Hoops Holiday (Hoops 2.50)

When Sadie leaves, there’s no buffer between me and the wall of fine ass-ness that is MacKenzie Decker. It’s the first time we’ve been alone since he faced me naked in a roomful of laughing men a decade ago. I clear my throat needlessly since I have nothing to say. I felt safe with Sadie as our chaperone. Now that it’s just the two of us, I can’t remember what we were talking about with so much ease.

“You were saying?” Decker watches me expectantly.

“Huh?” I stall and blank-face him. “What was I saying?”

“Greatest of all time?” he prompts, anticipation brewing in his eyes.

“I’ll have to school you later.” I force a smile, gathering the papers in front of me, tucking them into a neat stack and pressing them to my chest. “I need to review some tape from last night’s games before the show. See you on set.”

I walk to the door and wave over my shoulder.

“I never got to apologize properly for the towel.”

His words, injected seamlessly into our conversation, stunt my steps. We were doing just fine until he had to go there.

“What?” I turn to consider him warily, half-hoping he’ll let it go, but there’s no going back now. The polite façade has fallen away, baring his curiosity, his determined frankness.

“I said,” he pauses deliberately to make sure I’m hearing him clearly this time, “I never got to apologize properly for the towel. I know there was some teasing on the circuit afterwards.”

“It was a long time ago,” I reply stiffly. “It’s fine.”

“I reached out, but I wasn’t sure if—”

“I got the messages you left at the station.” I keep my tone neutral and

project confidence. “Thank you.”

“But you never . . .” There’s a trail of silence after his incomplete thought.

“I was reassigned.” I shift my feet and glance into the hall beyond the conference room, signaling that I’m ready to be done with this conversation. “I knew we wouldn’t see each other much, so . . .”

I leave a trail of my own, shrugging and hoping we can conclude this.

“Your hair used to be curly,” he says, a grin accompanying yet another abrupt shifting of gears.

“Yes, well—”

“I liked it,” he cuts in, stuttering my heartbeat and drifting a glance over my hair. “It’s still beautiful this way.”

He locks his whisky-tinted eyes with mine.

“You’re still beautiful.”

“Um, well, I—”

“We should grab a drink,” he says, further disconcerting me. “Or something.”

He drops his words from that night on me, when he wore nothing but a tiny towel and super-size bravado.

Humor and irritation war inside me at the shared memory before I get them both under control.

“Look, Deck . . .” I shake my head and trap my bottom lip in my teeth before going on. “It’s still a no.”

He opens his mouth as if he has more to say, but my rigid expression must convince him he really shouldn’t.

“Well, glad that’s all behind us.” The sorcerer smile, the one he must use to put people at ease, reappears. “I’ll let you go prepare. See you on set.”

I nod and turn on my heel, making sure to keep my steps steady and measured, even though I want to run back to my office before he decides to press the advantage I don’t want him to know he has.