Page 191 of Gamebreaker

It was the only way I could describe it afterward, when the analysts ran the numbers and came back with a line I'd never put up in a playoff game. The court looked different from the inside. I saw the defense the way I always had: gaps, rotations, the shifting mathematics of ten bodies reading each other in real time. But I saw it faster. Cleaner. Like a signal that had always been there, and I was finally receiving it without interference.

I threaded passes through windows that closed in the time it took to blink. I read the Seattle point guard's tells with a clarity that felt almost unfair. I ran the offense like I'd written it, like the game was a conversation I'd been waiting twelve years to have.

Late in the second quarter, Seattle started switching their center onto me on every high pick-and-roll. I clocked it. So did someone else.

I came up the floor on our last possession of the half and heard it, clear as a whistle, from the third seat in.

"That's a pick-and-roll!"

I scored on it. Of course I did.

When I jogged past the courtside seats, Harper was on her feet with both arms in the air, and Mia had her face in her hands, and an older man two seats down was laughing so hard he'd spilled his beer.

At halftime, up eight, I walked toward the bench and looked courtside without deciding to.

She was already looking at me.

Those three seconds again. Except this time, there was no distance in them, no grief underneath, no wall standing between her eyes and mine. She was just there. Fully there, in my name, under the lights, watching me with an expression I'd memorized over the last three days in a dozen different lights. Proud. Delighted. Completely undisguised.

She held my gaze. Then, slowly, deliberately, with half the arena and a broadcast camera watching, she mouthed three words.

I love you.

Two and a half weeks ago, in this same arena, I'd looked at her across fifteen feet of hardwood for three seconds and then turned away, because twenty-three thousand people were watching.

Twenty-three thousand people were watching.

I lifted my hand. I touched two fingers to the hair tie on my wrist, then pressed them flat over my heart.

Harper's hand flew to her mouth.

I turned and walked to my bench, and I couldn't stop smiling, and I didn't bother to try.

Fourth quarter. Two minutes and forty seconds left. Fangs by three.

Seattle called timeout. We gathered around Coach Lopez, and she ran through the defensive adjustments for the rest of the game. She'd been doing this for twenty years, and she trusted the people in front of her. I listened. I nodded. I mentally made note of it all.

We broke the huddle. I found my assignment and checked my hands.

The game resumed.

Seattle's point guard brought it up and probed for a gap that wasn't there. I slid my hand in at exactly the right moment and poked the ball loose near half court. I got to it first, looked up, and found Destiny already leaking out ahead of everyone. One pass. She laid it in uncontested.

Up five. Two minutes, twelve seconds.

They answered. A three from the corner that I should have closed out on harder. I'd been a step slow on the rotation, and I told myself I'd remember that for film, because this game wasn't over and I wasn't giving them anything else.

Up two. One minute, forty-eight.

We walked it up. I called the play and ran it, crossed over and got my defender leaning, drove into the paint and drew two Seattle bodies with me, then kicked it to Morgan at the elbow for the midrange shot she'd already hit six times tonight. She let it go. It rattled in and out. Seattle's center grabbed the rebound.

Up two. One minute, twenty-six.

I stayed low on defense, reading their guard's hips, knowing what was coming before she started it. Pick at the elbow. I fought over the top and stayed attached to her. She pulled up early, off balance. The shot was long. Trish went up and came down with the rebound.

Our ball. Fifty-eight seconds.

I brought it up slowly. I wasn't in any hurry. We had a fresh shot clock and a two-point lead, and every second I took off the clock was a second they didn't get back. Seattle was set, all five of them between me and the basket. I let the shot clock bleed. Twelve on the shot clock. Ten. Then I called for the screen.