Homecourt Advantage

by Rita Ewing

  She was not going to let him get away with dissin’ her like this. After all, there was Diamond to consider. Besides, Kelly knew she was fine as hell. If Steve had any sense, he should recognize that she was more than enough woman for him. She would be a prize to most guys with her glowing complexion and large ebony eyes.

  Kelly made weekly visits to a tanning salon to enhance her already cocoa-colored skin with a bronze glow. She kept her thick, wavy hair in a close-cropped fade that accentuated her swanlike neck. She slaved at the gym with a personal trainer to maintain her perfect size-six figure, working out five times a week, combining an hour of weight lifting with an additional hour of aerobics. Though no one would consider her a Barbie doll beauty, she knew her one real attribute was her raw sexual appeal. She was capable of seducing almost anyone, man or woman, with a lick of her full, sensuous lips and a wink of her teasing eyes.

  It stung that she had not been invited to Alexis’s play-off commencement breakfast. Kelly was forced to hear about it three days afterward from another player’s wife.

  She’d been included in the last gathering at Alexis’s house for the wives’ annual X-mas gift-wrapping party. Kelly didn’t know who was responsible for this slight, but she did know that it was not the type of disrespect she would tolerate for too much longer.

  Was it possible that Steve told Alexis not to send her an invitation? Were they conspiring against her? If he had gone that far to ensure that she was excluded, the only reason could be that he had someone else substituting for her—or worse, taking her place permanently. No way! Kelly became enraged envisioning someone else being with her Steve Tucker of the New York Flyers. Whoever that woman was, she couldn’tpossibly know Steve like Kelly knew him, nor would she ever, if Kelly could help it.

  Steve’s patterns were usually predictable to Kelly, especially when they involved other women, but this time Steve had gone off the path of their comfort zone. He was trying to exclude her from a world she helped him enter. A world she had a right to. She should be at the Mecca Arena tonight enjoying the fruits of their labor with him.

  Despite her anger, Kelly was truly concerned. Though Kelly and Steve had been engaged for two and a half years, and had been together for five more, no wedding date was in sight. And the way things were going, she wasn’t sure there would be one. Steve owned a mansion, which Kelly took care of, though at any given time, if Steve chose, he could force her out with no warning. Not that he’d ever have the nerve to do that. He might have threatened her with eviction every now and then, but that was as far as it went. He didn’t have the balls. Just in case, Kelly had been putting away some of the weekly allowance Steve had been giving her over the years, and she now had saved a sizable mad-money account. But Kelly knew enough about her taste; the cash she saved would not be enough to sustain the lifestyle she had become accustomed to. Kelly had an additional cushion: her daughter, Diamond. No matter what happened, Steve was crazy about the little girl. Kelly did not believe that she was using her daughter, she simply looked at it as watching her back—she had to. As far as Kelly was concerned, Diamond would attend only the very best schools and have all of the opportunities she never had. And Steve would help her.

  Reluctantly Kelly thought back to their last meeting over a month ago. Steve had stopped by the house. Kelly had prepared a romantic candlelit dinner, put on her sexiest lingerie, and was ready and waiting to reel him in again. But Steve had only accompanied her upstairs to tuck in the sleepy-eyed Diamond and kiss her goodnight. “This is how it could be every night, if you’d just let us get married and move in here for real.”

  “I told you, Kelly, that’s not going to happen. Drop it.”

  “You just need more time.”

  “No, Kelly, I don’t need more time. My decision is final. I’m notmarrying you—ever. I told you that you can stay in the house until the end of the year and then you’ll have to find your own home.”

  “But what about Diamond?”

  “I can love Diamond and still leave you.”

  As quickly as Kelly replayed the conversation in her mind, she pushed the scene away. She’d figure out what to do about Steve. He just needed to come to his senses, and he would.

  Kelly had been with him since the beginning when the only Air in his gym shoes came through the holes. Now that he was rich and famous, he had forgotten where he came from and who had climbed with him up that ladder of success, with Kelly sometimes carrying him on her back. She and Steve had their share of troubles, but all couples went through ebbs and flows. Didn’t he remember what she’d done for him?

