Violation
Authors: Lolah Lace
VIOLATION
A Novel
By
Lolah Lace
Published by Lolah Lace
Copyright © 2016 by Lolah Lace
Cover Design by LLPro
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Dedications
To all the active professional basketball players. Without you I would really have no reason to watch the game. Handsome, tall, sweaty and muscular. Like I said, I have a reason to watch you.
Acknowledgments
I will like to give an extra thanks to editor Camille Crawford and beta readers Patrice Harrison and Sheila B. Your input, notes and contributions are much appreciated.
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NOTE:
This book contains fictional professional basketball players/characters. They play on a fictional professional basketball team. All characters are derived from the author’s imagination.
We won. We pulled it off, our first five games of the preseason. It’s a little premature of me to think we will be unstoppable in the regular season. But we’re on fire. Signing with the Cavilers eight years ago was the best career move I could make. This team was a family. This town was my home.
I walked the hall alongside my partner in crime Deshawn Jones. He was smiling and I was too. It felt damn good to win so many games back to back. Our adrenaline had died down a bit but we were still pretty amped. We both had showered and changed into our street clothes. We had to do a quick post conference after the game. I wasn’t really a talker. I usually sat quietly and let Deshawn do all the press. He was the star. He was our Batman. I was Robin the sidekick. Our other teammate Lance Hollister was the Joker. Lance was actually Point guard. Now I’m wondering how the hell did Lance get out of this press conference?
We walked into the pressroom. It was chock-full of reporters and this was only preseason. It’s only going to get more chaotic. All the Chicago news stations were in attendance. The team’s general manager waited in the wings. Head Coach Dan Tucker trailed behind us. It was show time. I sat in the middle chair with Deshawn on one side of me and Coach Tucker on the other.
The dull noise of the reporters stopped as soon as we all were seated. These news conferences were normal now that we’ve won two championships back to back.
She was standing in the front row. I refused to give her direct eye contact. I knew she wanted it and I was sometimes an asshole. Somehow I knew she was going to target me first. I was ready for her question.
“Congratulations on your fifth consecutive win. Noah Hart, you were the leading scorer tonight. Is this going to be the norm for you?”
I called it. The tall blonde reporter from Channel 7 asked the first stupid question. She’s been trying to sleep with me for three years. I thought about it but something about her turns me off. She’s too eager, almost like a groupie. I had enough of them floating around me. If only she did her job as well as she flirted with me.
What is her name? Yes, it’s - “Katie, I highly doubt it will ever happen again. So please don’t expect much from me.” I joked. Most of the press laughed. “Deshawn was consistently passing the ball to me. I had more than enough opportunities to make shots so I took them.”
Deshawn reached over and mussed my overgrown hair. He smiled brightly at me. Here it comes. “I looked over at Noah and he was standing there looking so pretty. I gazed into his dreamy sapphire blue eyes and they said, Deshawn please throw me the ball. I fall for it, every single time.”
The entire room erupted with laughter. Deshawn had this overzealous need to draw attention to my looks. I get that enough with the press. He is always busting my chops. It didn’t help that I made it into People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive issue two years straight. I wasn’t on the cover but just making it inside gave my teammates plenty of ammo to mercilessly taunt me. I was a fat kid growing up so this attention to my looks was weird and uncomfortable.
Another reporter jumped to attention. “Deshawn, is this bromance real? Cav fans want to know.”
“Hell yeah. I love Noah. He is my brother from another mother. Shout out to Mrs. Hart. She raised a pretty handsome man and the best Power forward I have ever played with in my career.”
Deshawn patted my shoulder.
I grinned. I couldn’t help it. “I love this man.” I winked at Dee. He made the job fun.
“No-Hart I love you more,” Deshawn added with fifty percent sarcasm and fifty percent sincerity.
The reporters all got a kick out of our bro-love. It wasn’t staged. It was actually how we were since the beginning of our friendship.
