One Last Shot
Alexandra Warren
One Last Shot (Nymphs & Trojans Book 2)
Copyright 2019 Alexandra Warren
Cover Art by Visual Luxe
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real locations, people, or events is coincidental and unintentional.
Contents
Acknowledgments
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Epilogue
Extras
Also by Alexandra Warren
Acknowledgments
This is 30.
Wow.
To the readers, thank y’all SO much for the love, the notes of encouragement, the posts, the shares, the everything. Just… thank you. I’m forever grateful for all the support you guys have shown over these last few years on my journey to project #30.
To my love, who’s been so supportive of my process with every book. Thank you. I love you.
To CCJ, who’s literally been in my corner since day one of this author stuff. The one who pushed me off the ledge to publish. Sis, I don’t know how we got here, but thank you lol
To my sister-authors, y’all have no idea how much y’all mean to me. The community, the support, the talent. Y’all are truly the best (with a special shoutout to LB for creating Spilling That Hot Tea and DW for letting me borrow “The Zone” lol)
And last but certainly not least, to Nicole Falls.
Girl.
Group projects have never ever been my thing, but collaborating with you has changed my mind lol. This process has been so much fun; creating this world, and these people, and channeling that collective creative energy into topics I know are so important to the both of us. Thank you for trusting me, thank you for keeping me going by leading the way, thank you for just… being you, honestly. I am so grateful that we embarked on this journey together, sis.
#NymphsAndTrojans 4eva.
Series Note
Books in the “Nymphs & Trojans” series can be read in any order. But if you haven’t yet, I highly encourage you to check out Book 1 of the series, Shots Not Taken by Nicole Falls!
One
They should’ve used his mugshot.
That was all I kept thinking as I stared at the professional headshot shared in the press release announcing that DeAndre “Dre” Leonard had been added to the Nashville Nymphs coaching staff as an assistant; a polished and pristine photo with just the right lighting and a charming crooked smile that told fans he could suddenly be trusted in this city again even though I knew better.
Really, we all should’ve known better.
I mean, it would be just like him to show up claiming he’s ready to do right only to disappoint everyone… again. But leave it to the same front office who enabled his ass in the first place to bring him over to our side of the court like that would somehow make a difference, my eyes doing a slow roll on their own as I skimmed the article filled with bullshit quotes about how he saw a lot of potential in my team and hoped to bring the city another championship to match the one his squad, the Tennessee Trojans, won almost seven years ago - back when I was in love with him.
Admittedly, it was a one-sided affair since he didn’t even know I existed unless he had a thing for top prospects in high school girls’ basketball which I doubted. But as a senior getting ready to follow in his footsteps by attending Lynstone University where he’d only spent a year, I knew everything there was to know about him from his tendencies on the court to his tendencies outside of it, spending more time than reasonable watching his social media profiles like he was my boyfriend when really he was a total stranger, and I was just a fan.
Looking back, I might’ve been a little too obsessed. But it was hard not to be after watching someone come from nothing, use basketball to make something of himself, and help bring the Trojans a championship within their first couple of years of being an organization. He played my same position, had the endorsements I aspired to also have one day, and he was beloved in Nashville, making him something like my idol… until he wasn’t.
The way he allowed himself to fall from glory so rapidly never made sense to me, a frown on my face as I thought about all the drama, and the drugs, and the mugshots that ultimately led to him being banned from the league for a couple of years. And to know that he was back, here, to coach us?
Yeah, I wasn’t feelin’ that at all, making plans to let that be known just as the head trainer, Ari, told me my time in the cold tub was up.
“You sure? You know I can go all day,” I teased, making Ari shake her head as she handed me a towel so I could dry off.
“Sit in there any longer and your pussy will turn into a popsicle,” she joked, making me laugh as I quickly toweled off then tossed it back her way for her to catch with a joke of my own.
“Good. Maybe then someone will volunteer to eat it.”
I was really just playing when I said it, but it was a fact that my “P.P.” hadn’t been tended to in far too long. Well, it hadn’t been tended to by someone other than me in far too long, a puzzled look on my face as I struggled to remember the last time I even gave myself a tune-up as Ari replied, “You know exactly who wants to eat your pussy popsicle, but you playin’.”
The fact that she even had the nerve to bring him up made me laugh again. “Ari, come on now. Kage is a baby. I might catch a case for just lookin’ his way.”
Okay, that might’ve been an exaggeration since Kage Steele was very much legal, very super fine, and rolling in dough thanks to his impressive first-round draft pick contract plus the endorsement deals that came with it. But he was still a baby, who was steady trying to be my baby according to Ari who was all smiles when she said, “Well that sure doesn’t stop him from looking at you, Selena Samuels. You see what he said about you on Twitter today?”
