Keep My Heart (Top Shelf Romance Book 7)

by Lex Martin

  Sarai sits beside MiMi, rubbing her little palm over the silver hair loosened on the pillow. Her eyes, the darkest parts of blue and violet, consider me solemnly. My gaze drifts to MiMi, who stares back at me, eyes unblinking and void of life. I rush to the bed, grabbing her hand. It’s cold and stiff. At her wrist, there is no rhythm.

  “Shhhh,” Sarai whispers, one finger to her rosebud mouth. “MiMi’s sleep, Mama.”

  “No, baby.” I shake my head and let the first tear fall. “She’s not asleep.”

  August

  In the grand scheme of life, one year is a drop in the bucket. When you’re looking for someone, wondering if they’ll call or when they’ll come back, a year feels like forever.

  Sylvia said it. Caleb told me that Iris left, but I still keep thinking maybe she’ll call or contact me. Caleb’s been seen with other chicks, living his life, so I assume he told the truth and they really aren’t together anymore. His girlfriend has left, and I’m the one who can’t move on.

  “You should fuck.”

  I glance up from the report I’m studying at lunch with Jared. Our server, who overheard his comment, blushes and stretches her eyes.

  “Um . . . did you need anything else?” she asks, sliding a look between Jared and me.

  “We’re good for now,” I tell her, forcing a smile. “You can bring the check.”

  “Sorry,” Jared says, but he doesn’t look repentant as she walks away. “Her overhearing it doesn’t make it any less true. I’ve never known you to be this . . . grumpy.”

  “I’m not grumpy. You make me sound like an eighty-year-old man.”

  “You have the sex life of an eighty-year-old man.” He sips his wine. “Hell, I’d be grumpy if I didn’t get any ass for a year.”

  “I’m not you.” I flip through the report, hoping to divert his attention back to business. “These second-quarter numbers look good. Elevation’s doing even better than we hoped it would.”

  “Yeah, they look great. Don’t change the subject.”

  “The subject is none of your business. Speaking of business, let’s talk about it.”

  “Okay.” Jared tears a bread stick into little pieces over his plate. “Did you talk to Pippa about signing on?”

  “I did. She’s interested.”

  “In fucking you.”

  I tilt my head and blank my face, exasperated.

  “Are you saying she doesn’t want to?” Jared asks. “She would have already signed if you’d give her what she wants. She practically spelled it out in the sand when she visited the office last week.”

  One advantage of living and setting up our agency in San Diego is an office only a pebble’s throw from the beach. It’s worked for us, wining and dining clients oceanside. Well, I don’t wine and dine. I’m still a silent partner but have recently started persuading high-profile athletes that since I now trust Elevation with my representation, they should, too.

  “What are you now?” I smirk and pour water from the carafe on the table. “My pimp?”

  Jared’s expression loses most of its humor. “If you need me to be.” He sighs. “She may not ever contact you, Gus. You should move on.”

  Does he think I don’t know that? That I want to be in this limbo where I think Iris might come back? I’m not an eighty-year-old man, and there is nothing wrong with my sex drive. I simply have no outlet. The only person I want is gone. The obvious solution is to want someone else, but my heart and my dick don’t see it that way.

  “I do have something we need to discuss.” Jared narrows his eyes, assessing. “I need to put on my agent hat for a minute.”

  “What’s up?” I ask.

  “Deck called.” The look Jared angles at me holds excitement and speculation. “You won’t believe this, but the Waves are open to a trade.”

  The glass in my hand stops midair halfway to my mouth. I set it down with a thump on the table.

  My contract isn’t up for another two years. I’d resigned myself to spending the first five years of my NBA career on a losing team and just distinguishing myself on the court so I’d get good looks from other teams when it was time to go.

  “You shitting me?” I ask.

  “Nope.” Jared grins like a buccaneer. He’s a hard-ass negotiator and probably relishes the prospect. “They know they could get a few quality players from Houston for you.”

