“No. You can call me Phat.”
“Okay. Phat it is. How you feel about our boy playing among the big dogs?”
“Our boy” sounds as fake as the other lame shit he’s said since we walked in. It’s another thing Marcus would’ve pointed out. If a nigga had to call youhis boy, you most definitely wasn’t his boy at all. I thought Ace knew that.
He leans over the bar, smiling at the bartender while she slides him another drink and for the first time in my life the squeaking sneakers against a basketball court make me nauseous.
I turn back to Blake. “Heisthe big dog.”
He laughs, pulling me in by the shoulder. “I ever tell you how much I like you?”
“No, and I wasn’t holding my breath to hear it.”
“I told Kid you were a spitfire.”
“You did?”
“Yup. It’s a compliment.”
The announcer cuts between our words. “That’s two in the paint forQuinones.”
I shrug from under his arm and glance back at Ace. He’s sipping from another full cup and talking to a white man who keeps clutching his shoulder like he’s making sure it’s reallyThe Kidgetting drunk in a suite with him.
“What else you told him about me?”
“Aht, aht. That’s between myself and my future client.”
When I whip my head back toward Blake, he’s staring onto the court with that annoying glow on his face.
“That’s what all this about? You still trying to court him?”
“What you know about courting clients?” He grins.
“I know enough about it to know you still ain’t standing on business. You can’t court a man who don’t wanna be courted.”
He takes a sip from his glass and chuckles. “Contrary to what you think, I’m actually courting you, my dear.”
My ears ring as the buzzer sounds, signaling the end of the first quarter. The Rockets are in the lead, Ace is almost tipsy when he started the day sober, and now I know I wasn’t mistaken—Blake Harvey is too interested in me.
I gulp, tugging my bag into my middle. “What you need to do that for? I’m not a basketball player.”
“Not at all. Butmybasketball player has a lot of vices and right now you’re his favorite. You know what a vice—”
“I’m young, not stupid, and ain’t nothing immoral about me.”
“You’re right. Thereisn’tanything immoral about you, but there is something immoral about his obsession with you. He can’t put one foot in front of the other without your reassurance.”
“What does that have to do with you?”
“Oh, it’s got a lot to do with me. When I take a client on, I’m not just taking them, I’m taking their families and their problems, too. Sadly, inThe Kid’scase, he’s a lot like a lone wolf. There’s not a gang of hanger-ons trying to ride his coattails or a bunch of broke family members that want his money. So it’s just you, him and all those problems he’s so good at hiding.”
“He’s got his daddy too.” I frown, shifting in my seat at his insinuation of Ace and his problems.
Blake scoffs. “I think you’ve been around them long enough to know how ridiculous that sounds. Do you see his Pops in this suite?”
“What the fuck do you even know?”
“I thought you knew? My job is to knoweverything.”
