Chapter 2
It wasn’t that long ago that retirement felt really far off for Damien.
The fact that the time was near blew his mind this entire season.
They were already halfway through the season before playoffs, and the Ellwood Infernos would most definitely win the championship this year if he had anything to do with it, which he would.
Despite being confident in all this, Damien didn’t really enjoy explaining this to the media repeatedly. Unfortunately, that was a part of his job. He was considered an OG in the game, touching stats that rivaled LeBron, Shaq, and Kobe, God rest his soul.
“How confident are you in going to the playoffs, Damien?” the reporter asked as she sat poised with her pen at the ready.
He smirked, his full lips splitting his face into a lopsided grin. He knew the question was coming. The media had become an entity he’d learned like the back of his hand over the past several years. The reporters blurred together at this point, asking the same shit on different days.
Holding his grin, he looked the pale faced blonde woman directly into her hazel eyes and said, “I’m confident we’ll be getting a ring this year.”
She smiled, and the blush that had rested on her face since they shook hands thirty minutes ago flamed brighter.
Damien chuckled. The deep bass of his voice vibrated the space between them.
He loved watching women squirm in his presence.
It was fun for him, but he rarely acted on it.
In his twenties, he probably would have busted the white girl down, but now that he was thirty seven, he didn’t have time for all that.
He learned long ago to be more selective with the company he kept because groupies were a real thing, and they could be crazy as hell.
He had a reputation to uphold, and being attached to a throng of crazy women wasn’t it.
“That confidence will get you everywhere, Mr. Blaze.”
Slowly, he leaned back on the loveseat he sat on, making it look more like a comfortable chair because of his size. His arms spread out across the cream colored leather back of the sofa, and he gapped his legs while looking around. “It seems it already has.”
The reporter, whose name he had already forgotten, looked around the lavish sitting room and blushed an even deeper red. “It seems so. I think that’s all I need for today, Mr. Blaze. I hope you have a good game later. One step closer to getting that ring, huh?”
She stood and smoothed down her black skirt that fit her tightly. It was too bad she didn’t have a nice ass to look at it. He nodded coolly at her, the smirk still on his face. “That’s right.” Finally, he stood, dwarfing her with his size. “Let me show you to the door.”
They walked through his mansion, and he got a kick out of her eyes travelling all over his home.
Rarely did he conduct interviews anywhere but at his home anymore, unless it was directly after a game or a press conference.
He hated doing them, so it was a luxury to him to be a big enough deal to do them from home when he had to.
Only a few more months of this. The end of his NBA career was bittersweet to him. He couldn’t wait to spend more time with his family, his daughter in particular, but he was sad to say goodbye to the career he worked so hard for.
Damien had given the NBA the last fifteen years of his life, and it was officially time to lay the ball to rest. His career prevented him from settling down and experiencing regular things.
Sure, he got to travel and experience extraordinary things in his lifetime, like buying houses for his family or people in need, traveling to exotic places, and fucking on the baddest women in the country, but he’d missed out on so much.
His daughter’s birth, birthdays, holidays…
the normal simple moments he could never get back.
“Thank you for meeting with me today, Mr. Blaze. I’ll send over the final draft of the article to your team for review before publishing it.”
Damien nodded at her and opened the front door, but before he could respond, he was face to face with his baby mama, Jendaya.
Her brown eyes moved between Damien and the reporter before a smile broke out on her face. “You ready to get going, baby daddy?”
The reporter looked flustered, as if they had been caught doing something they weren’t supposed to do.
Damien chuckled. Most people didn’t know what to do with his and Jendaya’s relationship, which was another huge reason he had yet to settle down.
Women were too jealous of his baby mama, even though she was happily married and didn’t want Damien in the slightest.
“Come in first. I just have to grab my bag.” He turned to the reporter and flashed her another smile. “Thanks again.”
She nodded and then scurried out the door, carefully bypassing Jendaya, who rose a brow at Damien. He chuckled and closed the door after she stepped in.
“What was her issue?” she asked, tossing her long brown wavy hair over her shoulder.
