LONG SHOT: (A HOOPS Novel)

by Ryan, Kennedy

  “Bris.” He says it against my lips before trailing kisses down my chin. His mouth opens over my neck, hot and wet, and I arch into him, the pleasure like a train in my veins. Rushing. Vaulting. Exploding.

  “Oh, God.” I’m a panting mess. My hands venture under his shirt, desperate, nails scraping at his back. “Keep kissing me.”

  He’s back at my lips, devouring, our tongues dueling, dancing. This kiss has a cadence, his head moving to the left and then right, on beat, a syncopation, a simultaneity of lips and tongues. His mouth slants over mine, hot and zealous, and I link my fingers behind his head, clinging, afraid this will end. Afraid to lose the enormity of this moment. At the top of the world, so close we could almost touch the sky and with only the stars watching, I found out what a kiss should be.

  FLOW - Chapter 13

  Grip

  I’M SO SCREWED.

  I kissed Bristol last night, and nothing’s the same. Our kiss ended once the wheel started turning, but nothing stopped. There’s a momentum to this thing between Bristol and me that I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop. We held hands through the Ferris wheel’s slow, rolling descent to the ground. By silent agreement, we let go when we saw the others. I don’t want this examined, mocked, made light, and for now, we want to keep it to ourselves.

  The rest of the night, we stayed with the group, but a quiet, untraceable intimacy linked us. We played silly games and won stupid prizes. She won me a black plastic watch. I won her a whistle. We got lost together in the fun house, and I pressed her against a wavy mirror. Even distorted, our shapes were perfect together.

  I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what she wants or what I am to her. Is she slumming? Am I some exotic fruit or a novelty she sampled on vacation? Or does this feel to her like it feels to me? Like the beginning of something. Mr. Chocolate Charm himself can’t get up the nerve to ask a girl if she really likes him.

  I watch her and Jimmi running on the shore, laughing as the tide chases them. Jimmi’s uncle has a small beach house in Malibu, and we’re spending Bristol’s last day here. Rhyson spent the day with us but got called into the studio for one more tweak. It’s been a perfect day, except I’ve had no time with Bristol alone to ask her what she’s thinking or feeling. She leaves tomorrow, and I don’t know if we’ll forget this ever happened, or if we’ll make it something more.

  “Whew.” Jimmi collapses onto the beach blanket. “This day has been amazing.”

  “It’s gorgeous here,” Bristol smiles and sits beside Jimmi. “Thank you for bringing me.”

  Our eyes collide over the small fire we used to roast marshmallows and s’mores. She looks quickly away and lies down to close her eyes.

  “We need to be heading back,” Luke says, his arm around Mandi’s shoulders. “One last swim before we go? Not too far out because it’s already dark.”

  “Let’s make it count,” Jimmi says, a reckless glint in her eye. “Skinny dipping.”

  Luke and I are already shaking our heads. No way am I going bare nuts into that freezing water.

  “I’m not going naked into the ocean,” Mandi says. “There’s seaweed and fish and it’s cold. No, thanks.”

  “What about you?” Jimmi nudges Bristol, who still lies back, eyes closed. “You chicken?”

  “Those mind games don’t work on me.” Bristol sits up, a defiant smile curling the edges of her full lips. “Do you honestly think I’d let you goad me into such a stupid dare?”

  They look at each other, exchanging wicked grins and then scrambling to their feet, a blur of long legs and flying bikini tops. My jaw unhinges. I can’t believe she did that. It looks like she kept the bottom on, but I can clearly see her top, which is nothing more than two tiny triangles of fabric, on the beach with Jimmi’s. Their squeals echo in the night.

  “You wanna?” Mandi asks Luke, sporting a reckless grin of her own now.

  For a moment, Luke looks like he’ll resist, but his eyes wander to the bikini tops on the sand and then to Mandi’s considerable rack.

  “Hey, why not?” He shrugs, standing to his feet and shucking off his trunks. I look away, not needing to see his tan line or his junk. I deliberately avert my eyes when Mandi tosses her top and runs to the ocean’s edge.