  Kelly had dropped out of the community college she was attending in Atlanta after only one semester to make extra money working full-time to help out Steve’s family. The National Collegiate Athletic Association regulations had prohibited Steve from working, and the money he received from his scholarship was not enough to help his physically disabled mother and younger brothers and sisters. Kelly was the one who’d taken up the slack in order to help make ends meet for all of them. She’d treated his family like her own until Steve was drafted by the Flyers five years ago. Never had she questioned her role in his life until now.

  Kelly paced back and forth over her plush taupe throw rug, stomping a foot in rage with each stride, thinking about how Steve was dogging her.

  He could hit her with his best shot, but Kelly was going to be at the Mecca tomorrow night. She knew what to do. Casey would get her a seat. Kelly knew what a softy Casey was when it came to children. She was going to go over to Casey’s this morning, with Diamond on her hip. Casey wouldn’t have the heart to refuse Kelly and the baby. And with Casey’s thousand-dollar seats at the Mecca, there Kelly would be, front and center—play-off opening night! Steve couldn’t stop her.

  “He’s not going to squeeze me out like this! No way! I’m going tothat game, and he better not have some young ho in his seats.” Kelly scowled at her reflection in the mirror.

  She started going through her racks of clothes, throwing designer ensembles on the bed. She held up a black Gianni Versace sleeveless zippered jumpsuit that exposed her most generous assets: surgically enhanced breasts and a taut rear end.

  Kelly had relied on her sexual power for years, and if that failed her now, then she’d think of something else; she always did. But what she would not do was lose her lifestyle or her man. She had invested too much hard work pushing them both to the top. If he chose to cut her loose, she wouldn’t go without a fight, and she definitely had no intention of going down by herself.

  Chapter 5

  “Oh. I guess you don’t even need to be announced, with your late self,” Casey said between mouthfuls of cake as she removed Remy’s vintage leather jacket.

  “I guess not,” Remy shot back, as she stepped off the elevator into her friend’s foyer. “Besides, I’m not that late. It’s only two-thirty,” she said, glancing at her watch.

  “Humph, I guess some of us just got it like that, huh.”

  “I guess so,” Remy said, quickly cutting her eyes at Casey.

  “I know I didn’t see you roll your eyes at me.”

  “And what if you did? You gonna sic Alexis on me too?”

  Casey couldn’t stop herself from bursting into laughter. The two women were on the same wavelength concerning Alexis’s meddlesome presence in their lives, but they also recognized the role she played in both their men’s livelihoods.

  “Damn right; you had no business missing Alexis’s breakfast. Youknow she was educating us poor ignorant souls on the ways of the civilized world.”

  “Oh, daahhling, do forgive my faux pas,” Remy began, switching to a mock English accent. “Sometimes my social skills regress so, but thank goodness we all have Mrs. Coach to enlighten us.”

  “You should be grateful to her.”

  “Yeah, just like the pimple on my ass,” Remy said, dropping the fake accent.

  Hanging up Remy’s jacket, Casey continued to smile thinking about their relationship. She k
new the two of them had to air all of their most vile thoughts about Alexis, and anything else, for that matter, before they joined the rest of the women in Casey’s library. Lorraine, Trina, and Dawn were not privy to the private conversations Casey and Remy regularly shared. Casey felt she had an image to uphold as the quasi-leader of the wives of the New York Flyers, and Remy Baltimore, being on the cover of People every six months, had a difficult time letting her guard down.

  Casey and Remy were each other’s best friends. They both turned to one another for refuge from their own harsh expectations as well as the world’s. Together they were completely at ease, and no topic of discussion was off-limits. Nothing was taken personally between the two women as they both knew every word exchanged was coming from a place of love—even when they mercilessly teased one another.

  Casey crossed her arms over her chest and began tapping her Gucci-clad foot on the marble floor as Remy ran her fingers through her jet black straight hair.

