I nod, a lot more disappointed that she’s leaving than that I’m not getting laid tonight. Am I horny? Oh, hell yes. I’ll probably be putting the ice tub to extra use for the foreseeable future, but I honestly would be happy just to have her here close against me, Miles on repeat, talking and tickling. I hate that she has to leave.

“I could take the train home, you know,” she says in the elevator down to the lobby. “I do it all the time.”

I don’t justify that with a response, but keep my eyes on the flashing numbers.

We don’t talk much on the drive, but it’s okay. She reaches for my hand, toys with my fingers, stretches to rest her head on my shoulder. When we pull up in front of her place, she insists I not park or come up.

“That means you have to kiss me here then,” I tell her.

The kiss heats fast, smoldering, sizzling in the front seat until she climbs over to straddle my lap. Her hips are rolling. I’m thrusting up. We’re sharing sharp, hot breaths, and clawing at each other’s clothes. If we don’t stop, I’ll be fucking her in the back seat in front of her brownstone.

I jerk my mouth away, and bury my head in the arch of her throat.

“Lotus, we gotta stop or I . . .” I palm her head and turn my face into the sleek line of her jaw, leaving safer kisses there.

“I know.” She nods and burrows into my neck.

She crawls awkwardly back to the passenger side, grabs her purse, and gets out, not waiting for me to open the door. She turns to leave and then comes back, leaning her head into the open window.

“What will you do about Bridget?” she asks.

Lotus said Bridget would be the last thing on my mind when we fuck, but she already is. I hadn’t thought about her all night, but I know I have to deal with her.

“I’ll take care of it,” I say, my voice quiet, my resolve steely. Bridget has ruined things for me so many times. She’s not ruining this.

I lean across the console and Lotus meets me halfway, popping her head into the car for one last sweet kiss.

I’ll take care of you.

21

Kenan

“So when do I get to meet her?”

“Meet who?” I ask my sister absently, pausing on the sidewalk to look at a retail space for rent. “This space is great, but Soho’s not right for Faded.”

“Nah.” Kenya presses her face to the window, peering in. “Brooklyn, Queens. Harlem, even. One of those. Now don’t avoid the question. I asked when I get to meet this girl you can’t stop talking about.”

“Who? Lotus?” I shoot her a puzzled look. “I’ve barely mentioned her.”

“Yeah?” Kenya resumes walking beside me. “Then how do I know she works at JPL Maison, was born in New Orleans, and that she sews? Oh, and she likes mumble rap. She has a lotus flower tattoo around her belly button and—”

“Okay. Maybe I shared a few details.” I toss a grin to my sister. “And she only pretends to like mumble rap to push my buttons.”

“Well I’m in town until tomorrow, so I need to meet this woman who’s turned you out.”

“She has not turned me out,” I scoff. “And you’ll meet her at dinner tonight.”

“And where do things stand with Bridget since she rolled up in there, guns blazing?” Kenya smirks. “That is some basic bitch stuff, showing up at homegirl’s job like that.”

“We aren’t exactly on the best terms.” I grimace. “It wasn’t pretty when I confronted her, and she tried to lie, say it was a coincidence. I’ve told her if she keeps meddling in my life there will be consequences.”

“Money?”

“It’s my only leverage with her right now.” I say. “I pay her twice what our agreement stipulates, plus alimony. Simone’s needs are more than taken care of. Everything else is gravy, but it’s gravy Bridget likes. We’ll see if it works.”

“I hope it does.” Kenya looks down at her phone. “Hey, we’re here.”

We cross the street and enter the gallery. The Gilded Bean boasts an airy space filled with paintings, photographs, and sculptures.

“Nice, huh?” Kenya asks. “My coach swears by this place. She got all her artwork here. And they’ll deliver out of state.”

“Let’s see if there’s anything you like.”

I’d love to buy a few things for her, but she’s as proud as I am. Maybe prouder. She makes decent money, but I make more for one game than she does the whole season. I really do need to bring up the women’s salary increase at the next Player’s Association meeting here in New York. I was elected to the executive committee three years ago, and it’s been one of my favorite things I’ve gotten to do in the league. Many of my heroes who came before me served in the same capacity. It was Oscar Robertson who negotiated free agency for players when the NBA and the ABA merged. We’re still benefitting from his work.

I’m a fan of the Big O myself.

