Page 238 of ClickBack

I come up behind her. “You want to cool off?”

She leans back against me, just enough to make it deliberate. “I thought you had a workout.”

“In two hours.”

“I told Nina I’d meet her at Jawn.”

“What time?”

“One.”

I check the clock on the microwave.

She laughs. “Don’t start doing arithmetic.”

“You brought work with you. So did I.”

I turn her around and kiss her again. Her bag slides off her shoulder onto the rug. We leave it there until she reminds me that I am not the only person in Texas she came to see.

Graves comes back to pick us up, and we get to Jawn with four minutes to spare. He stops at the curb, and I walk Giselle to the door. Nina meets her inside. I kiss her goodbye without following them into the conversation. She touches my cheek before she goes.

“Have a good workout.”

“You have a good afternoon.”

“I intend to.”

I watch her hug Nina, then get back in the car.

Von is on the court when I arrive. So are Cole, Nico, Ronan, and a few other guys who came in for the run. No coaches setting the teams. No crowd. Ronan is still loud enough to make up for both.

“We waiting on you to get married first?” he calls.

“You were waiting on somebody who can rebound.”

“We won without you.”

“Then you should have no trouble today.”

Cole passes me a ball. “He’s been talking since I got here.”

“Leadership,” Ronan says.

“Volume,” Nico tells him.

I warm up, and we get into it. The first few possessions are ugly. I turn where Cole expects me to hold. Von cuts behind a screen I think he’s going to use. We know how each other plays from watching. That doesn’t mean our feet know yet.

On the next trip, Von comes off Cole’s screen and gets me a step outside where I want to be. He goes past my shoulder and puts the ball high off the glass.

“Welcome,” he says on his way back.

I get the ball out of the net. “Enjoy that one.”

Two possessions later, I catch him trying it again and send the shot into the padding under the basket.

Nico starts laughing before the ball hits the floor.

Von looks at him. “You want next?”