  “Houston?” My mouth drops open. Houston is in the playoffs again this year, as we speak. They might even take it all. “Houston wants me?”

  “Bad.” He leans forward, elbows on the table. “They’re focused on the playoffs right now, of course, but some of the front-office execs reached out on the sly. They’re looking ahead.”

  A disturbing thought occurs to me. “So are the Waves open to this because they don’t think I’ll be back a hundred percent?”

  Rehab was long and grueling, and by the time I could get back on court, I’d lost almost all of my second season. Playing those last couple of months was more a test for the upcoming season than anything else, seeing if I still had my strength and explosiveness off the dribble. My distance-shooting hasn’t been affected. Jag had me shooting from anywhere on court seated in a wheelchair from the early days of rehab.

  “No, they aren’t worried that you won’t be back full-steam,” Jared assures. He knows that would bother me—the brass thinking I couldn’t perform anymore. “If anything, it’s the opposite. Everyone saw how good you looked out there at the end of last season. If they want to build, to add some key pieces to the roster, you’re their most valuable asset to get them.”

  “Huh.” I lean back in my seat and consider leaving Deck and Jag. Even Glad and I have become friends.

  Winning has always been the most important thing in my life. I’ll never get used to losing, but I was getting used to those guys. We were just starting to feel like a real team.

  “Did you say ‘huh?’” Jared asks, a frown snapping his brows together. “’Cause I don’t speak grunt. You want me to move forward or not? And if you say ‘not,’ you’re a fool.”

  He’s right. If I’m stuck in this place, mired in too-few memories of Iris and the little time we had together, something in my life should be moving forward. Why not my career?

  “Yeah.” I smile at the rosy-cheeked waitress and accept the bill. “Let’s see where it goes.”

  And if it takes me to Houston, I’m closer to a championship than I thought I would be for years. That should make me happy. And it does. I can’t be ungrateful. A percentage of a percentage of people live the way I do, have the things I have, but something’s still missing. I don’t have to ask what.

  I know what it is. I know who it is.

  I just don’t know where to find her.

  Iris

  Death has a way of uniting or dividing. Families come together and draw comfort from each other or fight about wills and the things that have kept them apart. It can go either way.

  Even with the funeral over and everyone gone home, and MiMi’s small refrigerator stuffed with Tupperware and leftovers, I’m not sure what her death will do to our family. Lo hasn’t seen her mother or spoken to her in years. She avoided Aunt May even at the funeral and shows no sign of breaking the silence. I can’t blame her. What Aunt May did was unacceptable, even more so to me now that I have a child of my own. I could never choose a man over her, much less accept his word as truth when my daughter accused him of wrong. But that’s what Aunt May did, and I’m afraid Lo will never forgive her.

  And then there’s my mother.

  Her beauty hasn’t faded. She had me so young she’s barely forty. Heads still swivel when she walks past. Her body is a trail of winding curves—breasts and hips and butt and thighs. My father diluted my skin color, but hers is a flawless mixture of darkened honey and caramel, and her hair, slightly coarser than mine, is an unrelieved fall of black to her waist. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

  And she could never get over herself enough to
find out if she had anything else to offer.

  “It’s been a long time since I was back home,” she says, glancing around the tiny kitchen before her eyes settle on me. “You should have told me you were here. If I’d known you were so close, I would have—”

  “Told Caleb?” I cut in over whatever lie she was poised to tell. “I know. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

  “I have no idea what you mean.” She touches her throat. From years of observation, I know it’s her tell. She can look you dead in the eyes, a picture of innocence, while she tries to sell you a goldmine on the bayou, but she can’t keep that hand off her throat.

  “What I mean is that I know about the apartment in Buckhead.” I wipe down the counter, cleaning because I can’t think what else to do while navigating this awkward conversation with my mother. “He still paying your way, Mama? Caleb told me he had you well under control.”

  “Control?” She snaps a brow up, gentile disdain perfected. “No such thing.”

