Chapter Eleven
NASH
These sparks of lightning between them, so quick and unpredictable, couldn’t be in his head…could they?
Just as he’d feel awe at the brilliance and how they lit up his world, they would vanish. Nash couldn’t gauge whether his mind was playing games or whether his heart was opening up to her—this girl, who had offered him nothing but kindness since they’d met, who loved video games and discovered epiphanies in the plainest of moments.
“What game do you want to play?” He had to change the subject so he wouldn’t think about it anymore. He didn’t want to ruin the day by pondering too much.
“Basketball, obviously.”
Kiran’s accent as she pronounced his favorite sport bass-cut-bowl was so endearing, he couldn’t help but smile. He could have gotten tangled in the curves of her letters and the melody of her voice all day.
“You’re, like…five-four. Do you even have basketball skills?”
“I’m competitive. That’s all that matters.”
“How do you figure?”
“A competitive person works to win. They’re paying attention to how they play, and they practice until they score. I may not be the best right now, but I guarantee I’m more attentive to what I’m doing and whether it works than anyone else who takes things lightly.”
“What if I’m competitive too?” All those years of trying to beat the odds had to count for something.
“Then we’ll have a good game, won’t we?”
“Is it a game if there’s nothing to lose?”
“What are we betting?” She tilted her chin in defiance.
He thought about it for a second. This was the perfect opportunity to ask for a kiss or a date or be flirtatious…but a rope tightened around his heart, forcing him back, and his intuition warned him not to take advantage of this moment.
“Winner buys food for the rest of the day?”
Her face lit up. “Deal.”
They loaded up on game credits and got ready.
“You know you’re going to lose, right?” Kiran challenged.
“Did you just trash talk me?” Nash asked incredulously.
“I did.”
“I don’t even know what to say to you right now, but maybe when you’re buying me my eighth bucket of french fries and you’re down fifty bucks, you can think back to this moment.”
They stared at each other, steel in their eyes and their hands on the buttons to release the basketballs from their prison at the top of the alley.
They pushed.
Of the eight basketballs in the cage, only six of Nash’s came down the slide for him to shoot.
“Goddamn,” he muttered to himself.
He snuck a glance at Kiran. All of her basketballs had come down, but rather than taking the time to aim and shoot, she was firing like a machine gun in the general direction of the basket, adjusting her force when the balls bounced off the backboard too hard or airballed.
“I think you have to aim,” Nash said.
“I disagree,” she shouted back, though they were standing next to each other.
“What’s your logic?”
He shot three in a row, and only one made it in. The score was 8–4. How was she winning?
“Volume, not accuracy!”
He tried her technique, breaking habits from years of basketball practice in high school and pickup games in college to fire as quickly as possible without following through or waiting for the result.
He made two shots consecutively, and the score was 9–6.
The timer began to count down with ten seconds left on the clock. The basketballs they were now shooting stopped returning to them. Nash saw Kiran pick up speed in the corner of his eye with the balls she had left. A bead of sweat dripped from his forehead at his efforts to outshoot her, and his arms were heavy from his repetitions.
Beep!
11–9.
Kiran rubbed her arms like she was giving herself a hug and winced when she squeezed her shoulders.
“I’d say best out of three, but you might lose your arms,” Nash teased.
“If you want to go again, we’ll go,” she said immediately, her face lighting up.
“You sure you can handle it?”
“Did you see the score? If you want to humiliate yourself again…”
As she made fun of him, her skin emitted a glow, like there were thousands of tiny fireflies casting a golden light on her.
Nash couldn’t look away. Without a second thought, he stepped close and put his hands on hers, gently putting pressure on her shoulders over her own fingers.
Her eyes fluttered shut at his touch.
“You okay?” he murmured, simultaneously hoping she wasn’t experiencing any achiness and wishing she would lean on him for a little longer.
She hummed in response, the way cats did when they purred in contentment.
The scent of musky roses, or incense, flooded him as he stood near her. For a fleeting second, he wondered what it’d be like to kiss her, to gently tug her ponytail back as he kissed her neck, and to pull her closer to him so there wasn’t any room to separate them.
Her eyes opened suddenly, and she gasped—a strangled sound like she was shocked and couldn’t breathe.
“I’m sorry,” he stuttered, immediately withdrawing his hands and stepping back. “I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.”
“No… No, it’s okay.” She recovered. “We pushed a sore spot. I must be a lot more out of shape than I thought!”
Kiran’s eyes had widened, but just as he registered her expression, it was gone. Nash wasn’t sure how to respond, but his heart felt a longing to turn back time to ten seconds ago and freeze it to when he felt a peace he hadn’t known he was missing.
Kiran, on the other hand, had bounced back and pasted an expression of contentment on her face.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” He wasn’t talking about the soreness.
“I’m fine, I promise.” She touched his arm to reassure him, but when she let go, a void stayed between them.
He nodded, trying to smile and unable to speak.
“So,” she said with a genuine smile on her face. “Bowling? With a side of french fries?”
Nash tried to recover the way she had. “Sounds great.”
She brushed past him and began walking slowly to the bowling alley with her hands in the pockets of her jeans, wristlet dangling from her arm. Nash trailed behind, unsure what to say.
She turned on her heel, taking two steps backward slowly as she spoke. “So…about that basketball game.”
“If you want me to say it out loud, fine… I lost. You won. I will feed you for the rest of the day and probably have to sell a kidney on the black market to afford it.”
She laughed delightedly and shook her head.
“What?”
“I only made that bet with you because I wanted to win it—but you forgot the food was free today, didn’t you?”
With that comment, all was back to forgotten.