Block Shot: A HOOPS Novel

by Kennedy Ryan

  “Sure thing, Boss,” she says.

  I walk a few feet down the hall and lean against the wall before I answer.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey,” she replies, her voice low. “How are you?”

  “I miss you.” I sound like such a pussy. “When can I see you?”

  Shit, it’s getting worse.

  “I miss you, too. Um, can we talk?”

  “Sure.” I glance at my watch. “I’m wrapping up a meeting, but I—”

  “I’m in your building,” she cuts in. “I only have a few minutes. Can I come up?”

  My heart races and slows. That built-in barometer that has navigated me through more than one difficult deal tells me a storm is brewing. The winds are shifting. I hear it in her quiet voice, a calm before the storm.

  “Yeah,” I say after a pause. “Come on.”

  I’m waiting by the elevator when she arrives. She looks young and pretty and my heart lurches at the sight of her. Even with her hair pulled back in a loose braid and wearing a simple patterned top, ripped-at-the-knee dark skinny jeans, and leather flip flops, she exudes power. She’s a woman who built herself from the inside out. The clothes are interchangeable and her weight may fluctuate, but her strength is constant. She could stand here naked and be just as compelling.

  I’d actually prefer her that way.

  With a furtive glance at the conference room, where my team is pretending not to watch me fraternizing with the managing partner of our rival firm, I drag Banner by the hand into my office. As soon as we’re inside, I pin her to the door. If my brain is sending a slow down signal, my hands aren’t getting the message. Urgency marks every touch, my hand clasping her neck, freeing her hair, gripping her waist, squeezing her ass, sliding into her blouse to knead her breast. Her silky skin, the clean scent, the sweetness of her mouth, the deepest part, down her throat . . . it all makes me desperate in a way I’ve never been desperate before. In a way I hate. Like I know this won’t last and I can’t keep her.

  She reciprocates, straining up on her toes, chaining herself to me with arms around my neck. She grips my jaw, holds me still to have her way with my mouth. Carte blanche kisses, free rein fondling, a no-holds-barred embrace with nothing off limits.

  “Ban,” I whisper against her neck, my hand rhythmically rubbing her pussy through the thick denim. “Tell me we have time because I will fuck you up against this door right now.”

  She sighs, her fingers tightening in my hair, and kisses me slowly, thoroughly, until she pulls away to press her cheek to mine. Even as her hips rock into my touch, she shakes her head.

  “No.”

  “No, we don’t have time? Or just no?”

  Her head dips lower so all I see is dark hair and slumped shoulders.

  “Just no.”

  The rejection cools the south-bound blood traveling to my dick and reduces my racing heart to a weighted thud in my chest.

  “How’s Zo?” I keep my voice even, though everything under the surface is disrupted. I’m disturbed. I know this is about him, that somehow she’s telling me no because of him.

  “Let’s sit down.” She doesn’t wait for me but sits on the sleek leather couch in my office.

  I sit beside her but lift her onto my lap, ignoring her protest.

  “Jared, I’m too heavy,” she says breathlessly, squirming.

  “You’re not.” I link my fingers at her stomach and pull her back into my chest. “I held you like this on the island. Remember?”

  I’m not just reminding her that she sat on my lap but that we took quantum leaps in the Caribbean. The things we entrusted to each other. The things I gave her and she gave me that we’d never shared with anyone before. That counts. Whatever is happening with Zo, however he is drawing her back to him, those days and nights I had with her count. They mattered, and I need her to remember that. She stills, relaxes into me, snuggles into me, and nods, her soft hair brushing my chin.

  “That feels like another world,” she says, caressing my fingers at her waist. “Like it was so long ago.”

  The only thing left of that serene time is our tans. The languid pace and liquid passion, flowing any way we chose, is restricted by whatever she is working up the nerve to tell me.

  “It was only a few days ago.” I give her a little shake. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  She looks up, and the misery on her face clenches my heart into a fist.

  “It’s bad,” she says, the words breaking on a sob. Tears leak over her smooth cheeks. “They say he has six months to two years.”

  Shock freezes all my synapses for a second, short circuiting my thoughts.

  “To live?” I tip my head back, angling so I can see her face. “You’re saying Zo only has six months to live? Two years to live?”

  The finely drawn line of her jaw flexes and her sweet lips fall into a grim line.

  “No, they say that.” She narrows her eyes. “They’re wrong. He’s going to live a lot longer than that because I won’t let him die.”

  I need to know if she’s delusional, determined, or some hybrid of both.

  “Tell me.”

  For the next few minutes she unpacks everything the doctor told her and all that she’s learned on her own.

  “So it’s not cancer?” I ask.

  “There is some myeloma present,” she answers. “But it’s small compared to the big picture, the bigger problem. Amyloidosis often coexists with myeloma, but it’s the one you never get rid of.”

  “So it’s incurable?” I ask, tucking a chunk of hair behind her ear.

  “Incurable, yes,” she says. “But a lot of people are living with it for a long time. Stanford has this video on their site of a man, a doctor, whose condition was advanced, but he’s still alive five years after his diagnosis. Sky diving, performing surgery, living a full life.”

