HOOK SHOT: A HOOPS Novel Read online

  “Here you are,” Yari says, joining me near the rail. “You and Kenan shoulda charged admission for that.”

  “It was a game, Ri,” I say, side eyeing her. “Don’t make it a big deal. It wasn’t real.”

  “With that man down there looking like a snack, I’d make it real if I were you.”

  “Remember this . . .” I draw an air square around my V-zone. “. . . is a no-dick area for the foreseeable future.”

  “If that man looked at me the way he looks at you, I’d reconsider.” She goes quiet for a second. “You like him, don’t you?”

  What gave it away? I ask silently. The vacuum cleaner kiss?

  I don’t answer. There’s a connection between Kenan and me. I knew it the first time I saw him. I felt his eyes on me the whole time in that hospital room when I visited August. I had to force myself not to stare back.

  Me crying in Chase’s shower, the inexplicable emptiness I’ve been feeling—they’re symptoms of a bigger issue, something I haven’t talked about even to Yari. Something I haven’t really dealt with. It’s been chasing me for years and it’s finally catching up. I can keep running or I can turn around and face it, conquer it. I haven’t decided what I’ll do yet, but I know I don’t need a complication like Kenan while I figure it out.

  “Ahem.”

  The clearing throat draws my attention and Yari’s, too. Kenan stands at the top of the stairs leading to the lower deck.

  Our eyes collide in the semi-darkness. The glittering Manhattan skyline casts a warm glow, adding to the air of intimacy building between us, even with Yari standing watch.

  “Um, well this is awkward,” Yari says with a chuckle. “Imma . . . go. See you down there, Lo.”

  Kenan steps aside for her to pass, but doesn’t look away from my face.

  “How did you get that button?” I lead with the thing I want to know most. “JP had it. So how did you get it?”

  He crosses the deck between us in a few measured steps.

  “I told him I’d do the watch campaign if he’d give me the button.” There’s no apology in his voice, nor in the look he gives me.

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Because I wanted to kiss you.”

  His admission, frank, honest, snatches my breath, but I disguise it. Look away, down. I turn my back on him and face the night-darkened waters instead.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” I tell him.

  “It was a game, Lotus,” he says from far too close. From right beside me, but I lift my eyes to the still-silent sky above. “You didn’t have to play.”

  He touches my arm lightly, but I jerk at the contact—electric and molten. He glances from my arm to my face.

  “But you did,” he says. “You played because you wanted to kiss me, too.”

  The truth floats between us on balmy summer air, and I can’t draw an easy breath. I bite my lip, debating what I should tell him—how much to reveal.

  “That’s true.” I meet his eyes. “But it doesn’t make a difference about what happens next.”

  “I’d like it to happen again, preferably without a roomful of people watching,” he says, wry humor curling the edges of his sensual mouth.

  I flash him a rueful smile. “I don’t think so.”

  Disappointment skitters across his face before he tucks it neatly away. He’s a man of control, discipline evident in the powerful, sinewy arms JP loves so much. In the flat stomach and the unyielding line of his mouth. His body is a well-conditioned machine—a fire-forged weapon in the battles he fights on court. How would it feel to demolish that control? I bet I could do it, but not without being crushed myself.

  “Do I get an explanation?” he asks.

  “Maybe I’m just not attracted to you.”

  He quirks a brow, skepticism etched into the strong planes of his face. “At the risk of sounding arrogant, we both know that’s bullshit.”

  “Okay then I’ll keep it real. I’m off dick right now,” I say abruptly, really hoping my crassness scares him away.

  “Oh.” He nods as if I said I’m giving up dairy instead of dick. “Well what about the rest of me?”

  “What?” I’m at a loss for half a second. I’m supposed to be the one throwing him off. “I don’t know about the rest of you.”

  “My point exactly. You could get to know the rest of me over the summer and we can discuss my dick later.”

  In spite of myself, my lips twitch. He twitches back, but the humor slowly drains from his expression. “Look, I won’t pretend I’m not attracted you. I think I’ve made that abundantly,” he says, allowing a self-deprecating smile, “and embarrassingly clear.”

