by Anna B. Doe
I felt warm all over remembering the night, long ago in this very field where he told me what he wanted to name his kids. And it was no surprise at all that their names were from the stars. “Yeah. Columbia. We’ll call her Bia for short.”
He grinned wide as another tear slipped down his face. “Yeah, Bia.”
He climbed back on top of me, kissing me deep before saying, “Merry Christmas, Livvy.”
Chapter Seven
Adam
I dragged our sleeping bags out of the tent, wanting to sleep beneath the stars, even if I couldn’t see them that night. We spent the rest of our time in the field, cuddled in our bags, keeping each other warm.
And the whole time, I couldn’t help but think of how wise my amazing wife was.
Sometimes the darkest nights did make the brightest stars.
Books By Amie Knight
The Stars Duet
Beneath His Stars
In Her Space
The Heart Series
See Through Heart
A Steel Heart
An Imperfect Heart
Standalones
The Line
The Summerville Sports Series
The Red Zone
The First Score
The Cole Train Twins Series
Miss Apprehended
Miss Understood
About the author
Amie Knight has been a reader for as long as she could remember and a romance lover since she could get her hands on her momma's books. A dedicated wife and mother with a love of music and makeup, she won’t ever be seen leaving the house without her eyebrows and eyelashes done just right. When she isn't reading and writing, you can catch her jamming out in the car with her two kids to '90s R&B, country, and showtunes. Amie draws inspiration from her childhood in Columbia, South Carolina, and can't imagine living anywhere other than the South.
FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/authoramieknight
WEBSITE: www.authoramieknight.com
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Kiss Before Midnight
A New York Knights/Blairwood University Crossover Holiday Story
Anna B. Doe
Chapter One
“Grace, you coming?” Yasmin looks at me from the doorway.
“Gimme a sec,” I say as I throw the last of my things in the duffle bag, zip it closed and pull the strap over my shoulder. Shouting a quick goodbye to my ballet instructor, I hurry toward my friend.
“Do you mind if we stop somewhere for a second?” I ask, tucking a strand that slipped out of my bun behind my ear.
“Again?” Yasmin groans loudly. She might be a year older, but that doesn’t stop her from acting like a brat. I still love her though. We met last year when I needed some help catching up on my studies after a nasty flu, and we’ve been friends ever since.
“It’ll just be a second, I promise!” I protest, feeling my cheeks heating under her watchful stare. Clasping my hands together, I bat my eyelashes at her in my best attempt to be cute. “Pretty please, with a cherry on top?”
“Fine,” she sighs and points her finger at me. “But you owe me.”
“Anything you want,” I promise, already hurrying down the hallway toward the gym, a big smile plastered on my face.
The community center that was my home more than my actual home—a shitty apartment in an even shittier part of the city, which I shared with my mother—has not only grown but also been renewed in the last few years since I reconnected with my older brother J.D. He saw how much I love this place and how much it helped me in the years we’d been apart, so he, along with his new wife Sienna, have taken it upon themselves to make this place shine so it could help more kids like me in the future. Bright Haven that’s the name of the project and the other community centers they have started to build across the country. Because this place has been my light, my safe place, when all I knew was darkness.
As soon as we come close to the gym, I can hear a ball bouncing off the court. Mostly guys, although there are a few girls, are playing on the inside court. They usually play on the outside court, but since it’s early December and snowing, they’ll have to make do inside until the spring.
We get to the slightly open door just in time for me to catch the end of the play. The familiar tall figure slips past his guard, his footwork easy, almost effortless, as he bounces the ball by his side. When he gets to the three-point line, he leaps in the air and shoots.
The satisfying swoosh as the ball falls through the hoop, signaling that he scored, fills the room just before people from the bleachers cheer in victory.
“Damn, he’s good,” Yas says from behind me, but I don’t turn around to acknowledge her. No, my eyes are glued to the boy who made the shot.
Mason LeBlanc.
Just thinking about his name has me all rattled inside.
Even at sixteen, he’s already six foot two and towers over most of the people in the room. He’s still kind of skinny, but I’m sure that in no time he’ll build muscle, especially if he keeps playing like that. Then again, he has more talent in his pinky then most of the guys have in their whole bodies.
I envy that about him.
What does it feel like to be so good at something you love that you can do it in your sleep? I wish I had something like that. I love dancing, hell, I’m good at dancing, but not good enough to be a professional. Maybe if I’d been born in a different world, the daughter of different people, but there is no sense dwelling on maybes and what ifs.
His friends surround him, and I observe as they slap his shoulders, exchange fist bumps as they congratulate him. Or maybe even tease him about it? I’m never sure which one it is when guys are concerned.
One guy, I’m not sure of his name, pulls the ball cap off Mason’s head, messing up the mop of dark curls as he says something.
Whatever it is, catches Mason’s attention because his head shoots up, eyes scanning the crowd until they land on… me?
Thump-thump-thump.
