“And that sack!” I put my hand to my chest. “So good!”
Aaliyah laughed. “Even if I don’t know football like them, I know a good-ass play when I see it.”
“Thank you, thank you. I appreciate that,” Lamar said, reaching upward and dapping everyone up. When he got to me, he held my hand. “Jazz.”
Electricity crackled between us. His thumb caressed my knuckles, and with each swipe, my stomach fluttered, and my chest heaved.
The combination of him looking deep into my eyes and caressing me while in his uniform was doing something to me. But I managed to speak. “Lamar.”
“It’s good to see you,” he said. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“I’m glad to be here. Seeing you do your thing on the field was everything.Youare everything.”
“Come back to my place.” He licked his lips. “Celebrate the win with me.”
Excited, I nodded agreeably. “Okay.”
His smile grew. Seeming to remember we weren’t alone, he looked at my friends. “And y’all are more than welcome to come by my spot, too.”
“This sounds like a celebration we shouldn’t be watching,” Nina joked.
Russ was weak. Aaliyah and Ahmad snickered. Lamar shook his head as he chuckled.
My face flushed. “I cannot.” I bumped her with my hip. “You are a problem.”
“We’d love to, but we have to get back before six,” Aaliyah told us. “One of Ahmad’s best friends is having a birthday dinner.”
“It’s not a birthday dinner.” Ahmad chuckled. “We’re linking for the Sunday-night game. It just happens to be Darius’s birthday this week.”
Aaliyah pursed her lips and then looked at us. “Birthday dinner.”
As we laughed, some people jostled us to try to get Lamar’s attention for pictures.
“Hollywood!” a man, someone from the coaching staff, yelled out. “Yo! Hollywood!”
Lamar looked behind him and noticed half the field had cleared out. “I need to head to the locker room, but”—he locked eyes with me—“go downstairs to the Chamber level. I don’t have a pass on me to give to you, so I’ll have to come out that way.”
“I’ll be there,” I told him.
He dapped everyone up again, and then he got to me and liftedmy hand to his lips. A tingly sensation raced from my hand up my arm. He attempted to let my hand go, but I continued holding on to his.
“Did you figure out what you want?” he asked when I didn’t release him.
“I knew what I wanted the whole time. I was just afraid to stand in it,” I admitted, leaning over the railing. “But I’m done.”
As he rubbed his thumb across my knuckles, his eyes never left mine. “Done with what?”
I put my face within reach of his. “Hiding.”
“If I do what I want to do”—his eyes dipped to my lips—“people are gonna talk. There’s gonna be attention on you.”
“Fuck them people.”
Wrapping his hand around my throat, he brought me closer, and his soft lips moved against mine.
The stadium went silent.
Everyone disappeared.