  I look to the shore, making out their bodies, shadows in the fresh moonlight, frolicking and screaming and laughing. A smile settles on my lips, and I’m on my feet walking toward the water. Not naked, though. It’s too cold for that shit.

  I’ve waded in just a few feet, still adjusting to the temperature of the water, when an arm slips around my waist from behind. Warm, water-slick breasts press into my back.

  “Bristol?” I ask in a voice that is husky and hopeful.

  “No, it’s Jimmi, you doofus.” Bristol’s voice is playful, her chuckle full of mischief as she slips away, deeper into the water, a little farther from shore.

  We’re not too far out, but I don’t see or hear the others as I turn to face her. The night cloaks her. There isn’t enough moonlight to see her clearly, but I sense her. I sense her craving because it matches mine. It’s her last night here, and I’ll be damned if she’s leaving without kissing me again. I press through the water’s resistance until our bodies are flush. Her nipples, tight from the cool night air, and maybe from desire, pebble against my chest. I dip my head and leave my words in her ear.

  “I want to kiss you again.”

  Her sharp breath is her only reply, but I rest my lips against hers to taste her consent. Palming her sides, my fingers almost meeting at her back, I stretch my thumbs up to rub her nipples, alternating between strokes brisk then slow.

  “Oh, God, yes.” She spreads her hands over my shoulders and to my neck, urging my head down. “Kiss them. Please kiss them.”

  I slip my hands over her ass and lift her out of the water so she can lock her legs at my back, scooting her up until I can take one nipple into my mouth.

  Shiiiiiiiit.

  I open wide, taking as much of her into me as I can, sucking the nipple and licking at the silky halo of surrounding skin.

  “Grip, yes.” Her hands claw at my shoulders and run up my neck. She dips her head to possess my mouth with hers. Her kiss woos me in the water. Her fingers on my skin are poetry. Her lips, prose. The rhythm of her heart against mine, iambic. Every touch, eloquence.

  The current tugs at our bodies as the tide comes in, and clinging to each other, we let the flow take us. With our mouths still fused, legs still tangled, tongues hungry and twisting together, we drift into deeper waters.

  Complex and effortless.

  My own words come back to haunt me, describing a rapper’s flow. I can’t help but compare it to what’s passing between us in the deep. The unexpected alchemy that’s been flowing between us since the moment we met. It’s layered and complicated, and yet, there’s no struggle, no force. It feels easy. Effortless. It feels so good, I can’t imagine this ending.

  “I need to know,” I mumble at the underside of her breast. “What we’re doing, Bristol.”

  “What do you mean?” she gasps. “This feels fantastic.”

  I slide her down my body and frame her face in my hands.

  “Is this like some spring break fling for you?” I ask earnestly.

  “Grip, I …” She drops her forehead to my chest, and I would give anything to turn up the wattage on the moon so I could see her face better. So I could see her eyes. “I don’t know.”

  It shouldn’t hurt. We shared a few days, a few conversations, and the best kisses of my life. That’s it. That’s all, but last night feels like the best night I’ve ever had. And to think it wasn’t monumental for her or that she’s “deciding” what we’ll be when I feel like the decision was made for me almost as soon as I laid eyes on her, hurts.

  “I’m not a casual kind of person.” She sighs, and I can imagine the jaded look on her face. “And there’s a lot that could go wrong. You’re my brother’s best friend. I’m moving here and it could be awk
ward if things … go south.”

  “They won’t,” I assure her. “Just give it a chance.”

  “What?” She lets out a cynical laugh. “A long-distance relationship?”

  “Why not?”

  “You’re a player for one thing, Mr. Bees with honey and chocolate. You get bored, you move on, and you probably cheat.”

  There’s a question in her voice, and I know this is the moment when I should tell her about Tessa. But I’m having such a hard time even getting her to consider making us an us, and I don’t want to make it any harder by throwing that wrench in the works. I’ll deal with Tessa as soon as Bristol is gone.

  “It’d be different with you.” I run a palm over her wet hair. “I know it would be.”

  “But I don’t know it would be, and …” I see the shape of her head as she lifts it, shaking it. “Can we take it slow? I don’t want to get hurt, and I think you could hurt me really badly.”

