“Just making conversation.” I shrug and swing my knees around to face her. “Though if you want to be picked up, I might be able to accommodate.”
She finally deigns to look at me. Her heart-shaped face is arresting, a contrast of fierce and delicate. She has high cheekbones and dark brows that slash over a button nose and hazel eyes. Hazel is too flat a word to describe all the shades of green and brown and gold. I’ve never seen eyes quite like these. Several colors at once. Several things at once. I wonder if the girl behind them is as multi-dimensional.
“I wouldn’t want to wear you out before your big game tomorrow.” The corners of her lips pinch like she’s trying her best not to laugh at me.
That gives me pause. So she knows who I am. That would usually work in my favor, but I have a feeling she’s not your run-of-the-mill ball groupie. “You’re a fan?”
Unsurprisingly, one brow crooks, and she rolls her eyes before turning her attention back to the game. The bartender approaches, a bottle of liquor in hand.
“What’ll ya have?” He sets the Grey Goose on the bar, toggling a speculative glance between me and the woman ignoring me.
“Could I get a ginger ale, please?”
He smirks, trading out the Goose for a ginger ale he pulls from the fridge under the bar. Filling a glass with the fizzy drink and setting it in front of me, he angles his head to peer under the brim pulled low over my brow.
“August West?” A grin lights his face.
I nod but put my finger to my lips, hoping to quiet him so I can flirt in peace. I don’t feel like signing autographs and being pelted with well wishes. I’m not even in the NBA yet, but ever since our team made the Sweet Sixteen, the media has homed in on me for some reason, elevating my profile and making it harder to remain anonymous.
“I get it.” The bartender nods knowingly, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Avoiding the crazy, huh?”
“Something like that.” I look back to the super fangirl, whose attention remains riveted on the screen. “What’s the lady having?”
“A beer she can pay for herself.” She slides me a crooked smile and takes a sip of her half-full glass.
“Oooooh.” The bartender’s beer belly, an occupational hazard, shakes with a deep chuckle. He gives me a commiserating look before ambling down the length of the bar to his other customers.
“So, you come here often?” I can’t believe that just came out of my mouth.
The face she makes says she can’t believe it either.
“Next you’ll ask what’s a nice girl like me doing in a place like this.” The humor in her eyes removes some of the sting.
“You think my game is that weak?”
She side-eyes me, extending both brows as high as they’ll go. “We talking on the court or off?”
“Ouch.” I wince and tilt my head to consider her. “And here I thought you’d be a sweet distraction until curfew.”
“I’m not anyone’s distraction,” she says. “Especially not some player looking to let off testosterone.”
“Assumptions and judgments.” I shake my head in mock disappointment. “Didn’t they tell you not to judge a book by its cover? You can’t possibly know—”
“August West, six foot six, Piermont College starting point guard, deadly from behind the arc, off-the-charts basketball IQ, and Naismith finalist. Six-foot-ten-inch wingspan and forty-inch vertical.” Her sharp eyes slice over me from the brim of my cap all the way down to the Nikes on my feet, before returning to the game onscreen.
“Your hops may be Jordan-esque, but your D could use some work.” A laugh slips past her lips. “And that’s not an assumption. I know that for a fact.”
I have to laugh because Coach Mannard has been after me all season—for the last four years, actually—to improve on defense. My three-pointers make the highlight reel, but he’s just as concerned with the fundamentals that will make me a better all-around player. Apparently, so is she.
“So they keep telling me.” I turn my back to the bar, propping my elbows on its edge, and consider her with new respect. “How do you know so much about basketball?”
“You mean because I’m a girl and should be watching cheering matches?” Her glare is all indignation.
“Um . . . you mean tournaments? Even I know they’re called cheer tournaments, not matches.”
“Well look at that.” She spreads a thick layer of sarcasm over the words. “You know girl stuff and I know boy stuff. Is it opposite day?”
She turns her attention back to the screen like she couldn’t care less that she just impressed the hell out of me. Guys, we talk shit, and never more so than when it’s about sports. A woman who can talk sports and talk trash? A fucking sparkling unicorn. She gives as good as she gets, this one. Hell, she may give better than she gets. There’s a spark to her, a confidence I want to see more of.
A lot of girls just reflect. They figure out what you like so they can get in with a baller. This one has her own views, stands her own ground and doesn’t give a damn if I like it.
I like it.
“Since you know so much about me,” I say, “it’s only fair I learn something about you.”
She turns her head by slow centimeters, eyes still locked to the screen as if it’s killing her to look away from the game. Her expression, those changeable eyes, warm and soften just a little. “What exactly would you like to know?”
“Your name would be a good start.”
Her lips twist into a grin. “My family calls me Gumbo.”
“Gumbo?” I almost choke on my ginger ale. “Because you have big ears?”
I risk touching her, pushing back a clump of wild curls. The whorl of her ear is downright fragile, and strands of dark hair cling to the curve of her neck.
“Not Dumbo.” She laughs and pulls away so her hair slips through my fingers. “Gumbo, like the soup.”
“I knew that.” I really did, but I had to get inventive if I was going to steal a touch without drawing back a stump. “So why Gumbo?”
She hesitates, and for a moment it seems I wasn’t breaking through like I thought. She finally gives a “what the hell” shrug and goes on.
“You may not hear the accent now, because it’s been years since I lived there, but I’m originally from New Orleans.”
Now that she says it, I do detect something reminiscent of that city in her voice. A drawn-out drawl spiced with music and mystery.
“My family moved to Atlanta after Katrina.” She gives a puff of air disguised as a laugh. “But I’m NOLA, through and through. I come from good Creole stock. As if Creole wasn’t already mixed up enough, my father’s German and Irish.”
I think the ambiguity of her beauty is part of her appeal. Something elusive and indefinable. I would never have guessed the ethnicities that coalesced to make a face like hers—the wide, full lips, copper skin and striking bone structure. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone like her. Hers is not a face you would soon forget. Maybe never.
“I’m a mix of everything the bayou could come up with,” she continues, taking a sip of her drink. “So my cousin says I had more ingredients than—”