“Don’t ask me to . . .” I swallow my words, but my fear won’t go down. “I cannot hurt him like this, Jared.”
“I don’t want you to hurt him. I want you to choose me.” He squeezes my waist, a warning. “But if you don’t choose me, you will hurt him because this . . . We are going to happen.”
“I have to go.” I step back into him only long enough to wrench the door open. “I need to find my guy before he destroys his career.”
I’ve been distracted by Jared long enough. I need to handle what I came here to do and get out before I allow Jared to wreak any more havoc on my life.
“Which guy?” he asks from right behind me. “You can’t wander around this house looking for your client, Banner.”
He takes my arm . . . again . . . and stops me in the hall.
“Do you know what kind of party this is?” His face hardens above me. “Anything goes, and half these guys are so high out of their minds, they wouldn’t even notice if you said no. So the hell I’m letting you run all over this house looking for your client.”
“Letting me?” Feminist indignation raises both brows. “Since when do you think you let me do anything? You’re not my father or my boyfriend, and even they don’t let me do things. I just do them. I’m a grown ass woman, not some little girl who requires an escort at a fucking party.”
“Oh, the grown ass woman who was being accosted when I found her?” he demands, anger sparking in his eyes. “That was going well.”
“I have a job to do.”
“Well you’re not doing it without me in this house at this party, and I don’t care if you like it or not. Try to shake me.”
Our wills war as we exchange glares, neither backing down.
“Tell me who you’re trying to find,” he says, softening his hands on me, his eyes on me. “And I’ll help you, but I’m not letting you out of my sight in this house.”
A weary sigh forces its way past my lips. I’ve been here an hour already and haven’t found my baller yet. There’s no telling how much trouble he’s gotten into since Tanya texted me.
“Hakeem Okafor.” I look up and see recognition and realization on his face. “Yeah, the one who was suspended for weed twice this season. He’s here and it’s a lot worse than weed. Tanya saw him over a line of coke. He hadn’t done anything then, but I need to intervene before it gets out. One post to Instagram, one tweet, one peep about this, and he could be out of the league for good.”
“A line of coke.” A muscle knots under the sculpted line of Jared’s jaw. “Let me get this straight. You’re at what is essentially an orgy to ‘rescue’ a seven-foot man who’s probably high on cocaine, from himself? Have I missed anything? Some detail that would make this a good idea?”
My concern gives way to anger.
“I told you why I’m here.”
“And I’m telling you it’s not wise.” He places his hand at the small of my back and urges me toward the stairs. “Where are you parked?”
I dig in the heels of my Stuart Weitzmans and whip around, shoving him back.
“I need to find Hakeem first, Jared.”
“You’re his agent, not his mother, Banner,” he returns with heat.
“Right. I’m not his mother,” I snap, slicing one hand through the air for emphasis. “His mother fled a war-torn country with four children and nothing but the clothes on her back. His mother worked three jobs to support them by herself in a new place where she knew no one and had to restart their life from scratch.”
“Ban—”
“His mother is the one I looked dead in the face and promised if she sent her son to the NBA, I would do everything in my power to help him. To protect him.” I swallow an anxious lump, recalling that conversation at her tiny kitchen table on the south side of Chicago. “She’s the one who, for the first time in her life, isn’t worried about how her kids will eat or how they’ll go to college. How her family will make it, and that’s because her son is making eight figures playing basketball.”
I push past him and start toward the set of stairs that takes me to the next floor.
“I need to find him so he can keep playing basketball and I can keep my promise to her.”
“Killer with a heart,” he says softly behind me.
I freeze, one foot on the next stair, and look at him over my shoulder. The years fall away, and I’m not the high-powered agent wearing six-hundred-dollar shoes, and he’s not the ruthless man with a fleet of well-tailored suits and the fastest growing agency around. We’re just two barely-adults dreaming about our futures and wondering who we will ultimately become. I’m happy with the path I chose, and I know he’s happy with the road he’s taken. Our paths diverged, but for whatever reason, lately we keep coming back to this.
“Are you gonna help me or what?” I ask, offering a wry grudging smile.