She fixes her stare on the ground between our feet. Her shoulders, held tight and high, slowly drop. She’s listening. She’s hearing me.
“Go on,” she says, full lips pinching at the corners. “Dumbass.”
Her spirit, her boldness, makes me smile. I don’t like seeing her hurt, especially by me. If we don’t have this conversation, these same doubts will resurface, and I’ll inevitably hurt her again. She won’t even know why. She deserves to know why.
“Tell me what you know about me, Lotus.”
Both of her thick brows stretch up, and she blinks a few times.
“I know you’re the center for the San Diego Waves,” she says, her voice slightly uncertain.
“Power forward,” I correct.
“Huh?” She tosses up a confused glance.
“You said I’m the center for the Waves, but I’m the power forward.”
“Oh.” She shrugs like it’s all the same to her . . . which it probably is. “And I know you have the musical taste of a sixty-year-old man.”
I laugh and fake a glare. “That’s actually not too far off,” I tell her, stroking the silky skin of her wrist. “My father loved jazz, and he passed that on to me.”
“Is he a basketball player, too?”
“No.” I shake my head and let out a harsh laugh. “He was a judge and wanted me to follow in his footsteps. He was disappointed when I was drafted.”
“No way. Most fathers would be proud.”
“Yeah, my dad wasn’t exactly most fathers.” I smile, reminiscing about the man who shaped me more than any other. “When I told him I was planning to enter the draft instead of going to law school, he said ‘a tall, black man playing basketball. Wow, didn’t see that coming.’”
She doesn’t laugh like I expected her to. Instead she searches my face, looking for something. “Did that hurt?” she asks.
“Hurt? Hell, no. My father and I were best friends. I may have taken a different path than he expected, but he recognized that not many get the chance to play at this level—to make this kind of money. He came around and supported me. I don’t have childhood trauma. No daddy issues, or mommy issues for that matter. My parents were married forty years. We were well-off, well-adjusted.”
“Must be nice,” she says, her expression, her voice wistful. “Especially the closeness you have with your dad.”
“It was nice.” Our eyes meet, hers filling with sympathy even before I clarify. “He passed away last year.”
“I’m sorry, Kenan.” She flips the wrists I’m holding so that her hands are holding mine, and squeezes. I nod and squeeze back.