The guy is still saying something to Mason, and he must be listening because he nods his head a few times, his eyes never leaving mine. I gulp down my nerves, my throat suddenly dry. All my attention is on him as my heart picks up speed, the sound of my pounding heart erasing the noises of the gym.
Another slap on his shoulders and Mason grabs his ball cap out of his friend’s hand and puts it on his head before starting toward where I’m standing.
“What the hell is happening?” I ask Yasmin, my whole body going on alert as he stalks toward me with the determination I’ve only seen him show on the court.
Did I do something to piss him off? Did he finally catch on to the fact that I’ve been sneaking in here to watch them play? Yasmin was right, I shouldn’t have been coming here so often, but I couldn’t help myself.
I didn’t usually visit the gym area, but one day J.D. was late picking me up, so I hung around with nothing better to do. I saw the guys playing ball, so I decided to stay and watch. That’s when I saw him for the first time. Mason owned that court like it was in his blood, the ball an extension of his hand. Watching him play was magnificent, and not just because I found him cute—although let’s be honest, he’s not just cute, he’s smoking hot—but also because I loved to just watch him play. See the joy on his face every time the ball would fall through the hoop.
So I kept coming back. Not often, I wasn’t stalking him or anything, just stopped every now and then after my dance class.
But maybe I was more obvious than I thought.
“We have to go,” I say, grabbing Yasmin’s hand and giving it a firm squeeze.
“Too late for that,” she grits through her teeth.
And she’s right, because in the next moment Mason’s standing right in front of me.
He looks even taller up close; I’m by no means a short girl, yet I barely reach his collarbone. Up close I can see his brown eyes surrounded by thick eyelashes, and his brown hair peeking from underneath his ball cap.
“Hey!” Mason smiles at me, two matching dimples appearing on his cheeks as he bounces slightly on the balls of his feet, his hands shoved into the pockets of his sweats. They hang so low on his hips I swear I can see a glimpse of skin showing.
“Hi,” I squeak back and feel my cheeks grow even warmer.
“I’m M—”
“Mason,” I finish and then look down.
God, are you for real, Grace? What the hell? This is so embarrassing.
“Mason,” he confirms with a chuckle. “I guess you have the advantage of me here, because I don’t know your name.”
I peek up at him, my teeth grazing over my lip. “G-Grace.”
“Grace,” he repeats as if he’s testing the way it sounds on his lips. “I like it.”
“Thanks.”
Yasmin snorts, and I want to strangle her. Can this be any worse?
If Mason heard it, he ignores it. Instead he tips his head toward the court, where his friends continue playing without him. “You like playing ball, Grace?”
“No, I’m here for ballet.” Yasmin nudges me in the side with her elbow. “What I mean to say is, I don’t know how to play, but I enjoy watching you guys.”
Great, I basically admitted to stalking them. Earth, will you please open up and swallow me to spare me this embarrassment?
“Cool.”
I nod, unsure of what to say. Well, I better not say anything, because as it is, I dug a big enough hole.
“Maybe I can teach you one day?” he offers, surprising me.
“I-I’d like that.”
He pulls his hands out of his pockets and I see a phone clasped in his hand. “Maybe if you give me your number, we can set that up. You know… sometime?”
I blink. Once, twice. And then his words finally register in my head.
Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod… This can’t be happening. Mason, asking me for my phone number! How is this real?
“S-sure,” I stutter, keeping to that one word because I don’t think my brain is capable of forming something more coherent. I rattle off my phone number and he saves it in his phone.
Those brown eyes of his give me another once-over as he slowly starts to pull back.
“Talk to you later, Legs,” he calls out, that boyish smirk, the one he has every time he scores, on his face.
My heart is beating loudly as I watch him leave and join the game.
Yasmin’s hands wrap around me as she squeals in my ear. “He’s totally into you!”
When I get out of the community center a little while later, a black SUV is already parked by the curb. I go straight for it, rubbing my hands and cursing myself in my mind because I didn’t bring my gloves.
“Hey Gracie, how was it?” Sienna asks as soon as I open the door.
“Good, I had fun,” I say, putting on my seatbelt.
Sienna is my older brother’s wife, but she’s also so much more. It’s always hard to explain our relationship to people. She’s my best friend and a mother figure in one. Something I never had before meeting her; hell, something I never thought I’d ever have, and I never plan to take her nor our relationship for granted.
“Are you working on something in particular?”
I met Sienna three years ago. She was volunteering alongside her mother in the community center. I actually met her before I met my brother. It was just my mother and me for years until she found out J.D., her child from her first marriage and who she left, has become a professional football player. Only then did she reach out to him and told him about me, requesting money for my “upbringing”. She only wanted it for booze, and he knew that so he refused to give it to her until he met me. It was just pure coincidence that destiny brought us all together and made us a family. In no way traditional, but family nonetheless.
“There are actually quite a few new girls, so we went back to the basics. Miss Caroline let me help.”
