Fearless by Annie Jocoby Page B

think that you were clueless that she wasn’t picking up what you were throwing down.”
    He looked mystified. Granted, he was kind of a stud, really. He got a lot of women, most of them pretty smoking, so pointing out his rather rare mis-fires probably was a blow to his ego.
    Finally he shrugged. “Eh, she pr obably already had a boyfriend.”
    “I’m sure that she did,” I said. I ran down the court, and dunked the ball, and then chased Jake down the court while he dribbled and he finally shot a basket from half-court, making it through the hoop cleanly.
    “Nothing but net, my brother,” he said, putting his hand down as I slapped it. “Let’s go get a brew and shoot some pool.”
    We both changed in the bathroom, and headed down to our bar in his beater hoopdie Corolla. “When are you going to get some wheels?” he asked me in the car.
    I thought about it, realizing that, with Nottingham’s money, getting a car might be a distinct possibility. Of course, I hadn’t actually seen dime one from Nottingham, so the car would just have to wait. Unless I wanted an absolute hoopdie that constantly had to be worked on, which Jake did, in his own driveway, just about every week. Personally, I had better things to do with my time than mess around with a car that was constantly on its last gasp, as was Jake’s Corolla, which was nicknamed Brown Betty.
    “Fuck that, man,” I said. “You know I’m looking to move to the city soon. No use getting a car now.”
    Jake started laughing. “You’ve been talking about moving to the city ever since I’ve known you. Unless you suddenly got some kind of sugar momma, I don’t see that move happening, my brother.”
    I bristled at the words sugar momma . “The only momma I’ve been getting with is your momma. Last night, in fact.”
    “Ha ha ha,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “Seriously, man, you gotta hustle your shit more. You’re really good. I’m just busting ya when I tease you about not being able to move to the city. You gotta cash in that lotto ticket you were born with, sooner or later.”
    I shook my head. Heard it all before. Truth be told, before Nottingham, nobody even really noticed me. It was tough standing out amongst all the wickedly talented artists who were in this city.
    We ordered our beers, and Jake looked around the bar. He caught the eye of a willowy blonde who was there with three of her girlfriends, and excused himself to go over and talk to her.
    He certainly did work fast.
    I looked at my phone, feeling bored and wanting to bolt. Which I would, if Jake ended up with blondie. I casually texted Dalilah, not really sure exactly why I was doing so. She just seemed to creep into my thoughts, just when I wasn’t expecting it. It wasn’t even her beauty or her talent or her obvious intelligence. It was something else, something that was as intangible as the non-verbal cues that I was discussing with Jake on the b-ball court.
    “Hey there, Dalilah,” I said, almost as a joke, as I knew that I was ripping off the ubiquitous song from many years ago.
    She texted me back immediately, an emoticon smile. “Oh, what you do to me,” she wrote, obviously continuing the joke. “How are you tonight, Luke?”
    “Awesome,” I texted. “What’s up your way?”
    “Doing some Googling,” she texted back. “Found your website.”
    I felt a little bit embarrassed, although I really didn’t know why. There was something about Dalilah seeing all of my work that made me feel vaguely uncomfortable, as if she would see it and find it wanting somehow. “Oh, yeah? Bet you couldn’t tell my work apart from Matisse, huh?”
    Another emoticon smile. “I’m actually VERY impressed,” she texted. “Your use of color and light is very reminiscent of Michael Flohr,” she texted, referring to the modern impressionist whose work I really did admire. “But you aren’t derivative, either. Your style is certainly unique.”
    I smiled, hoping that she