He strolls up with an easy, confident stride and adimpled smile that makes my mouth water and my core bloom with instant heat as I mentally undress him with my eyes.
He leans in close, his mouth hovering beside my ear. “If I knew you’d look at me like that, I would’ve brought you to one of these games a lot sooner than now.”
It’s all I can do not to wrap my arms around him. Not only to give in to the arousal that’s stirring to life inside me, but out of simple joy and affection.
Dear God, I’m falling fast and hard for this man.
But it’s more than that.
If I’m being honest with myself, I already have fallen.
The admission sits on the tip of my tongue as he draws back from me, his hazel eyes lit with amusement and something more elusive. Something solemn and intense. I hold my breath because for a moment, I wonder if he’s feeling the same way toward me.
“Eve . . .” My name is a rough whisper as he rests his palm tenderly on the side of my face.
I don’t know what he might have wanted to say, because in the next heartbeat Webber rolls back into the gymnasium to announce that Nicholson won’t be coming tonight, after all.
Groans go up from several of the players.
“Shit.” Sanchez, a triple amputee, lets his curse fly along with the ball he’s been holding in his lap. The basketball swishes into the center of the net, a three-point field goal wasted.
Another player, one of the two women, Tameka Jenkins, holds up her hand. “I’ll sit out. We can manage playing with teams of four tonight.”
Webber shakes his head at the tall, dark-skinned beauty whose left arm is nothing but a short stump ather shoulder. “No way, Jenkins. You’re our best center, and I want you on my team.”
“You know, guys,” O’Connor says, “we do have a tenth person on the court tonight.”
All heads swivel in my direction. My panicked gaze moves from Gabe to each of his friends, who are staring at me in expectant silence.
“W-what? Me?” I stammer in response, shaking my head. “Ah . . . I don’t—”
“I think it’s a great idea.” Gabe’s deep voice is calm, leaving me little room to argue. His hand drifts down to mine, idly stroking my fingers, quelling the little bubble of alarm rising up in me. “Do you know how to play?”
“Yes. But I’m not—”
“Missing a limb?” Jenkins asks, a note of challenge in her voice.
“I was going to say I’m not dressed to play,” I clarify, glancing down at my jeans and T-shirt. “But I’ve never used a wheelchair before, either.”
“Good,” Jenkins replies. “Then you’ll be easier to beat.”
She grins, and I immediately relax, realizing she was only giving me a hard time.
Before I know it, we’ve split up into two teams of five, all of us strapped into the specialized wheelchairs. After explaining the difference in game rules for this adaptive sport versus the one I used to play growing up, Gabe gives me a quick lesson in how to maneuver the chair, demonstrating the pivot action of the wheels and the anti-tip qualities of the frame and casters.
“I’ll be lucky if I manage to move and dribble the ball at the same time,” I tell him. “If I don’t crash in the process, it’ll be a miracle.”
“I’ll be right beside you,” he says. “I’ll catch you if you fall, I promise. But you won’t need me to, because you can do anything you set your mind to, Evelyn.”
He really means that; I can see it in his eyes. He can’t know how much that simple statement means to me, how much it bolsters me to know I have him in my corner. Tonight, on the basketball court, we’ll be on the same team. But for me it’s much more than that.
In the short time we’ve come to know each other, I trust him as a friend, a confidant.
As a lover.
I trust him as the partner I never dreamed I’d find.
“Ready to roll, beautiful?” he asks me.