“That’s amazing, although I’m not surprised. You’ve come a long way in the last few years and you’re so good with kids.”
Sienna puts her hand on my knee, giving it an affectionate squeeze.
“I’ve had a lot of practice.”
Sienna and J.D. married just shy of my thirteenth birthday and now have two little boys that I love to dote on as much as I can. For most of my life—and when I say most, I really mean most, twelve whole years—I was an only child. That is, until J.D. walked into my life. Still, the age difference between us is so big; he’s more of a father figure than anything else. Their sons, Nicky and Wren, might be my nephews, but they’re also the little brothers I never had, and I want to spend every opportunity I have with them. In no time, I’ll have to pick out a college to go to, and things will change yet again.
“What you have is a natural gift. I love those two, but sometimes they drive me insane.”
I laugh and look at the back seat, where two child seats are sitting empty. “Where are the little devils, anyway?”
I came to the community center straight from school, and although Sienna and J.D. are starting to give me a little bit more freedom, they don’t like me walking around the city all by myself once night falls.
“They’re with J.D. at home. Anabel and I went out to get mani-pedis, which was actually just an excuse to get away from the boys and chat in peace.”
Anabel is a friend of Sienna’s and the wife of J.D.’s best friend and former teammate, William Price. The two played together for the New York Knights, a football team here in the city, until J.D. decided to retire at the end of last season to be able to spend more time with his family. After winning his second Super Bowl ring, he said it was time for him to hang up his cleats and enjoy the rest of his life while his body is still in one piece.
“On a scale of one to ten, how bad do you think the house will be once we get there?”
“Shelton boys kind of messy,” she says, and we both laugh. They’re hopeless, but we still love them.
The phone buzzes in my hand, drawing my attention. I look at it, frowning at the unknown number that flashes on the screen. Still, I unlock it and open the message.
Unknown: Will I lose my man card if I try to cash in that sometime date you promised me, Legs?
Legs.
My heart starts beating faster, palms growing sweaty as I reread the message on the screen.
Nobody calls me Legs.
Except…
“What has you blushing like that?” Sienna asks, trying to take a peek at my phone, but I pull it to my chest, hiding it from her view.
“Nobody,” I say quickly. Way too quickly, so of course, she notices. “You better keep your eyes on the road, so we don’t get killed.”
“Ha! You didn’t say you weren’t blushing,” she counters, but thankfully returns her attention to driving.
“Am not,” I protest, although I can feel my cheeks heat as I speak the words.
“You totally are! Is there a boy I don’t know about?” More blushing, and of course, Sienna notices. “There totally is a boy! Who is he?”
“Nobody. Let it go, Si.”
“I can’t. I’ve never seen you interested in somebody like that. Hell, I don’t remember hearing you once mention a boy, and now he has you all flushed like that. He has to be somebody special.”
Mason’s dimpled smile and messy hair flash in my mind. There is no stopping a small grin curving my lips.
“He is,” I admit, nibbling at my cheek to prevent it from growing even wider.
Sienna squeals excitedly. “Tell me everything,” she demands.
I could keep pretending it’s nothing, but a part of me doesn’t want to. A part of me wants to share this with her, my best friend, the mother I never had, and have her as excited as I am by all of this.
So I do. I tell her how I saw him the first time, and how I kept coming back in hopes of catching a glimpse of him. How my heart races every time I see him, and how his smile creates a butterfly stamped in my stomach. Then I tell her about what happened today.
“That is so cute! Did you message him back?”
I swallow hard and shake my head no.
“What are you waiting for?”
“What should I say?”
As Sienna so eloquently pointed out, I’ve never done this, never been interested in a guy, never gave him my number in the hope that he’ll text me and ask me out on a date.
“Do you want to go out with him?”
“Yes,” I say, louder than anticipated. I force myself to take a deep breath and then repeat, “Yes, I do. I really, really like him, Si.”
“Then you should text him back.”
I look at the phone, debating what to say so it doesn’t sound like the word-vomit I did earlier in the gym, when something else occurs to me.
“J.D. won’t like it,” I comment, happy to concentrate on something else, even if only for a moment.
She just waves her hand. “Leave J.D. to me.”
Later that evening I open the text Mason sent. I haven’t replied yet, since I couldn’t find the right words, and it’s been driving me crazy.
I add his number to my contacts and stare once again at the message.
Mason: Will I lose my man card if I try to cash in that sometime date you promised me, Legs?
Sucking in my lower lip, I start typing.
No way…
Nope, not that.
I’d love to go...
Too desperate.
I didn’t realize that was a date.
Closing my eyes I press send and throw my phone away from me, burrowing my head into my pillow to let out a silent scream.
Was that the right thing to say? Too cheeky? Too… I don’t even know what…
I should have let Yasmin, hell, even Sienna, text back instead of doing it myself.
What if he doesn’t answer? What if I took too long, and he changed his mind? What if…
