“A hard head makes for a soft ass, I guess.”
“We gone figure this out,” I said into her hair. “Me and you. The slow way. The right way.”
She nodded. I almost missed it. I knew she was in her feelings.
That was the first moment since the hospital called that my body stopped feeling knotted. We stayed like that in the bed until they cleared her to go, both of us quiet and exhausted for different reasons.
I helped her off the bed and got her settled under my arm. When Langston called and said we needed to head out through the lowest level. I already knew the paparazzi were everywhere, waiting to spin some shit. I hated this part of my career because this was the last thing I wanted her to worry about.
A nurse helped us get to the basement, and Langston was waiting outside when we walked out.
“Don’t scare us like that again, Halo,” he said as she hugged him.
“I won’t,” she said softly. “Sorry for scaring y’all.”
I helped her into the truck, slid in after her, and she curled right back into me. I didn’t even mention the media frenzy outside the hospital. My only concern was getting her home safely.
The ride home was silent.
She was safe, leaning on me, breathing steady, but my mind wasn’t calm. I wasn’t past it. I wasn’t going to pretend I was.
I was still pissed.
Still scared.
Still wanted a muthafuckas head delivered on a silver platter.
This wasn’t happening again.
Not on my watch.
Two Weeks Later
Tonight was the last home game of the regular season, and I should’ve been locked in — mind on the court, body ready, routine solid. This was supposed to be a night where I hit autopilot and let the muscle memory do what it had been trained to do for damn near twenty years.
I was also telling the world that I was retiring.
But all I could think about was Halo, that hospital bed, and her voice cracking as she said things she didn’t even realize she was saying. She had become extremely vulnerable with another layer of love that had appeared.
It was on a loop in my head, circling the same way fear had been chewing at me all night. By the time we made it home, she was gone to the world, knocked out in that deep, spent kind of sleep. Part of me wanted to hold her, keep her close, but my nerves wouldn’t let me rest. Everything in me was pulled tight, the fear of her slipping away hitting me every time I blinked.
So, I sat on the couch in our bedroom, elbows on my knees, watching her breathe.
Trying to calm down. Trying to convince myself I wasn’t about to lose mymind behind a woman who didn’t even realize she’d become the center of my life.
I stayed like that for hours. The house got quiet, forcing me to confront my own shit whether I wanted to or not. And right when I felt myself sinking into that stillness, she stirred—eyes low, voice soft, catching me staring like I was the one who needed monitoring.
“Baby,” she whispered, barely there. “Come to bed. I’m fine. You can’t watch me all night.”
“You scared me,” I said. Voice rough. Heart still somewhere back at the hospital.
“I know,” she sighed. “I just didn’t want to let anybody down.”
I shook my head. “Lo, you ain’t gotta prove shit to nobody. Not even me.”
She blinked, weighing whether she wanted to tell the truth or tuck it back under her tongue. She sat up, pulling her knees to her chest.
“I know you say that,” she murmured. “But you wouldn’t get it. You have your parents here. Even a sister. You got a whole world behind you. People who show up. What and who do I have?”
