“I love you, Rex,” I tell him. And I feel his trembling hands go still on the crown of my head. See his tender face burst open. Hear a hundred tiny bells toll in my heart. No false alarms.

REX

“I love you, too,” I say, looking at her, looking at me. Feeling her, feeling me. “So much. You don’t even know.”

I kiss her.

After a while she pulls away and stares at me.

She kisses me.

After a while I pull away and stare at her.

And it’s like we’re two trees secretly sharing nutrients underground, two stars orbiting around all the things there’s no language for.

Two and Two

CARLI

It’s official. Shannon wants to be me.

“Do you see this chick?” I ask Jordan. We’re walking toward the middle of the Alamodome court for the jump ball. The whole first level of the arena is packed out. Forty-five thousand people, Cole told me before the start of the game, in San Antonio to see us ball.

“How could I not? Girl got issues,” Jordan says, and ties her new twists—royal blue to match our uniforms—up in a ponytail.

“Yeah, Single Black Female–type issues,” I say, catching a shot of Jordan and me above on the jumbotron.

“I don’t know. Maybe she’s doing it to mess with you.”

“Mess with me?”

“Yeah, maybe this is her version of the Lance Stephenson ear-blowing move. It sure did mess up LeBron. Don’t let her throw you off your game, Carli,” Jordan says before lightly elbowing me and walking to her position on the other side of the circle.

I’m in the middle of the circle, under what feels like a million bright lights, facing Shannon—that forward from Langham who gave us problems last year. The one who wears my number, twenty-two. Yeah, her.

Home chick has decided to dye her hair the same color as mine. Not a fiery red or a burgundy red or a violet red, which could all pass as reasonable ways to switch it up from her old black hair. Oh no, she chose a born-with-it red. A brownish, golden red. Ain’t too many black ginger girls in this world, and I guess she just so happened to decide to become one of us.

“I like your hair,” I tell her.

“Thanks,” she replies, and shyly smiles—the corners of her pale lips, almost the same color of her pale skin, barely curving up. She clearly doesn’t get the intended sarcasm. I need her to get it, but now the ref is here about to toss up the ball.

“Okay, ladies. We all know what’s on the line. But let’s keep it clean. Good luck,” the spiky-haired man says, and steadies the ball in his right palm.