  “Would you come on, girl? Aren’t you late enough?” Casey said, grabbing Remy’s arm.

  “I told you I had rehearsal for my ‘Happiness Is Divine’ video. You should be glad I made time for y’all,” Remy said, flicking her wrist in front of Casey’s face.

  “Oooh, so it’s like that now,” Casey began, giggling as she turned toward the long corridor that led them through her fourteen-room Central Park South penthouse. “I’m gonna tell them what you said. You know they already think you’re a prima donna as it is.”

  “Casey! Don’t you go in there playin’ around and embarrass me.”

  “Whatever are you talking about, dear?” Casey said with a wicked grin.

  “You know exactly what I mean.”

  As the two ladies walked through the wide hallway with the marbleized walls adorned by original Ernie Barnes paintings and Romare Bearden collages, Casey knew exactly what Remy meant. She had come to realize over the years that Remy avoided talking about her work with most people. Remy never basked in her own limelight. She regularly rubbed elbows with more stars than all of them combined would ever meet in their lifetimes, but she would rather discuss Trina’s latest recipe or Lorraine and Dawn’s work at the hospital than even mention her video shoot with the four hottest young male models in the industry.

  As Casey and Remy entered the library, all of the women looked at Remy’s slender physique silhouetted in the doorway. Trina had gotten comfortable and kicked up her thick, shoeless feet on the brown leather chaise lounge. Dawn and Lorraine were sitting around the mosaic tile coffee table on the suede sofa, drinking coffee, undoubtedly swapping hospital stories. The samplings of sweets Trina had baked were almost gone.

  “Hello, ladies. Sorry I’m late. You know how midtown traffic can be this time of the day,” Remy said, walking toward Lorraine and Dawn as they stood up.

  True to form, Remy mentioned nothing about the video. Casey watched Remy kiss the two women and then head over to a stretched-out Trina, who made no effort to budge from her seat. Trina looked bloated and exhausted leaning back in the chaise as Remy bent down and greeted her in kind.

  “Don’t even worry about it,” Trina began, sounding every bit like the wise fourteen-year NBA veteran wife she was. “You know what your girl brought everyone here for; you’re not missing anything.”

  Casey had already briefed Remy on what she planned to talk to the women about, swearing her to secrecy when she told her about the threat to sell the Flyers. Her best friend knew what a precarious position Alexis had placed her in. Remy, Dawn, and Lorraine had been no-shows at Alexis’s breakfast meeting three days ago, and Caseynow had been assigned to pass on Alexis’s message. Although Trina had attended the gathering, Alexis had been mortified by her appearance, pulling Casey aside to say that Trina looked “slovenly and tacky.” She believed Trina was in dire need of extra “coaching” on improving her image.

  “Mrs. Coach’s breakfast was a waste of everybody’s time,” said Trina. “I heard her and Coach been playin’ those trifling mind games for years, especially at play-off time. Now she’s just tryin’ to get Casey to do her dirty work.”

  It wasn’t as if Casey could blame Trina for feeling that way, but then again, Trina wasn’t in her position. Of course, Casey was still trying to figure what exactly her position was. She knew her concern for Brent’s career was a major part of it, but she was beginning to wonder if even that was worth manipulating her friends.

  “God, Casey, no matter how many times I come over here, the view always amazes me, especially on a day like this,” Remy said, walking toward the library’s large picture window.

  Casey realized Remy had made that comment for her benefit in an effort to change the direction in which Trina was taking the conversation.

  “Yeah, it’s gorgeous, Casey,” Dawn said, standing up and moving toward the window herself. “The view of Central Park up this high is spectacular. We can see all the way up to Harlem.”

  “I don’t know how y’all can stand to look out that window. I got dizzy when I was over there,” Trina said, waving them off, sounding disgusted.

  Casey grabbed one of the large suede throw pillows resting in front of the grand oak mantelpiece of her fireplace and threw it on the floor next to the coffee table. Taking a seat cross-legged, she tried to figure out another angle of attack to broach the topic for today.

