, really hard. And there’s still so much transition ahead. It’s good to be here in San Diego, though, even if I don’t get to stay very long.