Chapter 7
NOVA
I scrub the flakes of paint off my skin. Hot water streams over my body, a cozy reward for a job well done.
The team got a win, but I didn’t stick around to celebrate. Instead, I went straight back to Brooke’s to shower.
When I step out, there’s a figure standing in the doorway of the bathroom.
I shriek. “Dammit Brooke! You scared the shit out of me.”
“We’re going out.” She passes me a towel, and I wrap it around myself. Any boundaries about nudity were broken down within the first three days when I realized Brooke is entirely unselfconscious and assumes everyone else is too.
“It’s Tuesday.”
“Tuesday gets a bad rap. And I got a new advertiser.”
“Amazing!” I grab a second towel and wrap it around my damp hair.
“Did James like the pics you sent?”
“He said it’s a start.” I put the finishing touches on the skyline today, the polishing and shading that made it extra realistic. “Now I need to figure out what’s next.”
I wipe a spot on the mirror clean of steam and moisturize my face.
The next phase, we agreed, is painting the players in action. I’ve sketched a few options, but nothing’s coming together yet.
Brooke’s face appears behind me. “You need inspiration. This club is the hottest thing. I’ll let you raid my closet,” she promises.
“That’s more for you than for me,” I say.
“Come on, you’re my quirky pink Barbie.” Her dark eyes are big and pleading.
The change of scenery could be good. I could use the chance to get out and unwind. Who knows, maybe it will inspire me to figure out the next part of my mural too?
“Deal.”
She hooks an arm around my neck and drags me into her room. Inside her closet, she flips through garments, rejecting one after another in a rainbow collection of labels any designer-loving woman would envy.
I grab my phone while she’s searching to find a text came in from Miles.
Miles: Novaaaaa, we got a win! Broke their streak and their spirit.
Nova: Congrats! :D
Miles: You have to come out and celebrate.
Nova: That’s Brooke’s plan.
He sends through a selfie of him grinning in the locker room.
In the background, Clay is changing.
Jesus.
He’s dressed only in shorts, reaching over his head to stretch. His body is hard and muscled, tattoos decorating every inch of him.
My throat dries.
It should be illegal for any guy to be that sexy, with or without clothes.
I click out of the picture…
And find myself confronted with the text Clay sent before the game.
Grumpy Baller: How’d James like his masterpiece?
I haven’t answered because yesterday messed with my head.
He took so much care helping me with the wall. Listening to me, following my lead. It almost felt like an apology for the past.
But way he grabbed my hand at the end felt very much like the present.
I swear I can still feel his touch.
It doesn’t change anything.
It can’t.
I need to purge these feelings, show us both I’m over whatever we were.
I drop the phone on her bed and cross to the closet, pointing at a silver shift on a hanger. “How about this one?”
“On a Tuesday?”
“Better to be overdressed than underdressed.”
Brooke’s eyes mist. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Damn. Didn’t know the Hadid sisters were making an appearance.”
Brooke and I turn to see Miles behind us at the bar, a grin on his handsome face.
Rookie and Jayden are behind him.
We do look good. She’s wearing a black tube top and matching skirt that show off her figure. I’m in Brooke’s dress that skims my curves and ends mid-thigh. Add my nude heels and my hair falling in waves to my collarbone and I feel sexier than I have in weeks.
The club is packed, though it’s barely eleven, the music pulsing through the floor.
The headliner tonight is Little Queen, one of my favorite DJs, though she hasn’t taken the stage.
“Did you win?” Brooke asks.
“I’m hurt you didn’t check.” Miles leans in, his button-down shirt pulling across his muscled form.
“Not as hurt as you would’ve been if you'd lost to Utah.”
He grins. “We won. Clay and Rookie lit ‘em up.”
Brooke raises a brow. “And you ate popcorn on the sidelines?”
Miles scoffs, surveying the club with a grin. A woman catches his eye, and he nods to her.
“Speaking of, first round’s on me. Coach benched me, but Clay covered for me,” Rookie goes on, nodding across the club.
I follow his gaze to see Clay shaking hands with a man in a suit.
Clay’s gorgeous, head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd, looking like a god in a room of mortals.
The guy in the suit says something, and Clay grins—that slow, reluctant smile that used to make me melt.
For a moment he looks genuine, the guy who put my drawings out in public and who covers for his teammate.
I pull out my phone and start to type out a response to his text.
Except when I look up, a group of women are swarming him, and it’s like a bucket of ice over my head.
I delete the message without sending it and turn back to the bar, ignoring the disgust in my stomach.
“Come on, let’s dance!” Brooke declares, grabbing my hand and tugging me toward the floor.
I toss back my drink and follow her. We throw ourselves into the music as the alcohol buzzes through my system.
The track changes to Drake, and she throws her hands in the air. With every beat drop, every chorus, every remix, I’m more relaxed.
Especially when we go back for a second drink.
“Who did you tell we were coming tonight?” I whisper-shout in her ear. “Jayden or Miles?”
“Miles. Why?”
I lift a shoulder as I spin in a circle. “Just curious.”
I spot him at the bar with Rookie, a blonde and a brunette on either side of them. But Miles is looking toward the dance floor, the smile on his face lingering as he lays eyes on Brooke.
“Did anything ever happen between you two?”
She grabs my arms. “Why do you ask?”
“Because he seems into you.”
Brooke rolls her eyes. “He’s into himself.”
Another guy comes over to dance, and Brooke moves toward him, wrapping her arms around his neck. I go to grab another drink and run into Miles.
“Having fun?” he asks.
