Damn him. Damn him, because his voice held just the right amount of challenge and amusement to hook her like a fish. She was dribbling before she knew it, walking onto the court before she told her muscles to move.
Closer to the basket Jamie fired off a jump shot, too hard, the arc more of a straight line than the sweet curve needed to swish through the hoop. The ball chunked off the rim, setting the chains rattling. Jamie took two quick steps and rebounded it, then kissed it off the backboard for two.
She followed him with an easy layup, caught the ball when he politely bounced it her way. He smelled exactly the same, the scent of his sweat as familiar as her own. They were being oddly careful, avoiding contact, each waiting for the other to shoot. It was awkward, strange.
“How about a game of one-on-one?” he asked.
She sank a sweet three, remembering what they used to play for. “You sure about that? Because your game looks rusty.”
“I’m sure,” he said, refusing to be baited as he slapped her ball back to her with one hand and aimed a skyhook at the basket with the other.
In answer she tapped her ball toward the corner of the court, where it came to rest in the grass under a budding elm tree, and took up position at half-court, her hands on her hips. She’d been greedily eyeing him for a while now, but this was a frank assessment of an opponent. He was tight, playing through some level of pain in his shoulders and back, favoring his left knee.
He checked the ball to her, she bounced it back, and settled low while he dribbled, using his body to protect the ball. Moving at half speed, she reached around a couple of times, reminding him to get lower, when he pulled up and got off a jump shot that clanged off the rim. She reached for the rebound, spun, and dribbled to the midcourt line.
“Nice,” he said. “Still got your crossover?”
“It’s a little rusty,” she said, and started driving to the basket. Her crossover was just fine, thanks, but he wasn’t playing hard enough to warrant throwing down for him, and she didn’t want to give him her best game. Not so soon. Not yet.
The game went back and forth for a few minutes as they tested each other. With each bump of his shoulder to her collarbone, her back to his chest as she inched her way down the court, the tension grew between them, the hot sweet burn of temptation. That part was familiar. She’d always wanted Jamie. Always. But their bodies were different, his harder, filled out to a man’s size and strength, hers aware of the upside of sex when before she’d only seen the downside, the weakness, the danger. Before she’d wanted, aroused without really knowing what it would mean to have. Now she knew exactly how rare the desire between them was.
He stopped, breathing hard. “That’s ten,” he said.
“Was it?” she replied, avoiding his gaze. “I wasn’t keeping score.”
He flashed her a smile, breathing hard. “Just a friendly game? That’s something we’ve never done.”
All the nevers hung in the air for a moment before she opted for the safe answer. “We used to go at it pretty hard,” she said, then wished she’d thought about her answer, or the court would open up and swallow her whole.
“You played harder than any of the guys on the team,” he said, then lifted the hem of his shirt and wiped the sweat from his face.
It was a standard athlete move, one she’d done a thousand times without thinking about it But Jamie’s torso, pectorals angling into an eight-pack split by a line of hair leading from his navel into his shorts, made her mouth go dry. He’d been in good shape in high school, played with his shirt off during those spring nights. Now he was spectacular.
She wanted. She wanted with the desperation of the girl she’d been, and with the knowledge and passion of the woman she’d become.
“How long are you in town?” she asked, anything to break the tension.
He stopped and looked at her, his hair sweat-dampened at temples and nape, all his cowlicks standing up. “I’m on day four of a thirty,” he said.
Twenty-six days. She could have twenty-six days with Jamie Hawthorn. It might be enough to take what she’d wanted and never let herself have all those years ago, answer the question that haunted her in the middle of the night. Did she make the right decision when she walked away from Jamie?
“Just like old times,” he said, dimpling at her again.
“Not exactly,” she said before she could talk herself out of it. One game he’d bet her a kiss if he won. She’d let him win, let him kiss her, then challenged him to a rematch. He’d lost, and in the crestfallen look on his face, she knew he wasn’t playing just for the chance to kiss her. He saw her as a worthy competitor, not as a girl from the East Side, with a mother as easy as a swinging door and no future. It wasn’t about getting in her pants.
So she’d kissed him anyway.