Chapter 15
CLAY
“This is nice,” Rookie says, looking around Harlan’s massive backyard. “Free shrimp. Though I figured there’d be more girls here.”
The barbeque is a power move. A blatant excuse to show off while also sucking up.
There’s only one girl I’m thinking about, and she hasn’t answered my texts.
“Clay, right?” Harlan’s fiancée, Mari, steps into the group and smiles at me. She’s wearing a sleek dress and heels and looks nothing like Nova. “The mayor is here. I’d love to introduce you.”
“We’ve met.” I look past her at the suits who’re rubbing elbows and glad-handing one another.
I hate the politics. Better left to Harlan and ownership. If I wanted to be involved in that shit, I would’ve majored in kissing ass in college.
She tries again. “Then surely you’ll want to catch up. Come on. These people make it possible for the team to play in Denver. The red tape they cut, the money they invest—”
“You know how much comes into this team through media rights? We bring money to the city, not the other way around. Thanks for the invite, but I’m gonna pass.”
Mari’s eyes narrow, and I turn away and head back to some of the guys.
“Careful. You won’t be invited back,” Jay comments.
“That a promise?”
If I’m extra pissy today, it’s because she’s not the sister I want to see.
Nova’s been dodging me the last three days.
Well, she can’t avoid me forever.
Jay’s attention is captured by something behind me.
I turn, expecting to see Chloe.
It’s not Chloe.
Nova’s on the other side of the lawn talking with Brooke.
Her hair falls in waves that brush her collarbone, which is exposed by the dress a few shades darker than her skin and ends mid-thigh.
“Wow, she looks hot,” Jay drawls. “You know she’d be here?”
She laughs on the other side of the lawn, and my abs clench.
“I figured, but we haven’t talked in a few days.”
“Since you were a prick at the game.”
I frown. “I wasn’t.”
“You were,” Jay says.
I saw her for a second after our first game, but I was in a bad mood.
My knee was giving me shit.
Then seeing her in another guy’s jersey, even my teammate’s, pissed me off more.
She’s not mine. Not my girl, not my problem.
“Good thing Clayton Wade doesn’t have time for dating.” Jay claps a hand on my shoulder. “Because it looks like you missed your chance.”
When I search Nova out with my eyes once more, Brooke’s gone. In her place is…
Miles.
I shove my drink at Jay’s chest. “Hold this.”
I cut through the crowd.
“Hey, Clay,” Miles says.
“Jay needs to talk to you.”
“Really?” Nova leans in. “Because Jayden looks just fine to me.”
I glance back to see him laughing with Atlas. Fuck. “Miles. Get out of here, or this piece of advice is the last assist I’m giving you for the entire season.”
He blinks, then heads toward the bar.
When I turn back, Nova’s arms are folded over her chest. “You can’t keep cutting in.”
“On your epic romance with Miles?”
Her lips twitch in profile. “I told you, we’re—“
“If you say 'destined,' I’m going to punch a hole in his face.”
“Sounds like you could use therapy.”
“I’m in therapy.”
She looks over in surprise.
A waiter hands me champagne, and I take two and pass her one.
The ring of a knife striking a glass calls everyone’s attention to the front. Harlan drones on about how good it is to have everyone here, especially with the season starting soon.
I step closer to Nova. “You owe me a drawing.”
“I don’t owe you anything. You barely said two words to me the other day.”
“I was in game mode.”
“You were in asshole mode.”
I blink at her. I’m not used to people calling me out.
“That’s just how it goes during the season. Things get intense. It was nothing personal.”
She scans the crowd behind me. “When you saw me,” she murmurs, “it was like a switch flipped and you shut down. You didn’t want to see me. So, it’s probably easier if you don’t.”
Harlan finishes his speech, and the crowd applauds.
“Easier for who?” I demand under my breath.
She doesn’t answer.
Nova thinks it’s better if we don’t hang out.
That’s bullshit.
It’s like asking me to unsee her. To forget how it feels to be near her. Even now, standing a few inches away with her freezing me out, is better than that.
I’m deciding how to convince her without starting a scene when I pick up a conversation between guests a few feet behind us.
“… his fiancée is lovely and accomplished. Mari’s parents died suddenly a few years back, but she’s carried a huge load since. It sounds like her sister’s a total deadweight.”
Nova heard it, too.
Her face goes white, lips pressed together. She spins on her heel and heads for the house.
I curse, glaring at the unsuspecting guests.
She might not want anything to do with me anymore, but I’m not done with her.
I follow her through the doors at the back of the house.
People are milling about, and I scan the interior before I see a pair of curvy legs ascending one set of the double staircases.
I opt for the other, taking the stairs two at a time.
At the top, I start down the long hall.
I find the room with the closed door. “Nova.”
There’s no answer.
“Come on, I know you’re in there.”
Still nothing.
I reach for the handle and push the door wide to find a bedroom. She’s nowhere in sight, but there’s a sketchpad on the desk. I flip it open.
On top is a drawing of me playing basketball.
Then another.
Another.
It’s a punch in the gut. Not only that she’s been drawing me with a wild intensity bordering on obsession, but that they’re drawn so intimately. In these drawings, there’s none of the hopelessness I feel.