  I watch, waiting for him to go on.

  “But my life’s kind of a wreck right now,” he says. “I don’t know how much you know about me.”

  He pauses, caution in his unspoken query.

  “Very little,” I admit. “I don’t follow basketball at all.”

  Something like relief crosses his face before he shutters it. “I’m glad you don’t know a lot about me,” he says. “That means I can tell you myself. Not tonight, though. Suffice to say I’m coming off a very messy, very public divorce.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not.” He chuckles, a wry twist to his lips. “I mean, I’m sorry it was messy, but not that I’m divorced. My point is I’m not looking for anything serious—”

  “And I’m not looking for anything sexual,” I remind him.

  “Then I guess that leaves us with a whole summer to be friends. It sounds like neither of us need complicated. We could keep it simple and see where it goes.”

  The word “friends” dangles between us like a taunt, a dare. A bluff. That kiss we shared, the heat in his eyes, the spark when we touch make “friendship” an impossible lie. There’s something about this man. Simple is the last thing I think when I see him, but he’s right. Simple is what we both need.

  When I don’t answer, he reaches to push the hair behind my ear, tracing my studs, and I shudder.

  Simple, my ass.

  4

  Kenan

  When Bridget and I met in college, I thought her capriciousness, her carefree approach to life would balance me out. Even then I wasn’t exactly the life of the party. Most guys on the team had two priorities: getting drafted and getting laid.

  Okay. So getting laid was high on my list, too.

  But even though I was a student athlete there on scholarship, I never thought I’d end up drafted into the league. My life was like Google Maps. Re-routing every so often, telling me there was a quicker or more efficient way, a better path until my future was completely unrecognizable. I was nowhere near the law student my father hoped I would be, and I wasn’t destined to be a judge like him. Things kept changing, and as flighty as Bridget could be, she was a constant. Maybe I needed that then.

  Now I sit across from her in the lobby of our family counselor’s office and wonder what the hell I was thinking when I married her. She was a constant, alright. Constantly testing me. Constantly making life difficult. Ultimately humiliating me. Betraying me.

  “They should be out soon,” she says, glancing at her Cartier watch, a gift from me for our fifth wedding anniversary. The diamonds, pure and priceless, mock me—mock what I tried to create with her. She also still wears her wedding ring, which annoys the hell out of me.

  “Yeah.” I glance at my watch, too. One JP asked me to try out. Thinking about JP inevitably leads me to thinking about Lotus and our odd, candid conversation under the stars. She’d jokingly told everyone she was going to blow my mind before she kissed me.

  She did.

  She tasted wild and sweet like some exotic spice. A wildflower. The taste, her scent may have faded, but the memory hasn’t, and I want it again.

  Blow my mind again, Lotus.

  I should be cautious. Maybe once I thought the woman sitting across from me was a wildflower, but she turned out to be a Venus flytrap.

&nbs
p; Bridget answers her phone on the first ring, says a few words, and then sends me a triumphant grin.

  “My crew is coming up,” she says, walking past me toward the elevator.

  “Your crew?” I ask, puzzled. “Like your friends?”

  “No, the Baller Bae production crew.”

  “Not here.” I stand and cross over to stand in front of her at the elevator. “Bridget, if you even think about—”

  The elevator opens and a group of people carting cameras and cords walk out.

  “Where should we set up?” one of them asks Bridget.

  “In hell,” I snap. “I hear it’s freezing over. You can re-load your shit and go back to VH1 or BET or wherever you came from.”

  “You can’t do that, Kenan.” Bridget gasps. “This is my livelihood.”

  “Your livelihood?” I ask incredulously. “I think you’re confusing this narcissistic exhibitionism with actual work. Ironically, it’s my work that even has them interested in you in the first place. Now tell them to go, or I will.”

  “You’re not going to ruin this for me,” she says, her voice pitching higher, her face crinkled into a scowl.