My face scrunched on its own. “I thought they were going all zero-dark-thirty on social media like LeBron for the playoffs?”
“Yeah, until they lost last night. Zero-dark-thirty over,” she replied, scrolling through her own phone and then handing it to me.
“Of course he’d be doing a damn Q&A with fans fresh off a season-ending playoffs loss,” I thought with an annoyed smirk, scrolling his tweets to see what Ari was talking about and…
“No this fool didn’t,” I groaned once I read the tweet that was a response to a fan asking who his favorite player of all-time was.
“Selena Samuels, no cap. Catch me front row at every Nymphs game this season ;)”
“That’s not even the one I was talking about. Keep going,” Ari urged, watching over my shoulder as I continued to scroll until I saw I was mentioned once again; this time by my nickname in response to someone asking who his celebrity crush was.
“The Sharpshooter. That’s bae all day once she stops playin’ with the kid.”
“He must have a celebrity boo in the army or somethin’,” I reasoned, closing out of the app and handing Ari her phone back as she started to laugh.
“See what I mean? Quit making that
boy chase the ice cream truck and pull over already.”
Rolling my eyes, I exchanged my damp shorts for a pair of sweatpants as I told her, “I have bigger problems right now than being that little boy’s Bugs Bunny ice cream.”
“With the gumball eyeballs? Nah, sis. You’re more like a... vanilla ice cream sandwich.”
If a man would’ve ranked me as the most basic option on the side of the ice cream truck, I might’ve really been offended. But since Ari was something like a sister to me as far as the Nymphs organization went, I was all smiles when I playfully gushed, “Wowwww. A vanilla ice cream sandwich?! Really, Ari? I thought we were better than that. I mean, I’m at least a bomb pop. A bomb pop to represent this bomb pus…”
“Anyway,” she cut me off, speaking over my giggles once she asked, “What are these bigger problems you speak of?”
Now I was the one scrolling through my phone, pulling up the press release I’d read in the cold tub and then handing it her way as I answered, “This.”
Before she could even read the headline, she snapped her head back and groaned, “Good Lord, that man is still fine.”
While I wholeheartedly agreed with her - I mean, wholeheartedly - I keep that to myself, quick to express, “That’s not the problem, Ari. The problem is him being added to our coaching staff like he has any clue what our league is even about.”
“Basketball is basketball, Selena,” Ari rattled as she skimmed the article the same way I had before going back up to his picture to whisper, “Unfairly fine” prompting me to snatch my phone so that I could have her full attention when I offered my defense.
“But it’s not. Over there, they’re all flash, and dunks, and bravado. But over here? We really ball like a team, we play with skill and fundamentals, we… understand the privilege of this being an actual career and would never take that for granted the way he did.”
“So is this about basketball, or is it about him personally?” she asked, her eyebrow piqued as she crossed her arms over her chest to challenge me.
With a shrug and not much thought, I replied, “I guess both. I just… I know there’s a woman out there who really deserves this job. So to give it to him is…”
She cut me off with a laugh. “Girl, what’s your angle here? Cause now you’re on your women’s rights shit, which I respect. But also, what is this really about? I mean, you don’t think the man deserves a second chance?”
“Of course he deserves a second chance,” I told her with a sigh, gnawing into my lip as I explained, “But experiencing the disappointment of his downfall from afar was enough. I don’t need him coming up in here and dragging down the dynasty I’m trying to build too.”
“Ahh, so that’s what it is. You think his hiring is gonna fuck with your master plan to bring the city, your city, a championship?”
“Exactly,” I answered, happy to see she was finally on the same page as me until she offered me a half-hearted smile meaning that might not have been the case after all.
“Sorry to break it to you, babe. But you can’t score all the points, and coach the team, and work in the front office, and wash the jerseys. You have to work with people if you really wanna make that championship happen. And I doubt the Lloyds would’ve hired him if they didn’t think he’d be able to help you do that.”
“Or maybe Kat Lloyd just has a thing for light-skinned former ball players turned drug addicts,” I countered, hoping that had something to do with it since some sort of physical attraction was the only thing that made sense to me.
I mean, in his heyday, he was definitely the type of guy you’d offer a job or something equivalent right after getting piped down, Ari enthusiastically agreeing with that thought according to the lust-filled look on her face when she replied, “No matter how you classify him, sis has good taste. Cause, whew chi-lay.”
Instead of joining her in her daydream - better yet, her Dre-dream - I blurted, “I’m gonna go talk to her.”
“And say what, Selena? According to that press release, it’s a done deal.”
