I’m almost at the door when I run into Lotus’s other friend from the party, Yari.
“Hi,” she says. “How ya doing?”
“Fine.” I keep my voice curt. Not friendly.
“Were you looking for Lotus?” Her smile teases me, and again, I wonder if I’m the butt of some joke everyone knows but me.
“No, I had a meeting with JP.” I allow my irritation to show in my frown. “Gotta go.”
I stalk off to the lobby, but the damn elevator is taking forever. It’s one floor. There’s no way I’m standing here for another minute when I could have been down the steps and gone by now. I take the stairs, and I’m rounding the second curve of the staircase leading to the first floor when something heavy pounds me in the chest and knocks me back into the stairwell wall.
“Shit,” says a female voice, muffled behind a huge bolt of red fabric. “I’m so sorry.”
When she props the fabric up against the wall, I see the woman behind the voice.
“Lotus?” I ask, thrown not just by the blow to my midsection, but by the sight of her.
It’s boiling hot outside today, and the faintest sheen of sweat coats her top lip and the curves at her temples. Her T-shirt is cut to fall below her breasts. White linen shorts sit low on her hips, exposing the firm plane of her stomach and the feminine muscles etched under her skin. A lotus flower tattoo blossoms around her belly button. The shorts are so tiny, they barely hit the tops of her thighs. Ink peeks out from beneath the cuffs, but it’s mostly covered and I can’t make out what it is.
Desire hits me harder than that bolt of fabric to my belly. I wish I could figure out how to stop wanting her. She’s twenty-five years old. Too young for me. Too complicated. We said just friends, but I don’t know if I can do that. I want to fuck her every time we’re in the same room, and when we’re not together, I’m thinking about it. I know we need to keep this simple. That’s the smart thing to do, but I find myself not wanting to do the smart thing. I’ve been blind and stupid before. I can’t afford to do that again.
“Sorry about that,” she says, her smile open, sweet. “The elevator was taking too long, and I wanted to get this fabric up to the studio. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
I wonder what’s behind the pretty face. I don’t want to question her honesty, her forthrightness, but I’ve been duped before. I gave a woman my trust and she turned it on me like a loaded gun.
I don’t return Lotus’s smile, unsure if I should take steps back, or move forward because either way, there may be something to lose. Her infectious grin disintegrates. Her mouth flattens into the line I saw before we started getting to know each other.
“I gotta go,” I say abruptly, pushing off the wall and past her, determined to leave it at this and to leave her alone. I’m on my way down the stairs, but can’t resist one look back. Lotus still stands in the same spot, facing away from me, her back a stiff line, one arm around the bolt of cloth and a hand on her hip.
I’m a jackass.
I rush back to the landing above and stand behind her, looping an arm around her waist. She jerks against my hold, but I don’t let go.
“Hey.” I expel a long breath, stirring the curls arrowing wildly into my face.
“I’m sorry.”
She whirls around to face me, shaking my arm from her waist.
“For what? Acting like we don’t know each other?” Anger snaps in her voice, but I hear the hurt. I put it there. “I don’t think we’ve fucked yet, so it’s a little odd that you’re already treating me like yesterday’s trash.”
“I was abrupt. It’s my fault, not yours.”
“Oh, I know that,” she says, her words as hot as the summer outside these air-conditioned walls. “But it’s okay. You do you and I’ll do me. Is that simple enough for you, friend?”
“Can I please explain?”
“No.” She grabs the cloth and marches toward the next landing of stairs.
I take the bolt from under her arm and toss it against the wall. Grasping her wrist gently, conscious of the fine bones in my big hands, I lean against the wall and pull her to stand between my legs.
“I’m sorry.” I push a clump of curls back, exposing the gold studs running along the whorl of her ear. “May I please explain that I’m a dumbass?”
She stills, but doesn’t pull away.
“I didn’t have to come to the office today,” I admit, my voice quiet in the privacy of the stairwell.
She flicks a look up at me from under her lashes, curious and cautious.
“JP mentioned prototypes of the watches, and I offered to come see them in person.” I laugh at myself and shake my head. “I jumped at the chance to see you.”
