Long Shot (Hoops, #1)

by Kennedy Ryan

“You’re a great player, August.” She tips up on her toes until her lips are at my ear. “But I think you’ll be an even greater man.”

“But the girl I met in that bar didn’t want to be taken care of. I’d do everything in my power to help you follow your dreams so you could take care of yourself. And then we’d both know you were with me because you wanted to be, not because you had no other choice.”

“It’s all arranged, though,” Sylvia continues . . . nervously? Yes, nervously. She doesn’t know Caleb is a predator, but on some cellular level, maybe atavistically, her body knows, and it makes her nervous. The heart speaks in whispers. I heard too late.

Hope is the gap between what if and what is, but you have to fill that gap with a lot of hard work.

“If you were mine, Iris, there would be no doubt what position you’d hold in my life. You’d be center. I’d play you at the five.”

“Struggle does not make you weak,” she whispers back. “Struggling against those who hold us is what makes us, over time, stronger than they are. Strong enough to fight back. Strong enough to win.”

“Your dreams and ambitions got swallowed up when you had to follow Caleb,” I say, holding her eyes with mine. “I want you to know there’s someone who will follow you.”

“But staying here,” I cut in, caressing the fullness of her bottom lip with my thumb. “Staying is my best shot at winning you.”