I headed straight for the bath, needing the hot water to unknot the tension creeping in my shoulders. But even as I sank into the tub, the images of those flowers flashed over and over. I closed my eyes and tried to let it go.
I couldn’t.
By the time I’d dried off, poured a glass of wine, and settled on the couch, my brain was still looping the same question: who the hell goes this far for attention? I stared at those sunflowers and opened my phone. Went straight to his social media. I wanted to snoop and be nosey. Because what if it was him playing some damn game? I was also tempted to call Sametra because the coincidence was freaky.
His official pages were spotless. Nothing but game clips, gym selfies, and sponsor smiles. I watched a few videos, thumb hovering over the like button. I played them silently, because hearing his voice again was the one thing I wasn’t doing tonight.
His page annoyed me a little, but not for any deep reason. It was just too clean, too managed, too “nothing to see here.” You could tell a whole team kept it polished. No personality. No mess. No hint of the man who let me jack him up with a grin.
I scrolled one more time and locked my phone.
I took another sip of wine, feeling that warm buzz slide down, and sat back. I didn’t even realize I was smiling until I caught myself. It wasn’t funny. That whole day was chaos, sirens, yelling, adrenaline on ten. He wasa celebrity; the message was clear: people would be watching, no mistakes. He’d just lost his whole damn house, and I still remembered the look he gave me when I grabbed his shirt. Inwardly, I laughed. He didn’t know if he wanted to cuss me out or pull me closer. I didn’t know either. It wasn’t some love-at-first-sight type thing. The man was fine; he’d always been. Even back in his rookie days, when folks called him a scrub, before he hit the weights and added tattoos, he could still stop traffic and pull whoever he wanted.
But it wasn’t that surface-level shit. It was something else. That weird shift that happens when somebody looks dead at you and recognizes the woman in you. The soft, the sweet, the vulnerable, the needy. And I don’t think a man had ever looked at me like that.
“Girl, please,” I muttered, shaking my head. I sounded like every woman I swore I’d never be—looking too deep into a man’s eyes like that wasn’t how trouble starts.
Before picking my phone back up and scrolling deeper, I’d made it past the brand deals, the fake smiles, and hit a few shots that felt more like him. No filters, no PR gloss. Just him with his people, laughing, hoodie low, forearms flexed. Regular. Human.
I stared at that version of him longer than I meant to. Because if that man behind this smile and heart for his community was the same one leaving bagels, spa credits, and flowers? I didn’t know if I should be flattered or book the first available appointment with my therapist.
Probably the latter.
And God, I hated this feeling. This… almost-wanting-someone feeling. Because if my mama were alive, I’d be calling her right now, laughing, asking why some man was doing the absolute most for me. But she wasn’t. And I’d already learned the hard way that certain moments—first dates, new crushes, somebody seeing you for real—don’t hit the same when you don’t have your mama to call afterward.
Sometimes it’s easier to avoid the whole thing than feel that emptiness again.
And truth be told? I liked giving Tess shit about her insistence, but she was right. I just refused to say his name because the minute I did, that meant I was entertaining it.
Entertaininghim.
And I was not doing that… yet.
My next stop was the blogs, just to see if there was any news about him having a woman or some crazy-ass girlfriend. Instead, I found the usual noise—clickbait headlines, recycled rumors, nothing that told me anything new.
For the moment, I was satisfied with my snooping, but no closer to an answer on who this was or if I even wanted to put a stop to it or let it play out.
I put my phone face down and rubbed my hands over my eyes, trying to breathe past everything knotted up inside me.
I didn’t have time for this.
But the truth sat there on my shoulder, stubborn as hell.
A part of me wanted it to be him. And that was the part I didn’t trust at all.
Earlier That Evening
“She just pulled up,” Langston said from the driver’s seat.
I slid my phone in my pocket and sat up straighter in the back of the blacked-out SUV, parked three spots down from hers. This was the closest I wanted to get. We’d been here twenty minutes, waiting. But the truth was that I’d been on her trail longer than that. Not on some lurking-in-the-shadows shit, more so online. A week. Maybe more. A nigga was watching her patterns, studying how she moved, trying to see if she was even worth the pursuit.
I wasn’t camped on her bumper every day, but I was tapped in enough to know she wouldn’t give me the time of day if I came wrong. She hadn’t had to say it, but I knew because I’d never met a woman like Halima. There was no changing or shifting to appease me. She jacked me up the first day we met. Shit, women only wanted to jack my dick from first sight.
“Man, I don’t know about this,” Langston said, not for the first time today. “This feels wrong.”
“I’m not hurting her, and I can’t help but feel like I’m a classic nigga doing classic shit.”
“You’re watching her without her knowing. That’s literally the definition of wrong, nigga.”
