Block Shot (Hoops, #2)

by Kennedy Ryan

“There is something about falling in love with a beautiful mind ...” -Cindy Cherie, Poetess

“You’re too smart to be confused by something so simple.”

Know what you’re willing to give up before you start.

Sometimes a dish carries a scent so rich you taste it before it hits your tongue.

“There will be men who fall in love with your skin and others who drown themselves in everything that lies beneath.” -Cindy Cherie, Poetess

The gulf between the truth and the lies we tell ourselves is filled with misery.

“She is your older sister, Bannini,” Mama says softly. “All the things you both dreamed about, you’ve actually done. Your sister made different choices. She wouldn’t trade Anna for the world, but hers was a different path. She’s been slowed down. Maybe sometimes it’s hard for her to see you running so far ahead.”

“Do not live someone else's life and someone else's idea of what womanhood is. Womanhood is you." -Viola Davis, Oscar-Winning Actress

We re-made truth. We re-shaped fact.”

“I don’t give a damn about odds,” she says. “Odds don’t tell me what I can’t do. Odds just tell me how hard I’ll have to work to get what I want. Don’t allow anyone to make you feel less.”

“What I’m saying is be unafraid to want it all and be disciplined enough to work hard to get it.”

“But the daughter of a lion is still a lion, and this is your domain.”

She is day and I am night. When day and night are absolutely equal, it’s equinox. Banner is my equinox. My equal. The revelation rattles around inside me, but my face, my surface remains smooth.

It’s loud, and the machine sounds like it’s working hard to overcome the laws that would chain us to the ground.

“I saw you first,” he whispers, kissing the bridge of my nose where my freckles are. “I had you first.” He kisses my face where the dimple dents my cheek when I smile. “I want you back,” he declares, meeting my eyes and taking my mouth in a deep kiss, never looking away.

That was my only sin. Until now. Now I add another.

“Never do anything you can’t live with or walk away from the person you can’t live without.” -Pee Wee Kirkland, Basketball Legend

For a moment, the weight of what I’m up against is crushing. I’ve known Banner longer, but he’s had the last ten years with her. I had what?

“Why’d you come?” “To make sure he didn’t forgive you.”

“I’m not trying to delete him,” Jared snaps, his frown dark and heavy. “I’m trying to add me. I mean, did I happen? Am I happening?”

How often do you get a second chance at something truly great? Something you couldn’t fully appreciate at the time because you hadn’t yet experienced what the world had to offer and found it lacking?

The worst of us exploit each other’s pain to get something for ourselves,

“I don't need to be so full of myself that I feel I am without flaw. I can feel beautiful and imperfect at the same time. I have a healthy relationship with my aesthetic insecurities."

i cannot love you gently, it’s not in me to love in part, so I will love You completely, and a little madly . . . – Matt Spencer, Poet

I don’t mind heavy. Life is heavy sometimes.

loving someone is the most selfless thing you can do,”

“It’s not always about what you want from that person but what you want for them. What’s best for them. What makes them the best version of themselves.

And damn it all if I wouldn’t do the same because Banners don’t just grow on trees. They burned the mold when they made her.

“But we both know you’re a better man than I am, and I have no intention of losing her.”

Who would chase something as hard as Jared has chased me if you didn’t want it badly?

“I love you.” I let that sink in, soothe the ache in my heart as I prepare myself for the next few hours. But can you ever really prepare to walk through Hell?

but I don’t live any part of my life to satisfy other people, and I’m damn tired of conducting my love life by the dictates of others.

“I don’t want you for good, Banner,” he says. “I want you forever.”