Hook Shot (Hoops 3)

“Money?”

“It’s my only leverage with her right now.” I say. “I pay her twice what our agreement stipulates, plus alimony. Simone’s needs are more than taken care of. Everything else is gravy, but it’s gravy Bridget likes. We’ll see if it works.”

“I hope it does.” Kenya looks down at her phone. “Hey, we’re here.”

We cross the street and enter the gallery. The Gilded Bean boasts an airy space filled with paintings, photographs, and sculptures.

“Nice, huh?” Kenya asks. “My coach swears by this place. She got all her artwork here. And they’ll deliver out of state.”

“Let’s see if there’s anything you like.”

I’d love to buy a few things for her, but she’s as proud as I am. Maybe prouder. She makes decent money, but I make more for one game than she does the whole season. I really do need to bring up the women’s salary increase at the next Player’s Association meeting here in New York. I was elected to the executive committee three years ago, and it’s been one of my favorit

e things I’ve gotten to do in the league. Many of my heroes who came before me served in the same capacity. It was Oscar Robertson who negotiated free agency for players when the NBA and the ABA merged. We’re still benefitting from his work.

I’m a fan of the Big O myself.

Lotus’s joke from our day in Harlem replays in my mind, making me grin and shake my head. I find that happening a lot. We haven’t gotten to spend much actual time together. She had to accompany JP to Milan unexpectedly, which sucks. She got home last night, and we’re trying to arrange for her to meet Kenya tonight.

“Your girl into hip-hop?” Kenya asks, texting and not lifting her eyes from her phone.

“Yeah. Why?”

“There’s this concert. Maybe we could go after dinner.” She looks up at me, but something over my shoulder captures her attention. “Man, that would look good on my wall. Shit, that would look good on anybody’s wall.”

I glance over my shoulder to see what’s so great and stop, the blood freezing then boiling in my veins. I cross the gallery with quick strides to join a small group clustered at the base of a photo that must be blown up to six-feet tall, mounted on the wall.

It’s a woman.

The slim figure is tucked into the corner of a window seat. Her lean legs, smooth and sun-kissed copper, are slightly parted. Her head, haloed by a caramel and butterscotch mane of wild curls and coils, is flung back, exposing the sleek muscles of her throat and a wisp of bone, her clavicle, inked with scripted words. She’s wearing a man’s white shirt, unbuttoned, opened, the tails hanging on either side of her toned thighs. One breast is partially covered by the shirt, but the other is exposed, the shirt dripping off her shoulder and running down her arm. A tiny gold bar pierces a plump berry-colored nipple dangling like heavy fruit from a vine. The beginnings of a tattoo ringing the tops of her thighs peek out from beneath the shirt tail.

Her pussy is in shadow, but it’s obvious she’s not wearing panties, and the lightly muscled plane of her stomach rises above her lap, decorated with a flower blooming around her belly button. Her hand, limp at her side, is adorned with one silver ring, and tattoos of the moon on three fingers. My eyes follow the line from her knee, past her calf, to the well-crafted bones of her ankle. The black polish on her toenails is slightly chipped, an intimate, candid detail, like all the other intimate, candid details no one in this fucking gallery should be gawking at.

I squeeze my eyes shut, at once blocking the image and also trapping it behind my eyelids for later. Forever. I want to rip it from the wall and burn it. I want to take it home and wake up seeing it every day. My jaw aches with the pain of clenched teeth. My hand opens and closes, making and releasing a fist.

“Nice tits, huh?” A guy with a receding hairline nudges me with his elbow and shares a roguish grin.

I grab his arm and squeeze. He yelps, and Kenya pries my fingers from his elbow.

“Kenan, what the hell?” Kenya asks, turning apologetic eyes to the man who is rubbing his elbow, fury and fear on his face. “My brother has, uh . . . PTSD. Sorry about that.”

“Sorry,” I mumble. “I didn’t mean to—”

“No problem,” he says hastily, walking away and flinging parting words over his shoulder. “Thank you for your service.”

“My service?” I ask, bewildered. “What’s he—”

“You’re welcome,” Kenya snaps. “Better a troubled vet than the NBA player he could sue the pants off for mauling him. Dude, what’s wrong with you?”

I look back to the photo.

“This?” She points her thumb at the wall. “The Lo thing?”

“It’s not a thing,” I grit out. “It’s her.”

“Huh?” Her face wrinkles into a frown and then stretches wide with realization. She looks back to the wall. “Lo? That’s Lotus?”

A guy beside us snaps a picture of the photo with his phone. Before I can snatch and crush it, a woman in glasses walks up to address him.