Shelia looks up from the board games she’s setting out for the kids to play when they return from the gym.
“Little upgrade, I see,” Sheila adds. “Is this for us or for Mr. Rookie of the Year?”
I force a disdainful laugh. “August and I barely know each other.” I make myself meet their eyes directly.
“Looked like you knew something,” Torrie says, “the way he ran out of here after you, and y’all were all booed up.”
Reckless. Careless. I have to do better today. “Nope. Nothing to it.” I consider the table filled with games. “So are we playing games after August talks with them?”
“Oh, he’s with them now in the gym overseeing some drills,” Shelia says, looking at me slyly. “He’ll probably leave after that so looks like you got all dressed up for nothing.”
“I wouldn’t call this dressed up . . .” Her words sink in, and disappointment follows. I don’t even bother finishing my denial.
So I won’t see August today. It’s for the best.
I’m still convincing myself of that when the kids pour in, sweaty and laughing, from the gym. I put on a bright smile and serve the bagged lunches they’ll eat before the games start.
I’m passing out Gatorades when a deep rumble of laughter raises the hairs on my arms. I snap my head around, searching for the source. August sits on one of the tables, one foot on the bench and his injured leg stretched out in its cast. He laughs at something with the kids clustered around him and throws his head back. His hair is longer than I’ve ever seen it, and with those dark, caramel-kissed curls, his skin, bronze melded with gold, and his teeth flashing white in the strong planes of his face, I literally cannot take my eyes off him.
I’ll give myself three seconds to look at him.
One.
Two.
And then he looks up, and our eyes hold. I’d love to pretend this is casual. Friends with a dash of attraction. Slightly forbidden, but mostly harmless. There’s an undeniable truth, though, when my eyes connect with his. When our eyes meet, it isn’t casual. He and I together are mayhem. When he looks at me, I can’t pretend otherwise.
I turn away before Torrie and Shelia pay even closer attention, and walk over to the game table and pretend to arrange UNO and Monopoly and Taboo.
“You like board games?”
I jump at his question, dropping a deck of cards all over the floor and at August’s feet.
“Ugh.” I sink to my knees to gather them. “Such a klutz.”
He squats awkwardly, scooping up cards.
“August, no! Your leg.”
I grab his arm and carefully coax him upright, which brings our bodies almost flush. When he looks down at me, his stare mirrors the feelings, the desire pulsing through my body. That stare is hot and hungry and curious. It wonders how I taste. Asks how I’d feel crushed against him. It imagines a first kiss I’m not sure we’ll ever have.
“You look pretty today.” His words are polite enough, but the air between us is thick and carnal. One wrong word could slice right through it.
“Thank you. I . . .” I encounter Sylvia’s inquiring eyes just beyond his shoulder. I turn my head and collide glances with Torrie and Shelia. “Why is everyone watching us?”
August casts a discreet look from the corner of his eye, and the dark line of his brows falls.
“I think they see the same thing Caleb saw at the game that night.” He surreptitiously links our pinky fingers. “They see I can’t stay away from you. That I don’t want to.”
“August.” I reluctantly untangle our fingers, sweeping the room to see who might still be watching. Everyone seems to have found other things to occupy their attention, but we should separate. “I’m gonna go restock the drinks. I’ll see you later.”
He catches my elbow and bends to whisper in my ear, “Meet me on the basketball court once they start playing games.”
I shake my head and scoot away as quickly as I can because that’s the smart thing to do, but I already know I’ll find a way.
We’re cleaning up after lunch while the kids play games when Torrie broaches the subject I have no desire to discuss.
“So, you and August West,” she says, pulling a bag from the trash can. “You know each other?”
I don’t glance up from the sink of suds and the few dishes there were to wash.
“Not really.” I give her my most innocent smile. “I mean, the way everyone else knows him. That he’s a great player.”
“You two should get on the same page.” She laughs and shakes her head. “’Cause he’s not even trying to fake it, and you’re not very good at it.”
My hands go still over the steamy water.
“I don’t know what you mean.” I look at her, clear-eyed, before I pick up a dish towel to dry the dishes.
“Oh, don’t feel bad,” she says “Not with his fine ass. His nose is wide open for you, girl. Stevie Wonder could see that.”
“Wow. That’s not exactly politically correct.” I feel guilty for the giggle that slips past my lips despite the inappropriateness of her humor.
“I’m not very good at beating around the bush,” she says, her expression going from uncertain to defiant to don’t give a damn. “Get yours, Iris, because Caleb is definitely getting his.”
The mere mention of Caleb’s name runs my blood cold. He won’t be back from China until next week, but I still feel the specter of him like an ill-intentioned ghost haunting me, dogging my every step.
“Look, guys talk.” She grimaces. “At least, mine does—to me he does. He’s not exactly your fiancé’s biggest fan.”
Neither am I.
I don’t volunteer a word or even a breath that might stop her.
“He says people have no idea who Caleb really is.” Torrie lays a hand over mine, and the smile she offers me is kind. Her fingers brush the very wrist that only a few weeks ago Caleb fractured. I’ve had so little kindness, so few gentle touches lately, that hers pricks tears behind my eyes.
“Don’t feel guilty if you and August West have a . . . a moment this week.” She gives me a direct look before going on. “At first, I thought you might be a little bougey, but you’re alright. If it was me, I’d want someone to tell me so I’m telling you. He cheats on you left and right. Sticks his dick in anything that moves.”
I know Caleb cheats, but for him to be so blatant that even the other girlfriends know is galling. It’s not enough he humiliates me in private. He has to make a laughing stock of me publicly, too. I don’t give a damn if he cheats, but I’m nauseated over how he’s exposed me. He rapes me at gunpoint and won’t even use a condom. God, what might I have? An STD? Worse? Resentment and hatred boil under my skin.
“Excuse me.” I toss the dish towel onto the linoleum counter and turn to leave. At the door, I look back over my shoulder to meet the sympathy in her eyes. “Thanks, Torrie.”
She nods and turns away to finish dumping the trash. Rage and bitterness descend like a haze over me, and I’m stumbling down the hall. I tell myself I don’t mean to wander into the gym, but that’s a lie.
August shoots from several feet beyond the three-point line. He releases the ball, and it falls through the net.