Taking dinner & romance to a whole nother level…
My alter ego grooves on basketball, snarky heroes, unconventional heroines and a bit of naughty comedy.
In Points on a Curve, Rob’s a sports journalist with a nose for news, Tay’s a former European basketball star on the run from poor life choices. Rob’s sister is Tay’s bestie and when they all gather for dinner, it’s looking like a set-up…
Roz Lee, author of the Mustangs Baseball Series, calls Points on a Curve a “slam dunk romance.”
Excerpt: Rob’s waiting for the party to arrive with his waiter, Arturo, in rapt attendance.
Arturo harrumphed as Cordie and the Fink approached. Half of my brain registered that my oldest sister actually looked happy instead of simply well-groomed and petulant.
Sis had married often and well, the partings amicable, mostly, and the settlements generous. But unlike the rest of the distaff portion of our clan, she’d rolled the dice in the emotional lottery, coming up sixes and sevens and it hurt. I didn’t need her twin, Cate, to tell me so.
Of course, my peccadillos were the stuff of legend so anything I did, or didn’t do, was fair game. In some ways, of the whole brood, Cordie and I were cut from the same mold: cynical, closet romantics, loners with a hard-on for acceptance, but ultimately destined for rejection and disappointment.
Way to go, Robert. Hop on the pity train when big Sis shows up beaming with happiness and sporting a Platinum Visa card on her arm.
I should have been big enough to toodle past the misery loves company, and with another glass or two of that red wine under my belt, I’d give it a try.
That was the half with commitment issues talking.
I had a second half that was more left brain oriented, the one I used to analyze point spreads and keep track of double doubles. The Post had me locked into reporting on the pros but I had an enduring closet relationship with women’s basketball, especially at the college level. And there wasn’t enough currency in the world to convince me Gino didn’t walk on water or that Vivian didn’t part it.
Which was why I got that tingle, the one that should start in the gut and swirl around, setting the fine hairs to full alert. The tingle that said game on or I smell a story. This one was different. It headed south, like a freight train. As Arturo hustled to lay claim to the rest of the party, forsaking me in favor of a sure fire hit in the wallet ala a tip, I lusted after that dangling linen napkin.
Held just so, it would do a fine job of masking the happy to see you in my pants that was surprising the hell out of me.
The Valkyrie wasn’t anywhere near my type, which at age thirty-five amounted to short, perky, young and willing. Even with the willing, it sometimes took a lap dance or two to fire up the synapses. Chalk it up to overwork, or boredom, or being high … the fact of the matter was little Robert sometimes failed to show up to play. Tonight was different. I just couldn’t figure out exactly why.
Maybe it was the way the woman moved. Loose jointed, like a natural born athlete. A lot of tall women hunched to hide their height. This Valkyrie wore her dimensions with a fuck the universe attitude.
Kind of like my guys in the locker room.
If she’d been, say … fifteen years younger I’d have pegged her for WNBA, that’s how she moved—or conducted herself, depending on your school of thought, and in what decade you were born. When she reached to direct Cordie around to my side of the table for the air kiss, I caught a glimpse of a wingspan wide enough to have me creaming my jeans.
Not that I was wearing jeans. That’s just an expression.
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