Lotus’s joke from our day in Harlem replays in my mind, making me grin and shake my head. I find that happening a lot. We haven’t gotten to spend much actual time together. She had to accompany JP to Milan unexpectedly, which sucks. She got home last night, and we’re trying to arrange for her to meet Kenya tonight.

“Your girl into hip-hop?” Kenya asks, texting and not lifting her eyes from her phone.

“Yeah. Why?”

“There’s this concert. Maybe we could go after dinner.” She looks up at me, but something over my shoulder captures her attention. “Man, that would look good on my wall. Shit, that would look good on anybody’s wall.”

I glance over my shoulder to see what’s so great and stop, the blood freezing then boiling in my veins. I cross the gallery with quick strides to join a small group clustered at the base of a photo that must be blown up to six-feet tall, mounted on the wall.

It’s a woman.

The slim figure is tucked into the corner of a window seat. Her lean legs, smooth and sun-kissed copper, are slightly parted. Her head, haloed by a caramel and butterscotch mane of wild curls and coils, is flung back, exposing the sleek muscles of her throat and a wisp of bone, her clavicle, inked with scripted words. She’s wearing a man’s white shirt, unbuttoned, opened, the tails hanging on either side of her toned thighs. One breast is partially covered by the shirt, but the other is exposed, the shirt dripping off her shoulder and running down her arm. A tiny gold bar pierces a plump berry-colored nipple dangling like heavy fruit from a vine. The beginnings of a tattoo ringing the tops of her thighs peek out from beneath the shirt tail.

Her pussy is in shadow, but it’s obvious she’s not wearing panties, and the lightly muscled plane of her stomach rises above her lap, decorated with a flower blooming around her belly button. Her hand, limp at her side, is adorned with one silver ring, and tattoos of the moon on three fingers. My eyes follow the line from her knee, past her calf, to the well-crafted bones of her ankle. The black polish on her toenails is slightly chipped, an intimate, candid detail, like all the other intimate, candid details no one in this fucking gallery should be gawking at.

I squeeze my eyes shut, at once blocking the image and also trapping it behind my eyelids for later. Forever. I want to rip it from the wall and burn it. I want to take it home and wake up seeing it every day. My jaw aches with the pain of clenched teeth. My hand opens and closes, making and releasing a fist.

“Nice tits, huh?” A guy with a receding hairline nudges me with his elbow and shares a roguish grin.

I grab his arm and squeeze. He yelps, and Kenya pries my fingers from his elbow.

“Kenan, what the hell?” Kenya asks, turning apologetic eyes to the man who is rubbing his elbow, fury and fear on his face. “My brother has, uh . . . PTSD. Sorry about that.”

“Sorry,” I mumble. “I didn’t mean to—”

“No problem,” he says hastily, walking away and flinging parting words over his shoulder. “Thank you for your service.”

“My service?” I ask, bewildered. “What’s he—”

“You’re welcome,” Kenya snaps. “Better a troubled vet than the NBA player he could sue the pants off for mauling him. Dude, what’s wrong with you?”

I look back to the photo.

“This?” She points her thumb at the wall. “The Lo thing?”

“It’s not a thing,” I grit out. “It’s her.”

“Huh?” Her face wrinkles into a frown and then stretches wide with realization. She looks back to the wall. “Lo? That’s Lotus?”

A guy beside us snaps a picture of the photo with his phone. Before I can snatch and crush it, a woman in glasses walks up to address him.

“No photos.” She points to a sign a few feet away. “Please show me your phone. I need to see you delete the photo you took.”

I watch in anger and frustration, holding my tongue until she’s done.

“How much?” I ask as soon as the guy walks off.

“Excuse me?” She turns to me with a polite smile, but her eyes gleam avariciously behind her rimless glasses. “For Lo, you mean?”

“For the photo, yeah.”

“It’s only been in the gallery two days,” she says. “And we’ve had so many inquiries about it already. It fetches quite a price. It’s—”

“Not for sale,” a man’s voice, semi-familiar, says from behind me.

When I turn and Chase is standing there, I almost lunge for his neck. He and I stare at each other, dislike shimmering in the air like heatwaves rising off asphalt.

“How much is that one?” I point to the photo to the left of Lo.

“Six thousand,” he replies with a smirk.

“And that one?” I point to the photo on the right.

“Oh, that one’s a steal at fifty-five hundred,” he says.

“And that one?” I point to the wall behind me, not even looking at what’s back there.