Page 11 of Half-Court Heat

Our mouths met in a soft press, and then again, firmer and more certain. She sighed into the kiss, and I caught it with my mouth, lips parting just enough to taste her. My tongue grazed hers, light and searching, and she responded with a low hum that vibrated between us.

I felt the tension slip from her shoulders as she leaned into me. One of her hands found my waist, the other tangled in the hem of my T-shirt, like she needed to anchor herself. I could have kissed her like that for hours—no cameras, no obligations, no world outside of the two of us.

“How was your hair appointment?” I asked, voice still a little husky.

I toyed with the ends of the ombre twists, darker at the roots and nearly auburn at their ends.

“Good. Jemelle yapped the entire time. I swear, she’s better than a therapist. Probably more expensive though,” she laughed.

I smiled, feeling infinitely lighter. “So who do I have to bribe to take down those vacation photos?”

“If those pictures are the worst the internet ever sees of us,” Eva noted, “we should count ourselves lucky.”

I gave her a look. “Am I the only one mortified that someone caught you feeding me cake like a spoiled princess?”

She smirked. “That was the least incriminating moment of the night.”

“Thank God no one had a drone pointed at our pool around midnight,” I chuckled. “My mom would need therapy.”

“Yourmom?” Eva arched an eyebrow. “Mine’s still recovering from the playoff kiss. This might have pushed her over the edge.”

I pictured the Honorable Virginia Montgomery in my mind’s eye, drinking her morning coffee and coming across tabloid pictures of her daughter and her new girlfriend.Yikes.

“Okay, next vacation: no balconies, no public spaces,” I vowed. “We don’t leave the room. We don’t even open the curtains.”

“Or we go incognito,” Eva suggested. “Hats, sunglasses, and fake names.”

“Oh,nowyou’re into the disguise idea?” I snorted. “Weren’t you the one who laughed at me for thinking we were too famous to go out in public on the Fourth of July?”

Eva smiled, that mischievous glint returning. “Yeah, well ... that kiss heard ‘round the world kind of changed the game, didn’t it?”

She said it as a joke, but that kisshadchanged everything. The moment her lips had touched mine in front of twenty thousand fans, the rules we’d been playing by—careful, private, safe—got rewritten. She’d chosen me. Chosenus, in the most public way possible. And not just in the heat of emotion after a brutal loss, but knowing full well what it would cost her.

Eva didn’t do anything without intention. She didn’t gamble with her reputation. That kiss had been a risk to everything she’d built, all of the public goodwill she’d accumulated.

I reached for her hand, threading my fingers through hers. “Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked. “Not just PR okay?”

“I’m okay,” she assured me. “Are you?”

I nodded. Because the truth was, I’d take every headline and unflattering photo if it meant I got to keep this—her hand in mine, the warmth behind her smile. That kiss had changed everything, and I wouldn’t undo a second of it.

“I know we just got back,” she said, “but I found out I have to go out of town for a few days. Another photoshoot.”

I leaned back against the kitchen island. “Oh yeah? Pictures for what?”

She took a breath. “Sports Illustrated.”

“Holy shit!”

“… swimsuit edition,” she finished.

My excitement morphed into something else. Apprehension. Disbelief. Dread.

Eva wasn’t going to be featured in the famous sports magazine for her talents on the court. She was going to be photographed in a barely-there bathing suit in a tropical location to be put on display at an airport magazine kiosk.

She watched me with a careful gaze. “Tell me your thoughts.”

“Thoughts?” I had a million of those and yet not any of them spoke louder than the others. They all jostled for attention rather than forming an orderly queue.