Omni shrugged like it was nothing. “You’re welcome. How was practice?”
I squinted. “Omni, why do I feel like you on bullshit? Ask me what you want to ask. You never ask about practice.”
She grinned, leaning forward. “Okay, real talk. Do you even know if she’s single? If she’s interested? If she dates athletes? How old is she? Do you need me to get the tea for you?”
“No, all I know is if I wake up in the morning still thinking about her, I’m on her until she agrees to be my woman.”
She was lit up like this was the best tea she’d had all week, and it made me laugh. My publicist mentioned marriage for optics, especially with retirement in the conversation. Some PR fairytale to make sponsors happy. I’d brushed that off. I didn’t need marriage for a contract. My money was straight, my investments stretched further than ‘ball. If marriage happened for me, it would be because I needed her like I needed oxygen.
“So, what’s your plan?” she pressed.
“I don’t have one yet.”
“She’s not gonna respond to your usual moves.”
“What usual moves?”
Omni laughed right in my face. “Please. We all know the new men’s playbook. Send some flowers. Drop a ‘you’re beautiful’ in the DMs. Wait for her to fall at your feet.”
“I don’t—”
“Yes, you do,” she cut in, not even unkind. Just matter-of-factly. “But it’s been a minute. You’ve been chill. Maybe it’s supposed to be different this time. I don’t know.”
“Not tonight,” I muttered, reaching for the bottle.
“I didn’t say anything, D.” She grabbed my hand, holding it a second longer than needed. She didn’t have to say more.
I didn’t want to open that door, but Devyn was always right there. Four years gone, and the wreck still replayed in my head. She’d been my first love. The one who knew me before the fame, before the money. No agenda, no performance. Just genuine love that started in detention.
It was why most women no longer moved me. Why I kept my life neat and empty. But Lieutenant Grant had gotten through without even trying. And that had me ready to find out what the fuck this was.
#
The next morning, I hit the gym before sunrise, the way I always did when I needed silence. I was hoping to sweat her out of my system, but no matter how many layups, rebounds, or drills I ran, the shit didn’t work. If anything, it only made it worse.
Every time the ball hit the floor, I heard her voice.
“Stay. Back.”
It replayed under the squeak of sneakers and the noise in my head. I knew that tone, but I’d never heard it from a woman. I loved that she could lock eyes with me without flinching.
I’d built a whole career on control. Who I dated, if I dated, where I went, how I looked. I couldn’t even go to the damn grocery store without it being a thing sometimes. One photo, one rumor, one woman caught too close, and it turned into headlines.
I could see that shit now.
DaVinci Bryns’ Mystery Woman.
Pinnacles Star Linked to Firefighter?
Nah. Not this time.
I ran drills until my lungs burned and my legs felt like cinderblocks, but she stayed lodged in my head like a song I couldn’t turn off—and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to. I’d lost my house, yeah, but the thing keeping me up wasn’t the fire. It was her fine, mean ass.
Fuck the house.
“You straight, bro?” Chance called from across the empty gym. I wasn’t in the mood for anything he had to say because I knew he had something to say.
“Yeah,” I lied, grabbing the ball as it rolled back toward me. “Just thinking.”