“Coach Tucker, is this brotherly love what helps the Cavs win championships?” The male Sportscaster from channel 5 asked.
“I sure hope so. The Cavs are a close-knit family. We work together as a solid unit because we all have the same goal, to win basketball games.”
“Do you think you have a chance at another Championship this year?”
“That would be a bit premature. We are a strong team with strong players. My guys work hard in the off-season. They are in tiptop shape. We are going to do our best like we do every season.”
“So these first five wins, are they a prequel to what is to come?”
“I sure hope so.” Coach Tucker replied.
Katie was staring holes into my flesh. She was thirsty for my Long John. I could have her on her back in the underground parking garage if I saw fit. I made up my mind. That’s never going to happen.
I proceeded to give standard answers for standard questions. We had been coached in the art of appropriate answers for reporter’s questions. It’s all part of the game. Every franchise is the same give or take a few rules here or there.
The endless streams of useless questions went on for at least thirty minutes. Some of the questions were valid enough but the sideshow was always the same. Blah, blah, blah and more blah, blah, blah.
Finally, it was over. I walked down the corridor toward the locker room. Deshawn was beside me. The coach and the general manager were headed in the opposite direction.
“No-Hart that horny bitch from Channel 7 is waiting for you, my man.”
“Katie, you can have her.”
“That’s all you bro’h. I like my woman with a little color and a lot more ass.”
I chuckled. He was right. He had a type and Caucasian wasn’t it. “Dee why you won’t give the White girls your big black? That’s discrimination.” I couldn’t wait to hear his explanation. Dee had a reason for everything he did and thought.
“Bro’h, long story short. I had a badass Barbie back in junior high. She was bad man. She wasn’t one of them skinny ass White girls like you fuck. She had a cornbread ass. Well I’m an idiot thinking she’s my girl and she is fucking all my boys. She gave me crabs. Now I’m young as shit and I’m itching and shit. Crabs, that’s some gross as shit right there. I saw real fucking bugs all on my shit and I was like Nah, no more Barb’s for me.”
“What was our Barbie’s name?”
“Patty Danes.”
“Damn Dee you shouldn’t blame all white women for crabby-ass Patty.”
“I’m not. I don’t need any Barbie’s. I got you pale ass. You just ass pretty as any White hoe.”
“Thank you I appreciate it. I feel the same way about your Black ass. So Dee, you headed home?”
“Hell no! Come on, you know me better than that. We’re going over to Club Honey Pot. Our boys are already there. It’s celebration time Noah.”
“I’m going to take a pass.”
“No man, we won the first five games. We poppin’ bottles in this bitch. Come on man let’s hit the club and watch some clappin’ asses.”
“Not tonight Dee.”
“The big bootie hoes are going to miss you.”
“Nah I think they will be a-okay.”
“Whatever, I’m out. Kat is waiting for me after I leave the club.”
“Which one is that?”
“The one from Barbados. I played basketball my whole life so I always keep it gangsta.”
What does that have to do with Miss Barbados? “Okay well you do you.”
“Later No-Hart.” Dee pulled me in for a bro-hug. “You scared to get your dick wet, but it’s cool.”
“I’m not scared. I just don’t want crabs.” I snickered.
“That’s fucked up. I can’t tell yo’ ass shit. You go home and get some beauty rest you Heidi Klum looking motherfucka. I’m out.”
Deshawn jogged down the corridor on his way to the Stadium parking lot. His Porsche was parked out front as usual. His whip was being watched but Stadium security. He paid someone to pull his whip around to the front. He liked the celebrity status and the limelight. He was good at it. He was a suitable celebrity athlete. I had learned a lot from him. When I first joined the Cavs I could say he was a mentor to me.
He said I feared women but that was so far from the truth. I feared injury. I was an integral part of this team. I wanted another championship just as much as everybody else. I wanted to make NBA history. I knew that one chink in our dynamic trio and our dream of a three-peat would fade to dust. I was committed to this organization, this team, and the players.