Long Shot (Hoops, #1)

by Kennedy Ryan

she’s staring at me like she wants to remember my face—like she won’t forget tonight either. Like maybe, unreasonably, undeniably, this night meant as much to her as it did to me. If she felt it, too, this connection, she can’t be walking away, but she is.

“She looks just like you,” I whisper, unable to look away from the little dusky-haired angel in Iris’s arms.

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

I want too much. I want things I can’t have, things that aren’t mine, but that kid who showed up every Saturday before the community center doors opened, who was always the last to leave the court, he never learned to stop wanting impossible things.

“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.”

I need time to find my place in this world without anyone else at the helm. As much as I feel for August, I need to stand on my own.

This body kept all my secrets. My shame took sanctuary in its crevices and cracks. I’m not sure this body’s capable of pleasure anymore.

“Breathe out the lies,” she says. “That it was your fault. That you failed. That you are what he said you were.”

“Breathe in truth.” Her hands are busy in the air over me, slicing through lies. “You are pure. You are enough. You are strong.” She leans closer, her whisper as sharp and fierce as the knife in her drawer. “He can’t hurt you.”

“Yes.” MiMi’s affirmation infuses the air with power. “Strength. Dignity. Courage. All these things belong to you. Take them back. Your soul is yours. Your heart is yours. Your body is yours. Yours to keep and yours to share.”

“Lies don’t give up easily. You’ll have to remind yourself and heal yourself over and over, every time they come.”

“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.”

I’m sure that by the end of my life, I, like most people, will have a stack of regrets and “wish I hads,” but Iris DuPree won’t be one of them. Even if things don’t ultimately go the way I’d like them to, I won’t regret trying. She’s too worth it.

“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.”

“Going to Houston is my best shot at winning a ring.” “Then why would 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.”

“Seventy percent of domestic-abuse homicides occur when the woman tries to leave. That means that when a lot of these motherfuckers say ‘I’ll kill you if you leave me,’ they mean it.”

“Keeping it one hundred here, Iris. You said you needed to take this slow, and I don’t want to make you feel . . . I don’t know. Pressured.” His broad palm cups my chin, and he caresses my lips with his fingers. “I want this so badly.” He shakes his head. “But I’ve waited a really long time for you, and my out-of-control libido isn’t fucking that up.”

It’s one of the biggest moments of my life, and there’s only room for the two of us. There’s no room for anyone else. Not Caleb. Not even the naysayers who’ll accuse me of being a gold-digger who hops from player to player. No one else intrudes. It’s just me and the man I love.

Our bodies commune, confess. I don’t have to say the words. She knows I’m hers.

“When I give you something, it’s yours. You’ll own it, and no one can take it away from you. Not even me.” He bends to whisper in my ear, “The same way you own my heart, Iris. Outright.”

He smiles, and of course, Sarai chooses that moment to scream “Gus” again. She blows him a kiss, and he flashes a quick grin at her, pressing his palm to his lips to blow a kiss back. His eyes, though, fix on me, and contentment, pleasure, and the closest thing to joy I can imagine all flow through me like the Mississippi, wide and powerful. My eyes water and my nose burns.

I kiss him like the world might end tonight because I’ll never take this for granted. Not his kindness, when I’ve known cruelty all too well. Not his tenderness, when I’ve been handled roughly in the past. Not his love, when I’ve been possessed and owned and mistreated.

“It has happened, Iris.” He brings our clasped hands to his lips. “That’s not an alternative universe. That’s our life, baby.”

“No,” he finally replies. “You wanted to tell me yourself, and I know you hate your story, your life being out of your control. That everyone else gets to judge and interpret you. At least with me, I want you to be able to tell your story yourself. That’s how I want to hear it.”

My prince. He sees me. He knows me. He loves me, and I thank God for a second chance.

“Can I come?” he asks. “Like talk to them and ask how I should handle things? Or how I can support you? I just . . . I wanna kill him, Iris.”

“As long as he’s alive, I’m not safe and neither is my daughter. He tried to kill me.” She draws in a long breath, her eyes narrowed. “So we wait.” She’s my Iris, but I’ve never seen her like this. I thought I had seen all her sides, loved all her sides, but I’ve never seen this. Ruthless and beautiful and bloodied, she emanates all the strength and determination it must have taken her to survive. And I’ve never loved her more.

Iris is my constellation. She took the darkness as her cue to shine. It only made her brighter, stronger, and tonight, her hard-won glimmer lights up the sky.

I spoke because maybe there’s some girl like me. Young. Vulnerable. Naïve. Flattered by his attention. Maybe she thinks his jealousy means he loves her more or that it’s cute. Does she realize that slowly, surely, she’s being cut off from her friends? Isolated from her family? Being molded into something she’s not? Into what he wants her to be?

He’s a wall and a fortress. He’s twice my size, but I feel no fear. Only trust. Only sheltered.

“What I’m saying is this, August.” I tip up on my toes and smile against his ear. “Take the shot.”