  “Who’s in charge?” I ignore my ex and raise my voice over the crew’s low hum of laughter and conversation. “Where’s the producer?”

  No one steps forward right away.

  “I said—”

  “I heard you, Mr. Ross,” a woman says, stepping from behind a tall cameraman. “Is there a problem?”

  “What’s your name?” I really want to ask her age because she looks about sixteen.

  “I’m Lilian James,” she says calmly, “but everyone calls me LJ. Is there a problem?”

  “There will be if you don’t get the hell out of here.”

  “Sir, we—”"

  “Don’t ‘sir’ me. Are you aware I have a court order stating my daughter and I are not to be seen on your show?”

  “Yes, but Bridget said it would be fine for us to get footage of her entering and leaving counseling.”

  “Well, Bridget was wrong,” I say before she can spout more nonsense Bridget erroneously authorized. “Simone’s coming out of her session any minute, and if she is in even one shot, I promise you I will shut your shit down. You understand that?”

  Lillian swallows and nods solemnly.

  “You’re overreacting as usual,” Bridget says, sounding bored and longsuffering.

  “And you’re acting irresponsibly as usual,” I fire back. I turn to Lillian, leaving Bridget to find some common sense.

  “This is our family counseling session. Our daughter’s having a hard time with this divorce, and we’re doing this to help her,” I say. “This is real life. She needs to take it seriously. Coming out to a circus for fake reality TV does not help.”

  “And where do you suggest we go?” Lillian asks, one brow flicked imperiously. I gotta give it to the kid. She’s got balls to be standing up to me when I’m in a mood this foul.

  “That, Lillian James, is your job.” I point a thumb over my shoulder to the closed door of the therapist’s office. “My daughter is my job. You can park under the Brooklyn Bridge as far as I care, but get the hell out of this lobby before Simone comes out of that office.”

  “Maybe you can wait in the parking lot across the street,” Bridget suggests impatiently. “Get some instant reactions from me after the session.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Ross. I was told,” she says, shooting a hard, pointed look at my ex-wife, “this had been cleared.”

  “To be safe,” I advise, “anything you’re shooting with proximity to me or Simone, you should clear with my team.”

  “Okay. So I’ll contact you if—”

  “No, this is the last time you and I speak. If you need anything, you’ll go through my agent, Banner Morales. You think I’m an asshole? Wait’ll you meet her.”

  Lillian turns to Bridget. “We’ll be in the parking lot when you’re done.”

  I stand by the elevator with arms folded until the last person has left and there’s no sign of a camera, cord or mic.

  Bridget watches me in simmering silence, resentment tightening every line of her body. As soon as they’re gone, she unleashes all that banked vitriol on me. “What the fuck, Kenan?”

  “What the fuck, Bridget? How could you think it was okay to bring a camera crew to our family counseling session?”

  “They weren’t going in,” she says, shifting on her stilettos and glancing away.

  “Just the sight of them here could affect Simone’s perception of things, of our life.”

  “You humiliated me.”

  “Oh, a taste of your own medicine then.”

  “Is this payback?” she asks, hands on her hips. “Along with leaving me next to nothing to live on?”

  “Next to nothing?” I huff a disbelieving breath. “You do understand I’m paying you twice what we agreed on in our pre-nup, right?”

  “You wouldn’t have to be paying me anything if you had just given me a chance to explain about Cliffton.”

  God, doesn’t she have the self-preservation not to bring him up? “I don’t care anymore, Bridget.”

  And it’s true. I hate that this has hurt Simone, and disrupted her life so badly, but I don’t regret divorcing Bridget and only wish I’d done it sooner.

  Before she can challenge that statement, the office door opens and Simone comes out, followed closely by our therapist, Dr. Packer.

  “Daddy!” Simone’s face lights up and she rushes over to hug around my waist.

  She’s a perfect mix of the two of us, with Bridget’s blue eyes, and my mouth and cheekbones. Her sandy hair riots all over her head, equal parts curly and coarse. Every time my mother sees Simone’s hair, she begs me to let her do it. But Simone is fourteen, too old for me to dictate who touches her hair.