  Her answer is soft and honest, and it only makes me want her more.

  “We can do that.” I bend to kiss her neck, sucking at the salt-covered skin until she gasps, grinding her hips through the water seeking me. That’s her spot. One of them. She wants to take it slow? I’m willing to take my time finding all the others.

  FLOW - Chapter 14

  Bristol

  TAP, TAP, TAP.

  I look up from the suitcase I’m packing. Someone’s knocking on the door of Grady’s guest bedroom. I hastily tuck the cheap whistle Grip won for me at the carnival into the bag and zip it up. When I open the door, Rhyson stands in the hall.

  “Can I come in?” His dark hair, always a gorgeous mess, flops into his eyes.

  “Sure.” I step back and wave him in, sitting on the bed and waiting to hear what he has to say. We’ve had very little time alone since the night we talked after the club. We spent yesterday with his friends, and he had to go back to the studio last night.

  “All packed, huh?” He eyes my huge suitcase.

  “Looks that way.” A small, sad smile touches my mouth. “I’ll miss LA. Who’d have thought?”

  “Will you miss LA, or will you miss your big brother?” he teases.

  “Not this big brother stuff again.”

  “I haven’t been much of one.” His smile fades. “A brother, I mean.”

  Instead of answering, I wait for him to go on.

  He shakes his head. “It’s so hard to know what to trust when it comes to them, to our parents.”

  “You can trust me to be who I say I am, Rhyson. Your sister.” I tilt my chin and flash him some confidence in the form of a smile. “You’ll see that when I’m managing that career for you.”

  “I don’t have a career.” He laughs and leans back on the bed, propped on his elbows.

  “But you will. You should. And when you do, I’ll be right there to help you.”

  “You can’t build plans around something that hasn’t happened yet.”

  “Idiot, what do you think dreams are if not plans we make based on things that haven’t happened yet?”

  We laugh a little, and I lie back beside him, resting my head on his shoulder. What I wouldn’t have given years ago to have my brother like this. To have time with him when he wasn’t rehearsing or touring or doing whatever was required of him.

  “Don’t you have any dreams of your own?” he asks.

  Grip’s face, his soft touches and promises in the dark waters last night, come to mind. I want to believe him because those kisses on the Ferris wheel, in the fun house, in the ocean were the best of my life. The conversations we’ve had this week changed me. No controversy, no memory, no hope or fear was off limits. They have woven themselves—he has woven himself—into the fabric of my dreams so quickly it frightens me.

  “I do have dreams,” I finally answer. “And they’re all here now.”

  He smiles at me slowly and nods.

  “We better get going.” Rhyson glances at his watch, and it makes me think of the cheap watch I won for Grip last night. I shake off memories of the carnival as Rhyson rolls the Louis bag out of my room and down the hall.

  “It’s a shame I didn’t get to see Uncle Grady this trip.”

  “Next time,” Rhyson says. “But there are some people who want to tell you goodbye.”

  When we enter the living room, my new friends are all there. Jimmi, Luke, Mandi, and standing at the back of the group is Grip, his eyes a beautifully laid trap I stumble into and can’t wriggle free of.

  “Oh, you guys.” I wrap my arms around Jimmi, who squeezes me so tightly I can barely breathe.

  “I feel like I found a new bestie.” Jimmi blinks tears from her big blue eyes. “We have to talk every week, and you have to come back soon. And I can come to New York, too.”

  “Deal.” I smile through a few tears of my own. “We’ll stay in touch. Don’t worry.”

  I haven’t spent as much time with Luke and Mandi, but it’s still sweet of them to show up to say goodbye to me. They’re both cool, and Rhyson is lucky to have this tight-knit circle of people in his life. I don’t really have anything like them in New York, and it makes me want to wish away the next two years at Columbia so I can move here right away.

  And then there’s Grip.

  We take a few careful steps toward each other, and I feel like everyone’s watching us.

  “Thank you for everything,” I say softly, leaving a few inches between us. His eyes burn a mute plea for more.

  “No problem. Sure.”

