Block Shot (Hoops 2)

She pulls back to study my face in the shadows. With the sun setting, soon we’ll have to pick each other out of the dark like we did the first time we made love.

“Your strength,” I continue, pressing my fingers along the delicate bones strung up her back. “And this.”

I skim the curve of her breasts, but don’t stop there, not until I reach the skin left bare by the neckline of her dress. Until my hand rests on her heart.

“This heart of yours.” My laugh is full of self-deprecation. “That you somehow miraculously have given to me, it’s the other sexiest thing about you.”

She traces the line of my eyebrows, the slant of my cheekbones, my lips. I know what she sees. A good-looking guy with a not-always-good heart. Not a heart like hers.

“That’s just about the most perfect thing anyone’s ever said to me,” she says.

All my life I’ve been driven, in constant motion to always achieve the next thing. Right now, I find a rare moment of contentment just holding her and considering the stunning horizon on the verge of sunset. The golden hour always takes me back to dancing with Banner months ago, green-peaked mountains on one side, aquamarine ocean on the other. We weren’t merely dancing with our bodies but were negotiating the steps of our past, our present, our future. Figuring out how it would all come together. We were battling, our wills clashing as she tried to do what she thought was right, and me dragging her in the direction of what I knew couldn’t be wrong. I have that “just know” and it hasn’t failed me yet.

And standing here with Banner in the golden hour, the early evening is completely still. There’s not even a breeze, but I’m a weather vane, and I feel the winds shifting. I “just know.”

“I have another offer for you.” I make my voice sure, when for once, I’m not.

“Is it an offer I can’t refuse?” she asks, toying with my tie, a playful smile on those beautifully symmetrical lips.

“Uh, you could say no, I guess.”

“Jared.” She laughs and shakes her head. “The Godfather? Your favorite movie? ‘I’m gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse.’”

She waves her hand, dismissing the joke I should have gotten.

“Never mind. You know I’m bad at jokes.”

“You are.” I exhale a sharp, nervous breath. “I’m usually quicker than that, though. Sorry. Uh, seriously. I have an offer.”

“Okay. I’m all ears.”

I’ve convinced teams to take risks on players they thought twice, three, four times about signing. I’ve persuaded brands to pay twice what they intended in a matter of one meeting, but I can’t come up with the words to convince Banner Morales to marry me? This is the most important pitch of my life.

“So, we have a lot, right?” I ask.

“I think we have everything we need.” She laces her fingers into the short hair at my neck.

“Not everything,” I say, taking advantage of the opening. “A wise woman once said I should be unafraid to want it all.”

“Technically, I was addressing a roomful of women who average about a third of their male counterparts’ salaries, and you’re a rich, white American male,” she teases. “So you have just about everything, but you were saying?”

I let out a short laugh.

“Did you just rich white male me?”

“I did just rich white male you,” she chuckles unrepentantly.

“I’ll let you get away with it just this once.” I shake my head at her and try to remember where I was. “So like I was saying, I want it all.”

I reach into her hair and find one of the pins anchoring it, taking it out. A thick dark lock spills over her shoulder.

“Jared!” she touches the hair still pulled up.

“I want to wake up with you every morning.” I steal another pin, freeing another section of hair.

“Which you already do.” She gives up and just angles a look up at me that is part deep love, part perennial exasperation.

“I want to kiss you every day.” Another pin gone. More hair falls. “Make love to you every day.”