“That may be true, but she’s still gonna hear what I have to say about it,” I replied, determinedly taking off towards the Nymphs offices as Ari stayed back with a groaned, “In true Selena fashion…”
It wasn’t enough to stop me though, bypassing the offices of less important people to get to the one who actually mattered; the one that belonged to our majority owner and eldest daughter of the Lloyd family, Katianna better known as Kat.
Rumor had it that reviving the franchise and bringing it to Nashville to join the Trojans, which her family also owned, was all Kat’s idea. And for that, she was good peoples in my book, taking a little bit of my edge off when I gently knocked on the door to get her attention.
“Kat, you got a minute?”
Peeking up from her laptop with a pleasant smile, she replied, “For my star player who already guaranteed me a championship, I have a few. What’s on your mind?”
With her being so friendly, it was hard for me to keep the same energy I had with Ari, gnawing at the corner of my lip as I stepped a little further into her office to answer, “This new hire. Dre Leonard? Of all people?”
“What’s wrong with Dre Leonard?” she asked with an immediate frown, making me wonder if my initial belief about there being something going on between the two of them was true as I chose my words carefully.
“Umm, let’s start with the fact that the Trojans dropped him in his prime for a reason. Lots of reasons.”
From the drugs, to the arrests and overall disregard for his obligation to his team, I could go on all day about just how unfit he was for the job. But instead of agreeing with my general concern, Kat brushed it off. “That was years ago, Selena. He’s matured a lot since then. Paid the ultimate price of losing it all, got himself together, and now he just needs an opportunity. An opportunity that we, as a family, have decided to give him. The press is already eating it up.”
“Of course they are,” I thought with an annoyed groan, rolling my eyes as I told her, “Just great. The season starts in less than two weeks, and instead of talking about if we can make some magic happen with this year’s squad, all the press coverage is going to him; a man. And we wonder why the league is in the shape it is now…”
From the way Kat sighed in response, I could tell she didn’t totally disagree with my point. But that still didn’t stop her from inquiring, “Why do you have such a problem with this? I thought you’d be in support of this particular hire.”
No lie, if it wasn’t affecting me, I’d probably be all about the comeback kid story; tuned into the documentary on Netflix, or the special on ESPN, or whatever the media did to capture a moment like this. But because it would affect me… “In support of this particular hire for what? Because of his name? The same name that makes it very likely he’ll be getting paid more than some of our rookies for doing a bunch of nothing while they’re putting everything on the line night in and night out? The same name that allowed him to jump some very qualified women in the hiring line? He just gets to pop up in our league with no skin in the game other than his own failed career while the people who actually deserve a job like this gets skipped over. So no, I don’t support this shit. I’m not with this shit. And I never will be.”
My stance might’ve been harsh, but it was the truth. And I wasn’t shying away from that until I heard a not-all-that-familiar voice behind me groan, “Damn. Tell me how you really feel.”
Before I could say anything, or even react at all, Kat stood up from behind her desk to say, “Excuse her, Dre. She’s not typically so…”
He cut her off. “Nah, I think she meant what she said exactly the way she said it, Kat. And you know what? She has a right to feel the way she feels.”
Wait, what?
Turning around to see if I was imagining the whole thing, I came face to chest with who was once the man of my dreams. Though right now, it felt more like a nightmare as he looked down at me with those honey brown eyes of hi
s to continue, “But let me tell you somethin’, Ms. Samuels. No matter what you think you know about me, no matter how you feel about me, and no matter how long it takes for you to figure out we’re here for the exact same thing, I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
Admittedly, I was a bit starstruck since this was the closest I’d ever been to my former idol, and I just wasn’t prepared for so much fine. I mean, the perfectly-scruffy facial hair, the tattoos he couldn’t hide if he wanted to, the height, the smell...
Even with the tiny inhale I took of his cologne, I managed to play it off, offering no more than a frown when I huffed, “Hmph. We’ll see about that.”
I expected him to return some of my attitude, but he didn’t; only smiling a crooked smile and sending my body into a fury that forced me to end my impromptu meeting without a real solution since lusting after the new coach was definitely not going to help my cause. But even when I started to storm out, he called after me, “Oh, and Selena?”
Once I peeked back over my shoulder, I wished I hadn’t, high school me wanting to squeal with excitement from the look on his face alone. But again, I was forced to hold it in, keeping my face neutral when he finally said, “It was nice to meet you too.”
Since I couldn’t exactly say the same - and couldn’t go full fangirl like his presence tempted me to - I said nothing at all, continuing out of Kat’s office back towards the training room to tell Ari what had happened. But unfortunately, the only person I ran into on my pursuit was the last one I felt like dealing with right now, a huge grin on his face as he said, “Well if it ain’t Selena Mothafuckin’ Samuels.”
One Last Shot (Nymphs & Trojans Series Book 2) Page 1