  “Stanford? Is that where Zo will receive his treatments?”

  She lowers her lashes and scoots off my lap, standing and facing me, hands shoved into her back pockets.

  “Yeah, he has to live close to Stanford’s Amyloid Center.” She looks at me, shoulders tense and body held stiffly. “I already found a townhouse really close by. The chemo is slated for three months, so we’ll stay there while he receives treatment.”

  She and I stare at each other, letting those words sink in. Words she knew would infuriate me.

  “We?” I ask unnecessarily. “You’ll be living with him in Palo Alto for the next three months? Did I hear you right?”

  “You did.” Defiance sparks in her eyes. “He has no one, Jared. His family, they’re all gone. He won’t be able to drive himself. Cook for himself. At some point, maybe even bathe himself.”

  “Wrong thing to say.” I stand up to pace in front of the couch, driving impatient fingers through my hair. “You bathing Zo is not exactly winning me over to this idea.”

  “I don’t have to win you over to it,” she says, gentle, firm. “It has to be this way. You know that.”

  She touches my arm and waits for me to look down into the compassion filling her eyes.

  “You know me, Jared. You know I would never let him do this alone.”

  I cover her hand on my arm and nod my understanding. I mean, come on. The guy is dying. Even I can’t begrudge him that.

  “Okay. So you’ll be at Stanford for three months.” I take her hand and pull her into me. “I get that. I don’t like it, but of course I get it. When will we see each other?”

  She draws a deep breath, loosens her fingers, and steps back.

  “At first Zo was angry with me.” She shakes her head and gnaws on her bottom lip. “Of course he was after what I did.”

  “Banner, when will we see each other?” I repeat, ignoring her detour.

  “And he didn’t want me there,” she continues. “I literally had to use his contract and force him to let me stay.”

  I don’t respond but fold my arms and wait for something I know I won’t like.

&nb
sp; “After we got the diagnosis and it was obvious how serious this is,” she says. “Things changed. He knew he needed my help, and he knows I’ll do everything I can to get him all that he needs. He said he would allow me to help him on one condition.”

  “A condition?” I squeeze the bridge of my nose. “And what would that be?”

  “I have to put things on hold,” she says, her voice soft but steely. “Things with you on hold. Well, he doesn’t know it’s you, but he—”

  “The fuck?” The expletive explodes from me before I think to check it. “He can’t make you do that.”

  “He’s not making me,” she says, her voice controlled but quaking. “Jared, please don’t make this any harder for me than it already is.”

  “Why?” I demand harshly. “Why do you think he made that his one condition, Banner? Don’t you see he wants you back?”

  “Yes.” She looks at me unblinkingly. “He told me that.”

  “Oh, he did? What exactly did he say?”

  “He said he wants to fight for me, but he has to fight for his life right now and he can’t do both.”

  Motherfucker. What am I supposed to do with that?

  “He said that he wants a fair fight.” She releases a heavy breath. “And an even playing field, and he can’t have that while he’s sick.”

  She already knows this is some shit.

  “And I’m supposed to sit by patiently and wait while you live with him for the next three months?” I ask, swallowing down my rage and frustration. Struggling to appear reasonable. “That’s how you see this happening?”

  She runs a shaking hand over the hair I loosened when we kissed.

  “I can’t ask you to wait for me, Jared,” she says wearily. “I know that. I understand it’s a long time and you have . . . needs. I get that and wouldn’t blame you for saying we’re done. For finding someone else.”

  Finding someone else? The hell?

  What she doesn’t seem to realize is there isn’t anyone else. I’ve tried all the “someone elses” and none of them simultaneously drive me wild and settle me inside the way Banner does.

  “I didn’t mean that I would find someone else.” I hold her chin between two fingers and palm the curve of her waist. “I meant we’ll see how long you last without me.”

  A slow smile dawns on her face with her realization, but it’s a sun that sets before it fully rises. She frowns up at me and shakes her head.

  “I won’t lie to him,” she says. “And I won’t cheat. He specifically said we aren’t to sleep together.”

  I don’t have enough curse words for some son of a bitch, cancer or no cancer, telling me when I can or cannot fuck my girl. I don’t care if I did steal her from him. Mine now. And I know how to keep her.

  I hope.

  “He specified that, did he?” I ask. “You know, I thought we were supposed to be the negotiators and the master strategists. Seems like Zo knows exactly how to get what he wants.”

  I press my palms over the curve of her ass, pressing until her breasts are crushed against my chest and she moans, dropping her head to my shoulder. If this is going to be torment for me, it’s sure as hell going to be torment for her, too.

  “The problem is,” I whisper in her ear, as if we aren’t the only ones here. As if we’re nurturing a secret between our bodies and souls. “He wants something he can’t have. And he can delay it for three months, but it won’t make any difference.”

  “It won’t?” She pants the words as I grind my erection into her belly. I want her wet and horny for me flying with him to their new townhouse in fucking Palo Alto.

  “No.” I squeeze each cheek, loving that my hands can’t hold all that ass. “Because this ass is mine.”

  My beautiful, brilliant girl with her Julia Roberts lips and her lush ass. He thinks he can take her from me?