She fixes her stare on the ground between our feet. Her shoulders, held tight and high, slowly drop. She’s listening. She’s hearing me.
“Go on,” she says, full lips pinching at the corners. “Dumbass.”
Her spirit, her boldness, makes me smile. I don’t like seeing her hurt, especially by me. If we don’t have this conversation, these same doubts will resurface, and I’ll inevitably hurt her again. She won’t even know why. She deserves to know why.
“Tell me what you know about me, Lotus.”
Both of her thick brows stretch up, and she blinks a few times.
“I know you’re the center for the San Diego Waves,” she says, her voice slightly uncertain.
“Power forward,” I correct.
“Huh?” She tosses up a confused glance.
“You said I’m the center for the Waves, but I’m the power forward.”
“Oh.” She shrugs like it’s all the same to her . . . which it probably is. “And I know you have the musical taste of a sixty-year-old man.”
I laugh and fake a glare. “That’s actually not too far off,” I tell her, stroking the silky skin of her wrist. “My father loved jazz, and he passed that on to me.”
“Is he a basketball player, too?”
“No.” I shake my head and let out a harsh laugh. “He was a judge and wanted me to follow in his footsteps. He was disappointed when I was drafted.”
“No way. Most fathers would be proud.”
“Yeah, my dad wasn’t exactly most fathers.” I smile, reminiscing about the man who shaped me more than any other. “When I told him I was planning to enter the draft instead of going to law school, he said ‘a tall, black man playing basketball. Wow, didn’t see that coming.’”
She doesn’t laugh like I expected her to. Instead she searches my face, looking for something. “Did that hurt?” she asks.
“Hurt? Hell, no. My father and I were best friends. I may have taken a different path than he expected, but he recognized that not many get the chance to play at this level—to make this kind of money. He came around and supported me. I don’t have childhood trauma. No daddy issues, or mommy issues for that matter. My parents were married forty years. We were well-off, well-adjusted.”
“Must be nice,” she says, her expression, her voice wistful. “Especially the closeness you have with your dad.”
“It was nice.” Our eyes meet, hers filling with sympathy even before I clarify. “He passed away last year.”
“I’m sorry, Kenan.” She flips the wrists I’m holding so that her hands are holding mine, and squeezes. I nod and squeeze back.
“He, uh . . . advised me against marrying my ex-wife, Bridget,” I say, feeling out the best way to approach this subject. “Do you know much about my marriage? What have you heard?”
“Just that it’s over. You told me that. Remember? I don’t really follow basketball.” She frowns. “Is there something I should know?”
When Bridget cheated with my teammate Cliff, it felt like the whole world knew, and yet I’m dreading telling this one woman the ugly facts.
“A simple Google search could tell you all the dirty details,” I say, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice. “The shit I hate most would come up first.”
“I haven’t done a Google search on you,” she says. “It didn’t feel right.” She looks embarrassed, but has no idea how much she just pleased me.
“Don’t google me. Anything you want to know, ask. I’ll tell you everything. I’ll tell you the truth.”
“Okay.” She pulls her hands free of mine and looks up at me boldly. “Then tell me why you acted that way when I bumped into you.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was getting around to,” I say wryly.
She folds slim arms under her breasts and waits.
“My ex-wife cheated on me with one of my friends. With a teammate.”
Shock rounds her full lips into an O, and her arms fall limply to her sides. “With your teammate,” she repeats faintly.
“Yes, they were caught in a hotel. Turns out a reporter discovered it and had been following them, so he had photographic evidence. All of which he released to the highest bidder. It was on TMZ, ESPN, all the blogs. Everyone knew.”
“How could she?” Lotus asks, her brows drawn into an angry dip. “What’d she do when it came out?”
“Well there was no denying it. The photographs were all the evidence needed.” Displeasure twists my lips. “Not to mention the gracious friends and distant relatives who gave interviews and shared information.”
“Oh, Kenan. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. It’s behind me now, but I . . .” I take her hands in mine again. “I told myself I’d never be made a fool of that way again. When I was in your office today, I felt foolish—like I was the butt of some joke. Like everyone knew how much I . . .”
My words fade, but we look at each other and know, even though we don’t say it. We both know how much I like her. How much I want her.