Page 36 of Shot Taker

NOVA

The smell of beer and fried foods permeates the air, but it’s overrun by the scent of his body wash and him as he pushes me up against one of the shelves filled with cardboard boxes.

The walls of the storeroom press in on me. So does Clay’s body, filling my vision.

“You can’t toss me around. I’m not a basketball,” I complain.

“Why’d you come out tonight?” His face is bent so he’s inches from mine, his gaze pinning me.

“To hang out with friends.”

“But you knew I’d be here.”

“I’m not avoiding you for the rest of my time in Denver.”

“Brooke heard you talking about me in your dreams.”

Oh boy.

I already feel a step behind when it comes to this man. Brooke’s help to tip the scales in his favor is overkill.

“I talk a lot in my sleep,” I say defensively. “About all kinds of—”

“I don’t think so, Pink.”

My jaw hangs open.

Tonight, I went to the game because I told myself it would help me sketch the team for my mural. But my eyes kept dragging back to Clay. He was so intentional, deliberate, powerful. Flying back and forth up the court, cutting between defenders, taking everything he wanted.

I know what he’s gone through with his knee, the struggle about going to LA, and he keeps it all inside.

He’s a mess of contradictions.

Finding out he had that picture threw me because it meant not only did he support my work by buying it for an exorbitant price, but he was somehow responsible for it showing up in a top magazine.

He said in his letter that he didn’t care, but his actions since have proved otherwise.

His actions keep proving otherwise.

“Someone in here?”

An unfamiliar voice at the door makes us stiffen.

Clay spins to hide my body from whoever’s entering.

“Oh, Wade. Thank you again for the check last week. I wouldn’t still be in business without you.”

When the man shuts the door after him, I can breathe again.

My hands fist in the back of Clay’s sweater. “What was that about?”

He turns to stare me down.

“Because it sounds like you helped that man save his bar,” I go on, digging a finger into his muscled chest. “Thisis your problem. You barely say two words, and it leaves people to think the worst of you.”

Clay shifts on his feet. “It was nothing.”

I fold my arms and glare up at him. “Everything is nothing with you.”

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