I look up, scanning the room until my attention lands on a closed door.
A closet or bathroom.
“These drawings are really good,” I call through the door.
Maybe I can get her talking, to lower her defenses and tell me what the hell is going on.
There’s no answer.
I’m not used to getting the run around.
“Sure, I’m a little surprised I’m wearing clothes in these, but there must be another sketchpad somewhere…”
I hear the click of Nova unlocking the door.
Her face is at the crack, flushed.
She leans her temple against the door. “I’m not Mari. I’m not organized and put together. But I’m not a mess.”
“I know you’re not.”
Her eyes are tinged with red, and I want to hit whoever made her cry.
“For a long time after my parents died, I couldn’t draw. Starting up again was hard.”
“How’d it feel when you did?”
“Like home.” She blinks up at me, her lashes dark and damp.
I step closer, nudge the door open another inch. “Basketball used to feel like home for me. It doesn’t anymore.”
Her fingers tighten on the wood. “How does it feel?”
This, right here, is dangerous. I’m crossing a threshold I didn’t realize I was at. If I give words to the dark emotions colliding in my chest, I’ll unleash something I can’t put back.
“Like I’m drowning,” I say. “Like I’m seconds from sinking to the bottom of the ocean and all I can do is postpone the inevitable.”
Her blue eyes bore into mine so deeply I swear she can see everything I’m feeling.
She pulls back the door.
I should be outside with my teammates. Or rehabbing my body. Or working with my agent to make this trade happen.
Instead, I step into the bathroom.
It’s white and wood and cozy. I take in her toothbrush and makeup bag leaning on the vanity against the mirror. Little feminine details. We have so little in common, but she’s the one I’m seeking out.
“During the game, I came down after a dunk and my knee screamed. I didn’t say anything to the trainers. Didn’t let it show. But I was up in my head over it.”
“That must be scary. But players get hurt all the time. Isn’t it a risk you take?”
“Yeah, but most of them aren’t as good as me.
There’s not as much riding on it.” I hang my head.
“Back in college, I was in it with this girl and found out she was cheating on me. I spiralled, it got bad, and it almost ended my basketball career.” Her eyes deepen with empathy, but she lets me continue.
“I was in a dark place. I pulled out of it, but I could have just as easily not. Everything I worked for my entire life would’ve been wasted. ”
I swallow, tasting bitterness in my throat. I’ve never told anyone all of that except Jay, and even he doesn’t know the details.
Her lips curve softly. “We all have soft spots, Clay. In our bodies, our hearts, our souls. That’s how we know we’re human.”
Nova doesn’t judge me, or pity me, or tell me I’m selfish. Her words release some of the heaviness in my chest.
“I know you think I’m stupid for wanting to be here for Mari,” she goes on. “But my sister is the only person I have left who cares about me.”
She crosses to the window, gazing out like an angel watching humans below. Guests flood the lawn, little specks of color bright against the green grass.
“That’s not true,” I say, coming up behind her.
Nova’s head turns as she glances toward me. Her hair brushes my shirt as she flexes her wrist absently.
I shouldn’t want sweet and innocent. She’s the last person I need in my way.
But right now, so help me, it’s all I want.
“It isn’t?” she asks.
I shake my head.
Her attention drops to my mouth, and I want to put it on her everywhere she’ll let me.
A feeling flickers to life in my chest that hasn’t been there in a long time.
Not a spark.
It’s her.
She’s under my skin, in my blood.
Her breasts rise and fall with her shallow breathing. The dress looks thin enough that I could feel her warmth through it. I want to close the last inch between us and find out.
I reach for her wrist. My thumb probes her skin, the veins beneath.
Nova lets out a little hiss.
“Still hurt?” I ask.
“No.”
She’s soft, her skin pale.
I bend to brush my lips over her wrist. “How about now?”
She sucks in a breath.
Desire flares to life, the flickering flame of attraction becoming a roaring inferno. It’s not the kind I’m used to, a shallow heat that fades as fast as it burns.
I give a shit about her.
Give so many shits it’s a wonder I have any shits left.
“After the game,” she starts, “you were a prick.”
“You’re right,” I admit.
“Next time, say, ‘Nova, my knee hurts like hell, and I’m in a terrible mood.'”
“I didn’t like seeing you in his jersey.”
She cocks her head, surprised. “What was I supposed to wear?”
I take her chin in my fingers, lifting it so she’s forced to look me dead in the eyes.
“Wear mine,” I murmur. “Next time you wear a jersey to a game, you fucking wear mine.”
Her eyes widen.
I can’t give her what she deserves because my career comes first, but for a second, I imagine being the man who could.
We stand there staring at each other until music rings out in the yard below.
“Nova!” A woman’s voice calls from somewhere in the house.
Nova jumps. “We should get back out there.”
I want to lock the door and lose myself in this girl.
I want to let myself imagine there’s a world where someone sees me as I am, as I could be, and neither of those have anything to do with my busted knee or how many points I score.
I step back to let her past, and she starts toward the door. “Clay?”
The way she says my name makes me want to drag her back and slam the door behind us.
“Yeah?”
Her lips curve. “Thank you.”
I’m so fucked.