  “Did you know?” I toss the rag, sopping wet, into the sink, giving up on any semblance of cleaning. Considering the NDA, I won’t ask her explicitly, but I can read her. I need to know if she sold me out. “You were so thrilled about all that ‘security’ that came with having his baby, you never considered what it was costing me.”

  Her eyes flicker, but not with surprise. Did she know? Or at least suspect? “I really don’t know what you mean,” she says.

  But her hand is at her throat.

  Tears sting my eyes, but I won’t let them fall. Lo and I won the lottery with MiMi, but our mothers are a pair of snake eyes.

  “You ‘bout ready, Sil?” Aunt May asks from the kitchen doorway. She meets my eyes with difficulty. “Great service, Iris. You did MiMi proud.”

  “Your daughter planned most of it,” I reply, my voice a quiet accusation with a million how could yous puckering beneath the surface.

  She stiffens, tilting her chin, a picture of defiance and grace. She and my mother are almost mirror images of one another separated by just a couple of years. They’ve always been close, covered for one another, chosen one another even over their own children.

  “Where is Lo?” she asks. “I . . . we didn’t get to talk.”

  “Is that a new development?” I ask, sarcasm thick in the air and in my voice. “I seem to remember her not speaking to you for the last decade.”

  Her full lips tighten, the delicately chiseled jaw clenching. She tosses her head, the cloud of dark hair settling around her shoulders.

  “Tell her I wanted to try,” she says.

  “I will tell her no such thing, because if you really wanted to try, you know she’s down at the river and you’d walk down there until she listened and forgave you.” I release a cynical laugh. “But you don’t want to do that, do you?” I lean back against the counter, my arms folded across my chest. “Or at some point since that night you chose him over her, you would have actually tried.”

  “What has gotten into you, Iris?” my mother demands, indignantly. “You never used to be so . . . You weren’t like this before.”

  “Right,” I say with cold calm. “I never was, thanks to the two of you. Thank God Lo and I have MiMi’s blood to make up for your failings.”

  “Let’s go, Priscilla,” Aunt May snaps. “We don’t have to stay here for this kind of treatment.”

  “Now that I understand,” I deadpan. “Not accepting abuse or taking anybody’s shit. Again, lessons I didn’t learn from you.”

  “When you are ready to be reasonable,” my mother spits with rare gracelessness, “call me.”

  “If you can do me one favor, Mama,” I say to their slim, outraged backs as they head for the door. “The next time Caleb calls, don’t tell him that I’m here.”

  She looks over her shoulder, and for once she can’t dissemble the truth in her eyes. Lucky guess.

  “If not for me,” I say softly, “then for the sake of your granddaughter, don’t tell him anything.”

  Without another word, she nods, and the screen door slams shut behind them.

  I slump against the sink, relief and anxiety warring inside me. If all goes according to plan, I have nothing to worry about. If I’ve calculated properly, and I think I have, Caleb cares too much about his father’s opinion, his sponsors’ approval, and his precious NBA career to jeopardize it all chasing me.

  But what if I’m wrong? What if one day, the sick obsession that drove him to hatch elaborate schemes and engage in manipulation to keep me is stronger than his desire for all those things?

  I chuck that into the pile of shit I can’t control. There’s a much larger pile of things I can control, starting with what I want to do next. There’s a part of me that wants to remain here, just Sarai and me, hiding from the world, safe from danger. But I know it can’t be forever. Sarai is too bright not to be in preschool soon. Too curious to only have this small patch of the world to explore. Too social not to have friends.

  I follow the path to the river, that swathe of shade and grass overseen by a cypress canvas. Every step brings my grief, carefully stowed away today in a church full of strangers, closer to the surface. Today, the slight breeze whispering through the Spanish moss overseeing the river is a swaying lament for MiMi.

  Lo and Sarai sit several feet from the riverbank, and Sarai holds a Louisiana iris. My namesake.