  He glances down at the floor before slipping his arms around my waist and dragging me against his warm, hard body. Not caring what Rhyson or anyone else thinks, I tip up on my toes and hook my elbows behind his neck as tightly as I can. His hands spread over my back, fitting my curves to all his ridges and planes.

  “You come back to me, okay?” he whispers in my ear. “Slow doesn’t mean stop, right?”

  My cheeks fire up, and I glance self-consciously at the others, but they aren’t paying attention. Rhyson is rolling my suitcase out to the car, and Mandi, Luke, and Jimmi are talking about last night at the beach swimming nude. Or semi-nude. Jimmi was the only one brave/crazy enough to be fully naked.

  “No, slow doesn’t mean stop,” I agree. “In fact—”

  His phone ringing interrupts me telling him I plan to come back this summer when I have a few days off from my internship.

  “Lemme grab this,” he says frowning at the phone. “It’s Jade.”

  I remember her name from the story he told me on the Ferris wheel. The one he still feels guilt over.

  “Hey, whassup?” He presses the phone to his ear, and his brows snap together. “Why’d you tell her I was here?”

  I turn away, heeding Rhyson’s call to come on or I’ll miss my flight. We walk outside to load up the car so we can get on the road. Rhyson and Grip are taking me, and I’m not sure if we should tell Rhyson what has been going on or not. It feels like such a fledgling thing but still substantial enough that he should know. I’m still silently debating when a Toyota Camry pulls up to the curb, and a curvy woman with dark brown skin and black, curly hair gets out. A scowl mars her beautiful face, and anger has her arms swinging at her side with her long strides.

  “Where is he?” she demands of Rhyson without any preamble.

  “Uh, hey, Tessa.” Rhyson glances up the driveway and widens his eyes meaningfully at his best friend.

  Rhyson may be looking at Grip, but Grip is looking at me, and if I didn’t know better, I would say he’s panicking. Before I have time to process what’s happening, how my world is about to be ripped into tiny pieces, Tessa begins her tirade.

  “How you gonna ignore my calls and text messages?” Yelling, she fits her hands to the swell of her hips. “For two damn weeks, Grip?”

  “I didn’t.” Grip looks at me with troubled eyes over her shoulder and then back to her face. “We just kept missing each other. What’s going on? What’s this about?”

  “This is about me trying to t
ell you something I wanted to talk about in person, not over some voice mail.” Her strident voice pitches across the yard at him.

  “Okay, damn, Tessa,” Grips says, irritation evident on his face. “I’m going with Rhyson to take his sister to the airport. Can we talk later? When I get back?”

  “Who is she?” I whisper to Rhyson.

  “That’s Tessa.” Rhyson stretches his eyebrows until they disappear under his unruly hair. “Grip’s girlfriend.”

  “His girl—” I choke on the rest of the word as a tight hand vices my throat. That can’t be. Last night’s water-dappled promises and sea salt kisses. The perfect kiss under the stars at the top of the world. All lies? We shared deep, dark lonely things. We shared everything, and it was the most honest connection I’ve ever had with anyone. And under it all was the lie that he could be mine? That maybe I could be his? That he didn’t belong to someone else? He would have said.

  “No, we can’t talk when you get back,” Tessa snaps. “We need to talk now. I’m sick of chasing your ass down. You are taking responsibility for this.”

  “Responsibility?” Grip shakes his head and shrugs “For what?”

  “For this baby, that’s for what,” she retorts with harsh smugness.

  His wide eyes snap to my face, and any doubt that she might be the one lying, that somehow this is all a prank, a hidden camera stunt, dissolve. That guard I forgot about and dropped all week falls back into place over my heart just in time.

  We don’t cry in front of strangers.

  My mother’s admonition, the voice of reason in my head that I ignored the last few days, slips iron discs between my vertebrae.

  “Rhyson, can we go?” I ask. “I can’t miss my flight home.”

  “Bristol!” Grip yells over the screeching banshee with wildly gesticulating arms in front of him. “Wait. I can—”

  I open the door to Rhyson’s car and get in, not wanting to hear the dollar-late, day-short explanations disguising his lies.