Can't Get Enough (Skyland, #3)(36)

“Hmmmm.” She tilts her head back. “All-time favorite may be The Wire.”

“Ohhhhh,” I say approvingly, leaning one elbow on the balcony railing. “Good taste. You like Top Boy, too?”

“I’ve never seen it. I need something really good to watch.”

I pound the balcony railing with one fist. “Damn, I envy you getting to watch that for the first time. It’s British. I’ve only gotten through season one, but it’s incredible. Like The Wire, but East London. So fucking good.”

She flutters her fingertips together. “I’m in.”

“Watch Summerhouse first. Sort of a prequel, but it’s short.”

“If I got nothing else from tonight,” she says, “I have a new show to watch.”

“Seems like you’ll get a lot out of tonight.” I nod my chin over my shoulder toward the ballroom. “Quite a presentation you and your partners put on. And you have a great group of founders. Thanks for inviting me.”

“See anything you like?”

I consider her in the light of lamps and moonbeams with her skin warm and deep chestnut against the vibrant pink of her dress.

I see something I like much more than I should.

“You already know I want in on Hue,” I answer the unwittingly loaded question as innocuously as possible.

“Of course. I’d be surprised if you didn’t. Anything else intrigue you?”

Too many wrong answers to that question, too.

I settle on: “We’ll see.”

“Take all the time you need.” She leans her elbows on the railing and stares at the view, her profile a bold etching against the city’s glow. “I appreciate you coming.”

I weigh the question that has been plaguing me since I first saw her tonight.

“I meant to check earlier, but there wasn’t time,” I say. “How’s your mother?”

She drops her chin the slightest bit and bites her bottom lip before snapping her head back to a proud angle. “Hanging in there. Doing pretty well, considering. My aunt’s having major surgery in a few weeks. She’ll be on bedrest and will need assistance with Mama, so I’ll be going home to help.”

It was always tough seeing my grandfather after not visiting for a while. Every time I saw him for the first time again, his vitality seemed to be fading a little more. Alzheimer’s as a concept a few states away is very different from the daily reality of it in person.

“You know,” I say, “my mom got into a support group for loved ones and caretakers. That might not be a bad idea for you, especially as things progress.”

Something akin to panic freezes on her face for a moment, but then melts into resignation. “You’re probably right. I think being home that long might force me to face the inevitability of this situation in a way I haven’t had to before.”

“And home is where?”

“Charlotte. Well, a little town right outside of it. When you’re from a rural area, you kinda just claim the closest big city.”

“I would never have pegged you for ‘rural.’”

“I country code switch,” she laughs. “Let me get around my people for a few minutes and the country comes out. So you grew up on the West Coast?”

“Pretty much. When I was young, my dad played for the Clippers. The team had relocated from Buffalo to San Diego and then to LA, which is where I was born.”

“Your dad played with them his whole career?”

“Nah, near the end he got traded a few times. We bounced around some, but we kept our place in LA. When he retired, we moved back there until he got a job as an assistant coach with the Vegas Vipers.”

“So you spent a lot of time in Vegas?”

“Yeah, middle school, high school. Even though I was born in Cali, Vegas felt most like home. It’s a hustler’s town. Risk is in its blood, and that appealed to me.”

“So you played ball?”

“Like most sons of pro ballers I thought I could dribble in my father’s footsteps,” I say, mocking myself. “My mom stole some inches from me, her short self.”

“She was petite?”

“Yeah, man. Like five four. My dad’s six six.”

“And you’re what? Six feet?”

“Six two.”

“You got me by a few inches.”

“Not tonight in those shoes.” I let my eyes slide down her body, suppressing the urge to linger on her breasts and everything on the way to her feet. “In those, we’re about the same height.”

By the time my gaze finds hers again, her eyes are narrowed on me. Not necessarily suspicious. Cautious. She should be. Under normal circumstances, I’d make a play. Take a chance. Ask her out because the pull between us is evident, and if I’m being honest, has been since I sat down beside her at my party. But these aren’t normal circumstances. Since she’s doing this show with Zere, I’m not sure they ever will be.

“So you defer college to work with your dad for a bit,” she says. “And then go to Caltech, knock up your STEM girlfriend, she gives you an app and a baby, and a happily ever after?”

“Not quite. We were both happy with the app and the baby, just not with each other for ever after. As friends, yeah. She didn’t want to run a business. She wanted to teach and to cash a nice fat check each month, so she sold her controlling interest to me. Still owned a little piece, but not enough to carry much responsibility.”