Chapter 22
NOVA
“This is either the best idea ever or the worst,” I whisper as Brooke and I creep down the hallway of the hotel. The cardboard cutout is clutched between us, the head under her armpit while I grab the feet.
“It’s a tradition,” Brooke replies.
“How can it be a tradition? I thought this was Miles’ first time?”
I’ve learned there are a few ways to get an invitation to all-star weekend: as a player for the main game, as part of the skills night—like the dunk competition—or as part of the rookie game.
Earlier tonight were the skills competitions. The dunks were pretty spectacular, but we were there to cheer for the three-point competitors.
Especially Miles, who lit up the scoreboard to win with a near-perfect score.
We’re almost to 1475, the room number Brooke told me in the stairwell as we prepped for this.
“What are you ladies doing with Michael?”
I look up, full of guilt, to see Jayden standing sternly over us.
“What do you think?” Brooke replies.
Jay pulls out his phone. “We gotta hurry. He’s on his way back.” He looks up and down the hall. “Let’s go.”
They exchange a grin that looks eerily similar. Brooke produces a key card she swipes at the door.
“I’m not asking how you got that,” Jay muses.
“Better not.”
“I thought all-star weekend was about, I dunno, basketball,” I say.
They both laugh.
“It’s an excuse to hang out with my boys across the league.”
“What about for you?” I ask Brooke.
“I get to party and decide which of a few hundred attractive male specimens gets the prize of hooking up with me.”
“You’re not gonna hook up with someone,” her brother objects. “Not now, not ever.”
“I already have.”
Jay straightens. “Tell me his name and I’ll end him.”
“Which year?” Brooke breezes into the room, leaving her brother muttering behind her.
I came to the all-star game to support Clay. Even if he’s been before, it’s a big deal. He asked me to stay with him, but I said no, wanting a little bit of space and also for him to have time with his guys.
Brooke and I are sharing a room, one I insisted on paying for with my latest paycheck from the Kodiaks.
But I am wearing the jersey Clay had delivered to my door—a special all-star edition bearing his name and number. It arrived with a handwritten note.
This one has a fireproof coating.
CW
“The bathroom?” I ask as Brooke and Jay head inside.
“Yeah. It has to be in the shower so when he pulls the curtain back, there’s Michael," Brooke explains.
They take turns positioning the cardboard cutout.
“No, wait, like this.” Jay steps inside the shower with both feet, making the cutout assume an awkward and provocative position.
“Why Michael Bublé?” I ask.
“One year, Jay kept listening to what he called his hype music but wouldn’t let anyone in on it. Turned out it was Michael Bublé’s Christmas album. The guys never let him live it down,” Brooke says under her breath.
We watch Jay step out of the bathtub and brush off his hands.
The sound of laugher in the hallway makes us freeze.
“Shit!” I curse.
There’s no time to get out. Brooke grabs me and Jay and sprints out of the bathroom as voices stop outside the door.
There’s nowhere to hide.
Jay dives into the closet, pulling it shut behind him.
“Traitor!” Brooke hisses.
Pulling her with me, I lunge for the curtains like people do in the movies.
The door clicks. I listen to him walk into the bathroom and turn on the sink.
“What the…?”
Brooke and I hold our breath in anticipation.
“This soap is fucking terrible.”
We look at each other and laugh silently.
I peek out as Jay slips out of the closet and through the front door. Just when we start to creep toward the door, the faucet cuts out.
We run back to the curtains.
We’re safe until we hear a little yip.
Waffles. I forgot all about Waffles.
He’s sniffing Brooke’s high heels with excitement.
“What is it, boy?”
The curtain jerks away, and Miles is standing there in a towel. “Well, what have we here?”
He’s definitely cut, but Brooke’s appreciating him enough for both of us.
“If you wanted to touch my trophy, all you had to do was ask,” he says.
I swallow a laugh and duck toward the door, leaving them alone.
Outside, my gaze lands on Clay’s door across the hall.
It opens and he peers out, doing a double take.
His arched brow when he sees me makes me want to bite my lip.
He’s wearing sweatpants slung low on his hips, his shirt in one hand like he was in the middle of pulling it on.
Or taking it off.
God he’s gorgeous. I should be over it after all this time, desensitized from being in the presence of that much hotness on a regular basis, but I’m not.
“Should I be jealous?” he murmurs, taking in where I’ve come from.
“Maybe,” I tease.
“Of Miles or Michael?” he asks.
I throw up my hands. “Does everyone know about this?”
“They did it to me my first year. We weren’t even on the same team.”
His slow grin is contagious, and I can’t stop the laughter that rises up.
My shoulders rock until tears warm the corners of my eyes.
A player I don’t know heads down the hall, and he and Clay exchange a nod. I step closer to Clay to avoid being in the way and get a hint of his clean male scent.
“What are you doing in the players’ hotel, pretty girl?” Clay murmurs near my ear.
My gaze runs over his muscles and tattoos, my throat going dry.
I peer up at him through my lashes and shrug out of my jacket to show him the jersey.
His jersey.
“I was hoping to get this signed.”
His eyes darken. “Watch it. I’ll write my name on you with permanent ink.”
I bite my lip. “You already did that.”
“That was my number. And I said I owed you a tattoo.”
“You still do.”
He goes back into his room and returns with a pen. “Where do you want it?”
I debate a second before I pull down the neck of my jersey, exposing my ribs over my heart.
Clay writes carefully across my skin. I’m not watching the pen—I’m watching him.
“Before you look at it, I need to tell you something.” He clears his throat. “Everything I am, everything I did, was about basketball. The one time I faltered, the one time I blinked back in college, it burned me. Bad enough I swore I’d never hesitate again.
“Coach’s accident got me thinking about how everyone in this hotel, in that arena, knows me for basketball. If I died tonight, that’s what they’d remember me for. But I want more than that, Nova.”
My breath catches.
“I want your brightness to rub off on me… and maybe some of your goodness too. It’s not fair to ask that of you, but what I can promise you in return is that I’ll care about you. I’ll put you first. I’m not used to that, so I’m going to screw it up, but I want to do it.”
I look down at my chest, at the words he wrote carefully on my skin.
I love you
CW
It doesn’t feel like fireworks. More like balloons lifting off from the ground, drawing me weightlessly up with them.
There’s never been a time I wasn’t drawn to Clay, from the very first moment when we argued over a seat on a plane I didn’t want to take.
He believed in me when no one else did. His quiet confidence taught me how to believe in myself.
My heart has cracked open, sprouted new buds and blossoms thanks to him.
“Okay,” I say.
“Okay? What the hell does that mean,” he growls.
“It means I love you too.”
His eyes work back and forth over mine, his jaw clenching.
Clay’s hands fist at his sides. “You’re serious.”
The silence between us is buzzing. Or maybe it’s the blood pounding in my ears as we stare at each other.
I smile so wide it hurts. “Way serious. Now can I please come in?”
He grabs the back of my neck and hauls me towards him.