I snort. “I don’t think there’s a person with a working brain stem who wouldn’t be interested in you ...” Bethany? Barbie? Bren? “ButI just came here to hang and relax, not to fuck. Sorry, sweetheart.” I release her, lowering my arm to the chair.
Disappointment and maybe just a hint of anger flash in her eyes, and I brace myself for a clapback, maybe a scene. Wouldn’t be my first—can’t say it’ll be my last. While I’ve found it’s best to be honest, my blunt nature isn’t always appreciated.
But instead of stabbing me in the chest with one of her long jeweled fingernails, she dips her chin and rises from the chair’s arm and saunters off, slim hips swaying and long hair brushing the bare golden skin of her back. For a moment, I still, waiting—praying—for regret. Regret means the pleasure/pain hold Miriam has on me has loosened its grip. The power of it has eased, and maybe I can move forward. Maybe I can get over this fever for her that’s raging through my body. I wait ...
Dammit.
I deliberately avoid looking across the room again and tip the bottle of water to my mouth. Instead of cool liquid, the dirty ash of resentment coats my tongue. And I hate myself a little for that. She’s a grown, independent, strong-willed woman who knows her own mind and can make her own choices. And she’s chosen to have me as a friend, nothing else. I have a choice too. Respect it or walk away.
My ass is here in this chair, isn’t it?
Because I’d rather have her in my life as a friend than nothing at all.
That’s my burden, not hers.
“Jordan.” A large hand claps on my shoulder. “What’s up?”
I glance up as Daniel drops down on the couch adjacent to my chair, and smile a welcome.
“What’s going on?” I arch an eyebrow as he sprawls his long legs out in front of him. “I’m a little surprised to see you here. I thought you usually avoided these things.”
Daniel laughs, shaking his head and making a show of scanning the room. Damn, are there evenmorepeople packed in here? I lean closer to him; otherwise we’ll be shouting to hear one another.
“Yeah, I do. But somehow I must’ve missed the memo about this being a party straight out ofLove & Hip Hop.” Daniel props his beer on his denim-covered thigh, giving another abrupt shake of his head. “Damn, there’s a lot of shit I can’t unsee happening here tonight. Including the strip show I didn’t ask for just now. Being married for eleven years has left me woefully unprepared for all of ...” He waves the bottle in the general vicinity of the debauchery around us. “This.”
He’s not lying; whereas Daniel is all easy grace and coordination on the court as the team’s shooting guard, there’s an underlying tension in his tall wiry frame that his relaxed position can’t hide. He’s not completely comfortable here. And I can’t blame him. This isn’t his scene. It’s never been in the ten years I’ve known him. He was happily married for most of those years, and he and Jerricka much preferred small get-togethers at their house rather than the blowout parties.
Seeing him here is a huge and surprising sign that he’s emerging from the self-isolation he’d cocooned himself in except for games since Jerricka’s death.
Although, I doubt being flashed or having a front-row seat to the ménage that looks like it’s about to go down on the other couch had been on his bingo card when he arrived tonight. Public sex in the day and age of camera phones and TikTok. Yeah, how can you saypoor decisionswithout sayingpoor decisions?
“Yeah, I should’ve expected it, but ...” I shrug. “Can’t blame the guys for wanting to blow off some steam, though. After losing the first four games, it feels good winning the last four in a row. Hopefully, we’re turning a corner.”
“I hope you’re not blaming yourself for our rough start. Because that wouldn’t only be a misplaced burden, but it would be unfair,” he says, casually lifting his beer for another sip. As if he hadn’t just reached into my brain and pilfered my thoughts like a shifty thief.
“I don’t know—”
“I suffered an injury, too, a few years back. You remember.” I do. A high ankle sprain had benched him for nearly two months. “You might also remember the team experienced one of the worst seasons we’d had in the last decade. And I blamed myself. I was the starting shooting guard. If I hadn’t gotten hurt, then we wouldn’t have been losing heartbreak games. Ten points. Five points. I shouldered that. Then I remember, one night after I returned to the house from a home game, Jerricka sitting me down and ordering me to stop. Well, her actual words were ‘Cut that shit out.’” He chuckles, and I laugh with him because there’s no sadness in that sound, only humor and warmth. “No one man wins a game, and he doesn’t lose one. This isn’t on you. This is on the team.”
I nod, clenching my jaw against the sting there. He and Cyrus said pretty much the same thing to me only days earlier, but hearing it from him again, another ballplayer who’s been there ... a man who understands on a visceral level how it burns to the soul to have your ass planted on a chair, helpless, powerless, while your team plays their hearts out feet in front of you on the court ... it’s different.
“Especially, if part of your hurry is fear.”
Daniel doesn’t say more. But he doesn’t need to. He slides a glance toward the floor-to-ceiling windows that encompass one of the walls and offer an unrestricted view of the pool area—and Royce Carlisle, the rookie power forward out of Rutgers University. Also my temporary replacement.
I open my mouth, the words “I’m not scared of anyone, especially a kid with milk on his breath” bouncing on my tongue. But my lips close, trapping the cocky assurance, the lie, inside. And it would be a lie. The pressure that squeezes my ribs like Popeye’s tattooed arms hyped on spinach every time I look at him proves it.
I’m fucking terrified.
And since Grace Ransom didn’t raise a liar, I don’t say anything.
Miriam sinks down onto the recently vacated arm of the chair, nabbing my bottle out of my hand and tipping it up for a long pull as if it’s a local IPA instead of overpriced water.
“Okay, you dragged my particularly tight and spectacular ass to this party, not the other way around. So why’re you sitting over here looking like someone just plopped a tit in your lap and you’re fresh out of dollar bills?”
“Saw that, did you?” I wince and drag my all-too-fascinated stare away from the bob of her elegant throat as she swallows. My mind easily conjures a memory of my teeth grazing a path along that column, and I’m afraid my poker face isn’t up to par tonight.
“Oh, I saw,” she drawls, retaining hold of my drink. “Not that I’m mad at sis.” She peers down at her breasts, beautifully encased in a black bra with a sheer black top molded to her petite frame. “That was a perfect double D. Had me drooling, and I’m strictly dickly. Weeell.” She screws her face up in an adorable little moue, tapping a bare fingernail against her pursed lips. “Except for that one time ...”