  “I want you to do something for me, Ban.” I feather kisses down her neck, and she tilts her head, baring her throat to me.

  “What?” She’s heavy-lidded, and if I slipped my fingers into her pants she’d be soaked. My mouth waters, remembering those sweet juices flooding my mouth when she comes.

  “Tonight in your new bed across the hall from Zo, or wherever it is,” I say, my voice husky, needy. “I want you to touch yourself.”

  Her breath catches and she leans into me, cupping my neck with her cool palm.

  “Touch yourself and think about me,” I urge, taking her earlobe between my teeth. “I want you to slip your fingers in and think about how it’s not enough. How it’s not me.”

  “Jared,” she gasps, her breath hitching.

  “Think about how my mouth looked on your pussy. My head between your legs. Remember when you were on your knees under that table, choking on my dick.”

  “God, Jared.” She shakes her head, her fingers trembling when she presses them to my chest. “This is already hard.”

  “Did you say hard?” I grab her hand and press it to the crotch of my suit pants. “This is how I’ll be for the next three months.”

  I pull back to look in her eyes and run my thumb over her full lips.

  “Waiting for you.”

  She tucks into my arms, her head on my chest, and I stroke her hair. We stay that way for the last few minutes we have together, before she has to go meet him, help him, be with him. Neither of us says that word, but if there’s another word for the way I feel when she’s close, for the way I miss her when she leaves, for the raging fear that someone would take her from me, then I don’t know what it is.

  It’s only after she’s gone and I’m back in the conference room, like the most important person in my life didn’t just traipse off to be at another man’s side, that I realize what has happened. It’s an irony that tilts my mouth into a smile of grudging respect.

  I have to reassess my opponent. Zo may be dying, and who knows, he may only have a year or two left to live, but he is not done yet. And he may be a good man, but he is not above leveraging even the worst circumstances in his life to get what he wants.

  That I can respect. He did something very few men have gotten away with.

  Son of a bitch blocked my shot.

  Part III

  i cannot love you gently,

  it’s not in me

  to love in part,

  so I will love You

  completely,

  and a little madly . . .

  – Matt Spencer, Poet

  33

  Banner

  When you walk through hell with someone, you burn, too.

  The flames don’t respect your privacy, your boundaries. They consume your time, torch your dignity, and turn your peace of mind to ashes. The last six weeks here in Palo Alto have been the most difficult of my life. I feel bad even saying that because compared to what Zo is enduring, I have nothing to complain about.

  I cannot imagine him navigating this alone. It’s not that Zo doesn’t have friends. He does, many, but he’s such a private man. Such a proud man, and this disease has stolen so much from him already. He hates that I see him this weak, much less that anyone else would.

  “Banner,” he calls from his bedroom.

  I used to think mothers exaggerated when they said they could distinguish their babies’ needs by a distinct cry, but I get it now. Not that Zo is a baby, but there is a certain note in his voice when he’s dehydrated and a different one when he needs help getting to the bathroom. As a result of the chemo, he has the worst diarrhea. I’ll never forget the day, after a particularly rough session, I walked in and found him crawling to the bathroom. His pajamas were already soiled. In the most stilted, painful silence, I helped him get clean and changed. He turned his head away from me, but I saw the tears adorning his cheeks. I’m glad he wasn’t looking at me because he would have seen mine.

  The note I hear in his voice now prompts me to grab the bottle of massage oil I keep by my bed. I walk swiftly to his room to see if I’m right. He smiles, eyeing the bottle in my hand, when I make it t
o his bedside.

  “Crees qué me conoces tan bien,” he says, his dark eyes large and pain-dulled in the gauntness of his face.

  You think you know me so well.

  I uncap the bottle and begin working the soothing oil into his size fifteen feet.

  “Sí lo se,” I reply with a small smile.

  I do.

  We can go days without speaking or hearing English. Unless he has a chemo session at Stanford, he doesn’t like to go out for various reasons. He hates being the face of something, a poster child. We are inundated with requests for interviews, special appearances, fundraisers. We accept the few he feels well enough to do and strongly enough about. Otherwise, we live quietly here on the periphery of the campus and hospital.

  The media is grossly fascinated with his illness. As an agent, I understand fame. I know there’s an exchange you make—your privacy for notoriety and success—but there are lines no one should cross, and we live in a time and in a culture that has erased those lines. We’ve become so conditioned to “following” and “tracking with” that a man who wants to walk this hard road without spectators, without a TV special, without a podcast or a YouTube documentary, only piques their curiosity more.

  Why can’t we know everything?

  “Are you hungry?” I ask in the companionable silence while I massage his hands and arms. One of the side effects of his treatment is tingling and pain. I’m not sure how much my massages help, but he likes being touched. The massages are painful for me because touching him, I can’t deny how frail he has become. At six foot six, Zo has always been a tower of strength. His weight loss had already begun before, but we didn’t realize the cause and it wasn’t as dramatic as it’s become with the chemo. Over the last six weeks, the well-conditioned giant with the sculpted muscles has vaporized. His limbs have, in even such a short time, become almost spindly. They look too frail to support his tall frame. He’s like a tree trunk walking on branches.