  “Hey, Moni.” I swipe a hand down my daughter’s face. We watched Face/Off together last year, and Simone loved how John Travolta brushed his hand down his kids’ faces to demonstrate his love. We’ve been doing it ever since.

  “I can’t wait to see your new place,” Simone says. “I have a room?”

  “Of course.” I bring her head to my chest and kiss her hair. “You’ll have a room anywhere I am. We can grab some food on our way home. This place called Playa Betty’s claims to have Cali-style beach food.”

  “For real?” Simone’s expression brightens. Though she’s spent most of her life in Houston, she loves California as much as I do. So few things have made Simone happy lately that I notice every one.

  “We’ll check it out for ourselves,” I tell her, “after we’re done here.”

  “Can Mommy come, too?” She glances from me to Bridget, a mixture of caution and hope in her eyes.

  A smug smile lights Bridget’s face.

  “Your mom has a commitment after the session,” I tell her carefully. “Maybe next time.”

  “Oh.” Simone’s expression falls.” Okay.”

  I’d do almost anything to restore the spark that seems to come and go so quickly in what was once my joyful little girl, but being with her mother isn’t one of them. I’ll have to find new ways to make her happy.

  “Simone, I need to talk to your parents for a few minutes, okay?” Dr. Packer asks, her kind eyes resting on my daughter.

  “Okay.” Simone sits on the sleek leather couch and pulls her phone out.

  The three of us enter the office and Dr. Packer closes the door behind her, gesturing for us to take the two seats across from her desk.

  “Simone is in a very vulnerable place right now,” she starts off, no warm-up. “She has a lot of anxiety and is feeling unmoored.”

  “I was afraid of that,” Bridget says, shaking her head. “I told Kenan we should keep trying. I knew the divorce would devastate her.”

  “Is this a joke?” I demand. “Are you seriously trying to put the divorce on me?”

  “I’m just saying I was willing to make certain sacrifices to keep things stable for
Simone.”

  “Well I’m sure uprooting her life, taking her away from her school and friends in California so you could shoot a reality show helps a lot.”

  “Actually, it might,” Dr. Packer inserts. “Simone says New York feels like a fresh start where everyone at school doesn’t know about her family and . . . what happened.”

  Fury and shame rage through me. Did the kids at school tease her? Taunt her with all the things TMZ reported about her parents? Welcome to the Shit Show.

  “And the school has an excellent ballet program, of course,” Dr. Packer adds.

  “It does?” I arch a look between Dr. Packer and Bridget.

  “Yes, it does, Kenan,” Bridget says with a sigh. “If you paid attention to something other than basketball, maybe you’d know your daughter wanted to attend this school in New York because of their dance program. That’s why I chose to live on the Upper West Side, close enough for her to walk to school.”

  I look to Dr. Packer for confirmation.

  “Don’t look at her,” Bridget says peevishly. “I’m Simone’s mother.”

  “Oh, now you remember. When did it all come rushing back? When the TV crew you brought to your daughter’s counseling session left? Was it right around then?”

  “You’re not going to make me feel guilty for having something for myself.”

  “And you won’t make me feel guilty for leaving a dead marriage with an unfaithful wife.”

  “How dare you—”

  “Quiet,” Dr. Packer says firmly, but still not raising her voice. “Both of you. These sessions, this time—none of it is about you. It’s about how Simone is processing all of this, and I’m telling you she’s not in a good place.”

  Pain squeezes my chest tight. I never wanted to hurt my daughter, only to protect her. I’ve shielded her from every outside threat, but the greatest danger was right under her roof.

  “She also seems somewhat fixated on the idea that you two might reconcile.”

  I don’t catch the disdainful bark of laughter in time, and Bridget glowers at me.

  “That’ll never happen,” I inform Dr. Packer. “There’s a lot of things we can do to make it better, but that’s not one of them. I don’t know where she would get that idea. Our divorce only recently became final, but we haven’t lived together for a long time.”