  “Well, listen, ladies.” Casey cleared her throat. “I know nobody is really interested in hearing this, but I did tell Alexis that I would fill in everyone who missed the breakfast.”

  Casey noticed Trina roll her eyes again and she realized that Trina was probably wondering why she had been invited today since she had actually attended the breakfast.

  “So it wasn’t just a social gathering to kick off the play-offs?” Dawnasked, looking back and forth between Casey and Trina from her spot at the picture window.

  “Ha! Social gathering, my butt!” Trina sardonically laughed.

  “Dawn, I know you’re new around here with Michael being a rookie and all,” Lorraine began in her usual diplomatic manner. “But in case you haven’t noticed, nothing is ever as it really seems with Alexis or Coach. There’s a secret motivation behind everything they do, but hey, in all fairness to them, maybe that’s a part of their winning formula, and that is the idea isn’t it … to win?”

  Dawn returned to the sofa and sat down next to Lorraine with a quizzical expression on her face. It was obvious to Casey that Dawn’s confusion was probably a result of her medical background where things were black or white, not somewhere in between.

  “Well, there’s not exactly any secret motivation here,” Casey said. “Alexis was fairly straight about what she expects from the wives and significant others during the play-offs.”

  “What she expects?” Dawn asked with raised eyebrows.

  Casey helplessly looked up at Remy, who was still standing at the window. It was going to be more challenging than she thought, especially with Trina there heading her off at every pass. And Dawn was very perceptive, although she was the youngest of the fivesome at twenty-five years old. Of course, she was in her first year of her medical residency in psychiatry.

  “Maybe ‘expects’ was the wrong word to use. Maybe … a better way to describe it is that she’s hoping to get our cooperation to help ensure the image of the Flyers during the play-offs is … is flawless.”

  “There’s nothin’ we can do about the team’s image,” Trina said. “Alexis was talkin’ out the side of her mouth sayin’ the wives need to dress more conservatively, tone down their makeup, and be at every home game on time ready to participate in courtside interviews if necessary,” Trina said, shaking her head.

  “Tone down our makeup?” Dawn incredulously asked.

  “Uh-huh,” Trina began, staring hard at Dawn. “And I can tell you right now she’d say somethin’ about that gray stuff you got sittin’ on your lips. What is that anyway?”

  “It’s Blade, by Mac,” Dawn said, suddenly looking slightly self-c
onscious. “You don’t like it?”

  “Is that what she said, Casey?” Lorraine quickly interrupted. “She told everyone how to dress? That’s extreme, even for Alexis. I mean, she’s always talked about us being punctual for the games and I’ve always recognized that she sizes me up every time she sees me, but trying to tell us how to wear our makeup and how to dress, that’s a bit much.”

  “But wait, it gets better. She even went so far as to tell us not to bother our men with any domestic squabbles until the play-offs are over,” Trina said smugly.

  “So she’s suggesting that we ignore any problems we might have with the guys until after the play-offs? She can’t be serious,” Dawn said, peering into a small compact mirror. After a quick glance she clamped it shut, as if dismissing, Casey thought, anyone’s petty concerns with her appearance.

  Casey looked up at Remy, who appeared slightly amused. It was like a three-ring circus. Alexis was going overboard, but the team being sold was a real threat, and it was probably inevitable if the Flyers didn’t win the championship this year. Casey doubted many of the other women even knew about the potential sale, and if they did, she was sure their men had a gag order on them too. No one was supposed to know. Collin had not even told Remy.

  Truthfully, the guys didn’t need any distractions right now, but how could she tell these women to change their style of dress and put their personal-relationship issues on the back burner until after the season? Hell, Casey didn’t know if that was something she could do herself. She’d had to physically bite her tongue about a hundred times since she’d found out that Brent had been seeing his illegitimate daughter behind her back. She didn’t even know if she could last until the end of the season, but she was willing to give it a try.

  “You all are right,” Casey said. “It does sound crazy but—”