“August?” she asks for the second time.
I don’t know. Maybe she’s said my name five times, six. Maybe she’s snapped her fingers in my face. I’m so damn wide open for this woman, I’ve lost track of time and
space just taking her in after so long.
“Yeah.” I smile down at her. “Hey.”
“Hey?” She shakes her head and presses a hand to her forehead as if that will help things make sense. “You’re not from human resources.”
“Uh, no. Not exactly.”
“Not at all.” She swallows, her dark brows pinched together. “I’m glad to see you, but—”
“I’m glad to see you, too,” I pounce on the positive. “You look … amazing, Iris.”
She blinks at me owlishly. If you’re a goddess-like owl, that is. “I’m glad to see you, but really confused,” she finishes. “What’s going on?”
“Well, Jared and I are brothers,” I say. “Stepbrothers, actually.”
“I don’t understand.” She takes a shallow breath. “Go on.”
“I didn’t realize you two even knew each other until the day before you disappeared.” I leave my last word dangling in the air. You know. In case she wants to elaborate on where she’s been for the past damn year or so and tell me why she never showed up again.
She tilts her chin up, silently telling me she’s the one demanding explanations right now.
“Yeah, so, the day before you disappeared,” I resume, “Jared picked me up from the community center and saw you. That’s when we pieced together how we both knew you.”
I smile, knowing there is more to say, but really just kind of losing my train of thought. We’re finally in the same room when I didn’t know if I’d ever see her again.
“And now I work here?” she asks, her brows lifted. “Isn’t there a lot you’re leaving out?”
“Isn’t there a lot you’re leaving out?” I ask right back. “Like why you wore Caleb’s ring, but said you weren’t engaged? Or how we kissed and I ate you out and you came in the closet, but then I never heard from you? Couldn’t find you anywhere? Are there some details you might want to share?”
It’s only in the silence tightening around us that I realize that underneath my rampant desire to fuck Iris, to hold her possibly for the rest of my life and never let her go, I’m also a little pissed. Well, now we both know.
“You first.” A muscle flexes along the delicate line of her jaw. “Why am I here, August?” She clasps her hands together in front of her, her eyes fixed on the Louisiana iris cupped in her palms.
“Is there even a job?” she asks.
“Of course there’s a job. I’m a silent partner in Elevation. Jared and I never advertised our connection and decided he wouldn’t be my agent when I first came to the league, but we dreamed about this company for a long time.” I shrug and go on. “We were gonna wait, but my injury put everything in perspective and made me realize just how short this career can be. So we started it last year.”
“You own Elevation?”
“Part-owner, yeah. Jared handles all the business stuff. I’m just kind of our poster child to make other high-profile athletes want to work with us.”
“But Elevation is yours.” Her dark lashes flutter in quick blinks, and she bites the corner of her mouth. “Is that what you want me to be? Yours? I’m just here … for you?”
My first instinct is to bang my chest and say damn right she’s mine, but then I realize she doesn’t mean it in an I find cavemen sexy kind of way.
“Not like that.” I blow out an uneasy laugh.
When she looks back up, I hate the hurt and disappointment darkening her eyes, detracting from that glow she wore when I first saw her. And now I get it. That glow, it was pride—in herself.
When I graduated from college, I went to the NBA just months later, received a ridiculous amount of money, set up my home here in San Diego, became a brand, racked up endorsements, and now I have one of the highest-selling jerseys in the league.
She never had that.
Not the money or the fame of any of that shit. Most people never get that—the independence.