“Mhmm. Brooke’s brand of fun is contagious.”
We both look toward the floor where she’s still dancing with the guy. Except now she’s scanning the crowd as if she’s over it and looking to get away. She walks away, but he follows her.
Miles stiffens at my side. Brooke spots us and cuts our way, the guy still coming after her. Miles steps between them.
“Outta my way,” the guy spits. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“It’s about her, it’s about me,” Miles says, deadly calm.
“Wait, I know you. You’re on the Kodiaks.”
The guy's grin fades, and he lifts both hands, appreciating how outmatched he is. He accidentally bumps me as he walks away, and I nearly spill my drink, but a hand closes around my wrist, another at my waist.
I look up to see Clay hovering over me.
His hair curls around his ears, still damp from his shower. He’s wearing a dark dress shirt, the top button undone. The sleeves are rolled to expose some of the black ink that enthralled me the first time we met.
He’s so gorgeous it hurts to look at him.
But as the women in the booth give me dagger eyes, I can’t resist engaging.
“You left your fan club,” I inform him.
“Not mine.”
I cock my head. “Pretty sure if they have your name tattooed on them, they’re yours.”
He rubs a hand over his face like he’s trying to hide a smile.
I shouldn’t care. It’s a prize in a game I’m no longer playing.
But I’m not in a hurry to get back to Brooke, who’s safe with Miles, and Clay doesn’t seem like he’s in a hurry to go anywhere.
He steps closer, doing a slow inspection of my body. “I like your hair.”
“You said that already,” I call over the music pulsing through the club.
“Still true.”
Alcohol buzzes in my veins, giving me a false sense of bravery. I need all my wits to handle him, but thanks to the two drinks, I’m a little short.
I bite my cheek. “What else do you like?”
Stop flirting, Nova.
But telling myself not to flirt with Clay is like telling myself not to breathe.
His gaze doesn’t move from mine. “Like your dress.”
Awareness has the hairs on my neck lifting. In this place surrounded by darkness and music and sexy people in sexy outfits, it feels like we’re in another world. One where the usual rules don’t apply. As if I can say or do anything and it will be forgotten tomorrow.
“Keep going,” I say, and his nostrils flare.
“Like your wall. Passed it twice today.”
The quickest path to practice and games is going in the back door, which doesn’t take him past there. Which means he made an effort to go by my work.
“I’m working on the players next. I wish I had that drawing from the Kodiaks' charity auction as a reference. It should be easy, but sketching you is harder than I remember.”
“Wonder why that is.”
The song changes to something downtempo. I toss back the drink in my hand in one gulp and set the glass on the bar.
“I thought I saw you. I was wrong.”
When I straighten, Clay’s watching intently. “Nova. About the wedding—”
“You were right,” I interrupt, because I can’t stand to hear him break his stony silence just to tell me all the reasons we’d never happen. “It wouldn’t have worked with us. Thank you for seeing it before I did.”
Clays brows draw together in a frustrated line.
I hold up a finger for the bartender and order a tequila shot.
“When I said we were nothing, I didn’t mean you were nothing,” he says as the bartender fills the shot glass.
That’s not better, because I valued what we had. It was like a tiny blossoming flower, and he crushed it under his Kobes.
I reach for my wallet.
“She with you?” the bartender asks Clay.
Clay nods, and the other man waves my wallet away.
“I’m not…”
They ignore me.
“To dodging bullets,” I tell him.
“That what we did?”
My gaze lowers to the ink snaking out from under his shirt.
Cheers erupt as Little Queen takes the stage.
I look out toward the dance floor and see Brooke waving at me.
I reach for my shot glass and the salt.
“Do you want one?” I hold out the drink.
Clay shakes his head. Because he doesn’t drink during the season.
Basketball first.
Everything else second, if ever.
No room for weakness or caring about another person.
The Kodashians are still watching, a flock of vultures waiting to see if I’m going to eat my prey or leave some for them.
Except when one of them whispers in the other’s ear and they both laugh as they look back at me, it’s clear they don’t think of me as a threat.
I have the sudden impulse to mark my territory, even if it’s not mine anymore.
I reach for Clay’s hand, the warmth of his skin making my stomach flip instantly. I spread his thumb and forefinger, shaking salt between them.
Holding his gaze, I suck it off his skin, feeling the jolt of heat between my thighs as I do. When I toss the drink back, the fiery alcohol burns down my throat.
As I slam the shot glass back on the bar, his nostrils flare.
Suddenly, it doesn’t feel like I’ve dodged a bullet.
It feels like I’ve missed out on something momentous.
I start to turn away, but a hand closes around my wrist, tugging me back. I’m crushed against a hard expanse of muscle and tattoo.
“How many walls?” His mouth is at my ear, more urgent this time.
“What?” My eyes snap up to his.
I should have known better than to think I could call him out, put my mouth on him and not elicit a response.
The feel of him so close is overwhelming me, making my emotions go haywire.
“How many walls do I need to paint for you to forgive me?” His voice is raw, his gaze a thousand miles deep.
I look up at him, not bothering to hide the emotions swirling inside me along with the tequila.
Every part of me aches for him. Even now, his expression says it’s only us in this entire club.
Without permission, my hand skims up his chest to his shoulder, my fingers tracing the line of the tattoo beneath his shirt. The one I chose.
But he doesn’t want me. He wants forgiveness. Absolution.
Because he’s ready to move on with his life, and if I’m smart, I’ll find a way to move on with mine.
“Too many,” I whisper before pulling away.