Page 51 of Can't Get Enough

“I better get back down there.” Kenan stands and so do I. “My wife and her cousin are courtside.”

“That’s August’s wife, right?”

“Yup. Iris has their two kids with her and Lotus has our little girl.It’s a full-on estrogen production and I needed a break,” he says, belying the words with a proud grin. “But my wife is not above coming to find me if I’m gone too long.”

“Give them both my best,” I say, walking him to the exit of the box.

Once the door closes behind him, I turn to find Bolt watching me. We say a lot without words for a few seconds before he finally breaks the silence.

“We should keep him close,” Bolt says. “He could help down the road.”

“Agreed.” I pat his shoulder approvingly. “Thanks for bringing him by.”

I walk over to stand by my father at the glass.

“Game’s tied,” he says, eagerness lighting his face. “Paulson’s doing pretty good tonight. The guys are holding their own.”

“I’m glad. The less of a mess we have to clean up when we get there, the better.”

“Fuck outta here,” my father yells, pounding a fist to the plexiglass. “Did you see that? Offensive foul? I could make a better call blindfolded! You gotta be…”

He rubs a hand over his mouth and expels his annoyance in a harsh breath.

“And you know West ain’t gon’ miss,” I say, watching one of the league’s brightest players take his spot at the free-throw line.

But he does miss.

“Ball don’t lie,” my father crows. “That’s what you get for that shit call.”

West does make the second shot, but there’s no time to do more than a full-court throw before the buzzer sounds to end the first half.

It’s a huge game. We, the underdog of the playoffs, are the only thing standing between the Waves advancing toward their first championship. They’d still have to beat the Eastern Conference champ, but neither of the two teams fighting it out on the other side of the country match well against West and the Waves. This is game two. We lost thefirst game, but if we can steal this one on their home court before we head back to Vegas for game three, our odds get better.

Nobody believes the Vipers can pull it off, but the arena is packed with people who want to watch us try. A game like this draws lots of celebrities wanting to see and be seen in their floor seats. Ironically, most of the ones who make it to the jumbotron were at our last party in Miami.

“What’s she doing here?” Bolt blurts, his tone sharp with something that sounds like excitement. He joins us and presses his palm flat to the plexiglass.

I follow his line of vision to the jumbotron. The camera is focused on Chapel, who blows a kiss and uses her beer to toast the cheering crowd. Seated to Chapel’s left is Skipper, who grins and flashes a peace up, A Town down. That’s the “she” in Bolt’s question, but I’m much more interested in the woman seated to Chapel’s right.

Hendrix isn’t looking at the camera, seemingly unaware or uncaring about her companions’ on-screen byplay. She’s frowning down at her phone, one corner of her mouth trapped between her teeth. Her hairstyle is different from the last time I saw her. It’s that Zoë Kravitz-esque combination of loose hair and braids. Some is gathered into a knot atop her head and the rest rains over her shoulders and arms. She’s wearing dark jeans and a T-shirt emblazoned withDark & Lovelyin sparkling letters. With her head bent and fingers flying over the keypad, she looks like she’d rather be somewhere else.

I should give her somewhere else to be.

CHAPTER 16

HENDRIX

I’m not really a basketball fan.

I’m here for the vibes and the exposure. That moment displaying Chapel on the jumbotron at the biggest game of the playoffs so far? That’s why we came. Millions of people just saw her in the best seats in the house. That clip will circulate all over social media for days. The sports pundits on TV probably identified her as the current “it” girl who won the model competitionLewks. They’re sharing her backstory, commenting on the “unlikely” victory of a woman with vitiligo winning a beauty competition. All going according to plan.

In my peripheral vision, Chapel blows a kiss to the camera, clouds of pink champagne spilled across her brown skin. Her hair has been cropped close and dyed strawberry blond. On-screen she is a tableau of vibrant colors and contrasts, a bird of paradise in full bloom. All eyes on her tonight could translate to my phone ringing off the hook tomorrow. We haven’t landed a cosmetic contract yet. That’s my personal goal; for a makeup company to want her, not to cover up her vitiligo, or to say she’s beautiful in spite of it, but to look for ways to highlight that she’s beautifulbecauseof it. One of them could see her tonight on the biggest stage in sports, not just holding her own, but holding the world rapt.

So I endure two hours of a game I’m not particularly interested in.

I’m playing on my phone when the text message comes over.

Maverick: Wordle? Animal Crossing? What’s so good on that phone you couldn’t be bothered to smile for the cameras?

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