Jendaya was a redbone who ironically looked a lot like Zendaya.
She hated the comparison, but it was true.
She was slender with high cheekbones and the prettiest smile.
Damien loved her with his whole heart, but only as a friend.
In high school, they had been the best of friends.
It wasn’t until he was two years into his contract with the NBA that he saw how lonely his new lifestyle could be.
Yeah, he could have a new woman in his bed every day of the week, but he was a lover boy at heart, so the one-night stands didn’t sustain him.
He didn’t trust the women he chose to have in his bed as far as he could throw them because they were all looking for a come up.
That was when he and Jendaya decided to try for a relationship.
The underlying attraction was always there, and in their early twenties, they had been a bit curious about how a relationship might look between them.
It only took them a year to figure out it could never work.
They loved each other fiercely, but it was never romantically.
They realized they could confidently say that now, and there was no love lost between them.
Only a month after they broke up, Jendaya found out she was pregnant.
Neither of them was upset about it, though, because they knew their child would have the dopest parents on the planet, and their co-parenting proved to be out of this world.
There was absolutely nothing like having a child with his best friend, and Damien never regretted it for one second.
When Jendaya got married, there was no need for a maid of honor because Damien stepped in as the best man while their daughter was the flower girl.
Her husband, Grayson, checked all the boxes and was as cool as they came.
He and Damien became fast friends, and their daughter, Skylar, had another adult in her life to spoil her.
Damien shrugged as he walked toward the stairs. He had placed his game bag right at the foot of the steps so he could grab it and go when it was time to leave. Over his shoulder, he called, “You know how that shit goes.”
“Don’t tell me she got caught up in the Blaze effect.”
“It’s hard not to, don’t you think?” All his teeth showed as he cheesed down at her with his bag in his hand.
“Boy, please. It ain’t that hard, believe me. I wish you would find someone to give your time to though. I already know you’re going to drive our baby insane if you don’t find something to do with yourself before you retire.”
They walked toward the door as Damien responded. “I don’t know what to tell baby girl, because I’m most def about to be all in her business when that time comes. She gon’ love it too.”
“Yeah, good luck with that. Her attitude has been something else lately.”
They stepped outside, and Damien locked the door. Jendaya walked toward her custom painted purple Lexus, but he stopped her. “Rock’s going to drive us.”
Jendaya pouted, but he didn’t care. She loved to drive, but he wasn’t trying to be on her time.
There was no need for them to drive separately, and she knew it.
She loved hanging back after his games and kickin’ it with his teammates.
They all knew who she was, and when she wanted to be, she could be one of the guys.
She was just cool like that and knew the sport better than most men.
The issue was, Damien was around them niggas every damn day when they were in season.
The last thing he wanted to do was spend more time with them.
They walked toward the waiting SUV, and he opened the back door for her. After they slid in and his bodyguard, Rock, pulled away from the house, Damien asked, “It’s gotten that bad?” referring to their daughter.
Jendaya buckled her seat belt and side-eyed him. “You haven’t noticed?”
“She ain’t like that with me.”
“That’s because you aren’t always around, and you know I don’t mean that as a dig, so don’t go getting defensive and in your feelings.
” That was the thing about them. They knew each other too well not to anticipate their reactions to certain things.
“I just mean that it makes sense that she acts differently with you. With me, she’s a brat. ”
“Don’t do my baby like that.” Damien cut his eyes playfully at Jendaya, but she waved him off.
Another thing about them, they always had each other’s backs.
If Jendaya told him that Skylar was being a brat, then he believed her.
They acted on one accord when it came to their daughter, and nothing could switch that up. “I’ll talk to her.”
“’Preciate that, potnah.” Jendaya stuck her fist out to Damien, and they did their secret handshake before he looked out the window, trying to get in the zone for his game.
Of course, as a player, he had to be at the stadium early. And he liked being extra early this season so he could interact with the fans and choose his meet and greet winner of the night.
Whenever Jendaya had the time, she always came to his home games. She was his day one and his ride or die, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.