It’s all ball.
I may not have started out thinking I’d be an NBA player, but I’ve always been driven in every endeavor. I would have been this way about law, if I’d fulfilled my father’s dream and pursued it. If I’d been a farmer, I would have been this way about fruits and vegetables and soil. It’s the way I’m made, and nothing has ever disrupted this pattern in me. I know what Bridget did was wrong, but I also recognize that I’m no picnic, especially once the season starts.
And Bridget lived through a lot of seasons.
She’s the last thing I want to consider right now. I’ve moved on completely. It doesn’t matter that Lotus is in fashion, something I never gave a rat’s ass about, or that she doesn’t know Oscar Robertson from Oscar Meyer. That I’m eleven years older. Or that I live on the West Coast and she’s on the East. It doesn’t even matter that she may believe in voodoo. Maybe she’s a witch. I don’t know. I do know one thing for sure.
I’m falling for her.
And if I’m keeping it one hundred, at least with myself, I’m probably already in the past tense on that score. I’ve fallen for her.
You’d think with all the drama and trauma I experienced with Bridget, I wouldn’t be doing this again. But that’s just it. There is no “again” to what I’m feeling. This is uncharted territory. I’ve never felt this way about anyone. God, it shames me to think it, but Bridget and I met in college. I’ve known her sixteen years, been married to her for most of those, and I never felt for her what I feel for Lotus after mere months.
I’ve always jealously guarded my solitude, so wanting to be with someone all the time is not only foreign, but disconcerting. I read The Song of Solomon for notes to send her. That’s right. It’s in the Bible. This is some body-snatcher shit. I don’t know who has taken up residence in this mind and body I’ve always been so disciplined with. Who has taken up residence in this heart.
The circular path of my thoughts stalls when the lights drop and music fills the terrace. The song is like Enya screwed a DJ, and gave birth to some bastard New Age music possessed by a heavy baseline. A woman, tall, thin, strides with confidence and swagger down the runway. She poses, pops, turns. Before she’s out of sight, another has taken her place at the end of the runway.
The next twenty minutes presents a parade of women whose beauty is only rivaled by the gorgeous clothes they wear. I may not know much about fashion, but I know these clothes are art, and I feel pride that my girl was such a crucial part of this masterpiece. Celebrities, not just critics and fashion insiders, stuff each row. I spot Bristol James, Grip’s wife, a few seats down. We wave briefly, but Bristol returns her attention to the clothes right away.
It’s all over in twenty minutes like Lotus promised, and JP emerges from behind the curtain, joined by all the models, and struts to the end of the catwalk, waving and receiving the adulation the collection deserves. The crowd is on its feet. I’m scouring the scene for any sign of Lotus, but she’s probably backstage.
As a spokesperson for the line, I have a pass, which I use as soon as the show concludes and people start dispersing. Lotus said the Fashion Week schedule is brutal. Back-to-back shows scheduled in venues all over the city have most critics, editors, fashion bloggers, and attendees doing their damnedest to get from one to the next on time.
Among the Amazons, some of whom almost look me in the eye wearing their high heels, it’s hard to find my little Lotus. When I spot her, she’s hugging JP and wearing midnight blue skinny velvet pants that mold to every line of her svelte figure. The shirt, if it can be called that, is ivory-colored silk. It’s not much more than a bra with long sleeves clinging to her arms and some kind of crystals pouring from the wrists and over her hands. A hint of dark nipples shows through the fragile shells cupping her breasts, and her stomach is bare, a lotus flower the only interruption of her smooth skin. She turns to answer someone, and I gulp. Her ass in those tiny pants is criminal. God, I want to lick that zipper climbing her spine. I should be used to this—how parts of me go painfully hard and other parts of me go unbelievably soft at the sight of her—but I’m not. I half-hope I’ll never get used to it.
Maybe she feels my eyes on her. I wouldn’t put it past her. There is something unique, different about Lotus. She senses things, feels things I’m not always in tune to. She searches until she finds me.
“Kenan!” she squeals, and quickly picks her way through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd to reach me. She’s wearing more makeup than usual, and a nose ring, a tiny gold hoop encircling the keen curve of her nostril. As soon as she’s close enough, I bend my knees, wrap my arms around her, and with my elbows locked under her ass, pull her up to me.
“I’m so proud of you, Button,” I whisper through that cloud of platinum curls.
She stiffens in my arms, pulls back to peer into my face. Her smile is blinding, an amalgamation of joy and fulfillment. “You know it’s not my line, right?” she teases, resting an elbow on my shoulder and tracing my eyebrows, my cheekbone with one neat nail.
“I know everything you’ve done,” I insist. “And I know nothing about fashion, but the show was fantastic.” I kiss the warm line of her throat. “You’re fantastic.”
She dips her head until our eyes meet, and the smile fades from her eyes, from her lips. She lays her forehead against mine. “I want to spend the night with you, Kenan.”
My heartbeat trebles behind my breastbone and I swallow my eagerness.
Calm your cock and lower your expectations.
We haven’t had sex and I’ll wait a year, two, however long
it takes for her to feel comfortable. She’s spent the night several times, and it’s always hard to stop, but I do. For her, I always will until she says we don’t have to. So when she says she wants to spend the night, my cock and I should know by now it doesn’t mean . . .
“Sure.” I set her on the floor. “You mentioned an after-party—”
“I’m not going,” she cuts in, her eyes affixed to my face. “I already told JP.”
“Oh, okay. Yeah.” I clear my throat. “If you want to grab something to eat—”
“I don’t.” She takes my hand and peers up at me in the dimness of backstage. Models, critics, celebrities, JPL staff all mingle around us, but for me, we’re the only two people here. “I want to go to your apartment, and I want to spend the night. Kenan, I’m ready.”
“Lotus, baby, you don’t have to—”
“Kenan!” JP shouts near my ear.
Lotus and I don’t break our stare immediately, but linger on each other for a few seconds before we look to her boss. He’s practically vibrating with triumph, and I get it. I’m happy for him, but right now, I need to figure out what Lotus means. What she’s saying—if it’s what I think she’s saying. If it is, we’re out of here as soon as possible.