  It makes me smile and remember the day with August in the gym when he asked about my name. An ache, separate from my grief, spreads across me. I miss him. I want him, but I have no idea what to do about it.

  “They’re gone?” Lo asks, not turning, facing the river.

  She’s so like MiMi. Now that I’ve spent time with our great-grandmother, her influence on Lo is clear. I envy that.

  “Yeah.” I pull up beside her on the bank. “They’re gone. Your mother—”

  “Don’t.” Lo’s voice is iced coffee. Dark. Cold with a bitter edge. “I buried my mother today.”

  I nod, not denying it.

  “I wish I’d known MiMi longer,” I venture, keeping one eye on Sarai and one eye on the river. It’s not inconceivable that a gator could crawl up on the riverbank or that a snake could slither out of the thick greenery. The bayou is a calculated risk, benefits and dangers constantly on a scale.

  “You knew her when you needed to,” Lo says, her voice showing no emotion but her face a ravaged canvas, painted with tears. “So did I.”

  I slip my hand into hers, and silently, we squeeze. United again. I can’t imagine I let Caleb come between us. That’s a lie. I let my shame, my embarrassment, and maybe even my jealousy come between us.

  “I’m sorry, Lo,” I confess. “I think I was jealous of you.”

  “What?” Lo turns startled eyes to me. “When? How could you ever be jealous of me?”

  I shrug, my shoulders weighted with self-consciousness and late summer heat. “When you confronted me about letting Caleb control me, I was frustrated. Maybe I regretted my choices.” I pause, assembling my words into the right order. “I resented my life, how small it had become. You were running off to New York to work for a famous fashion designer in an atelier, whatever the hell that is. Meanwhile, I was mashing baby food and wearing yoga pants every day.”

  Lo’s husky laugh charms the sun out from behind a cloud, and the last flare of sunlight illuminates the regal bones of her face.

  “You? Jealous of me?” She shakes her head, the long braids caressing the curve of her neck. “That’s ironic since I’ve been jealous of you most of my life.”

  “What?” I snap my head around to study her fully but don’t release her hand. “No way.”

  “Oh, yes way.” She throws me a teasing look, even through damp eyelashes. “Don’t worry. I have since realized the fullness of my own fabulousness.”

  I laugh, mouth closed, the humor coming as short nasal puffs of funny air.

  “Growing up, I loved you, but I wanted so much that you had,” she says. “I hate what happened to
me, but it was good I moved away from you and our mothers.”

  I’m curious but also hurt to hear this.

  “I can think of a dozen reasons why living here was better than living with them, but why did you need to get away from me?”

  “You’ll think it’s silly in that way that girls who never have to think about these things think it’s silly,” she says, her smile self-deprecating, her eyes knowing.

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “I was dark.” She lifts her braids. “My hair was coarse. I was the odd egg in our little nest, and everyone knew it.”

  “What the hell do you mean?” I demand.

  “You don’t think about it, but our mothers look exactly alike. Your father was white.” With her free hand, she tosses a few blades of grass into the river. “They were light and you were even lighter, but my dad was black, and I look different.”

  It reminds me of August telling me how displaced he felt sometimes. The irony of me feeling like I didn’t belong because I was “too white” and Lo being jealous because she was “too dark” strikes me as funny, and I release a giggle.

  “That’s funny to you?” Lo asks, one side of her full mouth tilted.

  “It’s just . . . I never felt like I fit in our neighborhood because I looked so different, and the girls always said I was stuck up and thought I was better than them. I really just wanted to fit. I just wanted to look like everyone else.”

  “And I just wanted to look like you.” Lo twists her mouth to the side. “When I came here, MiMi sniffed that shit out right away.”

  A movement in my peripheral vision catches my eye. “No, Sarai.”

  I pull my hand free of Lo’s and walk to the water’s edge, retrieving my little adventurer. I plop down on the grass, careless of the black dress I wore to the funeral, and sit my daughter between my legs. Lo settles in a puddle of black linen beside me, stretching her legs out on the grass.