Hook Shot (Hoops #3)(52)

“And was Roberta’s not the best pizza you’ve ever had?” she asks.

“It was aight.” I shrug and understate about the best pizza I’ve ever had.

“You lying . . .” She slits her already-tilted eyes and twists her full, pouty, lipstick-long-gone lips. “It was bomb, and you know it. And what can we say about this ice cream?”

She licks the vanilla dome. “Hmmmm. You probably can’t remember the last time you had something this sweet.”

Her tongue circuits the ice cream, and my mouth waters remembering that tongue in my mouth, licking inside, sparring with mine, both of us gasping for air.

“Nope,” I say, hoping my voice doesn’t sound too hoarse. “It’s been a while since I had something that sweet. You’re right about that.”

Her licks slow to occasional swipes while we stand on the sidewalk eye-fucking each other, which we’ve been doing intermittently all day. To my great frustration and delight.

Frustration because I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want Lotus. Her breasts in that strapless shirt and smooth, lean legs in those miniature shorts? I’d trade one of my championship rings to have her. I mean, I got two rings. There’s only one Lotus, as far as I can tell.

And delight because it is so obvious she wants me, too. I’m not a conceited guy. I’ve been a baller half my life—high school, college, pro. I could never be sure if women wanted me for my prospects and earning potential, or for me.

Lotus wants me for me. There’s no artifice to her—no tricks. No game she’s running. No agenda. When she looks at me and her eyes burn hot and her breath comes short, it’s for me. The pure way she wants me back and the hard time she has fighting it may be one of the most alluring things about her.

“Well, we’re almost done,” she finally says, and starts walking again. “You survived.”

I match my stride to her shorter one, and for a few minutes we’re quiet while she finishes her ice cream.

“I feel like today I’ve used all my words for the next month,” I tell her with a chuckle.

She turns her face slightly up toward me. Her profile scallops delicate curves into the shadows falling with the approaching sunset.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“I just . . . don’t talk much usually.”

“I think we can safely say that has not been the case today,” she says, her laugh low and sarcastic. “I couldn’t get in a word edgewise.”

“Okay, now you’re exaggerating.”

“Well at least I found a nickname for you.”

“What is it? I’m not gonna like this.”

“Big mouth.”

“Not creative or accurate.” I tug on one of her braids that has fallen down to her shoulder. “Back to the drawing board.”

“You keep telling me you’re an introvert, but I don’t see it.”

I slow my steps a little as we approach the long stretch of the Brooklyn Promenade’s railing. I weigh the words, wondering if I should say them. They’re true, but they may tell her too much too soon.

“I’m not this way with anyone else,” I say softly. “I know it sounds crazy since we don’t know each other that well, and haven’t known each other long, but I’m only this way with you.”





17





Lotus





I bite my lip, not sure how to respond to Kenan’s words.

I talk to everyone all the time, and I’m hyper-social, but I know what he means. I think the point isn’t that he actually talks to me when he doesn’t talk to other people much. I think the point is that he wants to talk to me, and that I get because even though I talk to everyone, there’s something unique about my time with him. Something I wish I could replicate with other people, but at the same time love that I’ve only experienced it with him. I haven’t even shared my deepest, darkest secrets yet—the things that chase me into my dreams and arrest me in the middle of the night.

But I think I will.

Soon I will share those things with him, and he’s right. It makes no sense. But I, unlike Kenan, am used to things that don’t add up. I’m accustomed to things that defy explanation. I was raised on hope and weaned on miracles so the exceptional feels familiar to me.

Even so, this is different.

I stand on the base of the rail, placing my feet between the rungs, and face the New York skyline and the water lapping at the city’s edge.

“Nothing to say to that?” Kenan asks softly.

“Oh, I have a lot to say to that, but right now I just want to watch the sunset,” I whisper, not because there are other people around who might hear—tourists and natives alike lining the rail to catch the last of the day like us. I whisper because there’s something sacred in the sky. Every time the sky speaks to me, I’m reverent, whether it heralds good news or bad.

“Cotton candy clouds,” I say, turning to smile at Kenan.

“What?” He blinks in that way he does when someone says something unexpected. He blinked like that when Chase said he had great forearms. I chuckle, recalling how Kenan looked at him at the Christmas party. Like Chase was gum he’d stepped in.

“What’s so funny?” Kenan asks.