After a chance courtside encounter, a fake relationship between a rising influencer and a WNBA star gets a little too real in this swoony sapphic romance.
Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Two Can Play That Game by Zakiya N. Jamal, which releases on November 17th 2026.
Chelsea has never cared about sports. But when she’s invited to sit courtside at a New York Rebels game, she welcomes the break from her usual routine. What she doesn’t expect is a basketball nearly colliding with her face—or the six-foot-four hottie who jogs over, flashing a heart-stopping grin, to retrieve it.
Adrienne “AD” Daniels is a player on and off the court, notorious for their inability to stay in a relationship. Still, something about Chelsea sticks with them—even though their instant connection can’t bring AD to offer more than one night.
But AD’s agent makes a pitch: Chelsea should pretend to be AD’s girlfriend. It’s a strategic move. AD, hoping to retire after this season, needs to lock down some brand deals—but their identity as a Black, nonbinary lesbian with a messy dating history makes sponsors wary. Chelsea, a sex-positive influencer, is ready to take her platform to a new level, and this feels like the perfect next step. With Chelsea’s network and AD’s star power, they could both strengthen their public images. Once the season ends, they’ll go their separate ways.
As the ruse starts to work and their connection deepens, Chelsea finds herself on unsteady ground. Falling for AD wasn’t part of the plan, and if she follows through, she just might lose her heart and the future she’s finally starting to build.
EXCERPT
Was there anything more sapphic than going to a women’s basketball game for a first date?
Chelsea Evans was attempting to answer this question by crafting a list of the most sapphic dates in her head as she sat courtside with her date, who was so into the game, she hadn’t spoken to Chelsea since it started. Truthfully, that was probably for the best, seeing as all Chelsea knew about basketball was there were two teams and they scored points by putting the ball in the basket. If she was meant to know more than that, it was obvious she was not going to learn that evening.
Thankfully, she didn’t really want to.
The truth was, she’d only agreed to this date because she’d been in a bit of a dry spell lately, which was not great for her brand as a sex-positive influencer. People came to her for her stories about her sex-capades, advice, and toy recs. And because she was hot. She was self-aware enough to acknowledge that was a large part of it too.
But her followers who’d stuck with her for over ten years did so because of her experiences, and as her following had all but stalled these days, Chelsea needed to give her fans something other than another branded post for a sex toy.
Or, as she was beginning to consider lately, she needed a whole new brand altogether. That, however, would require more work and planning, and getting laid was more fun anyway.
Which is how she found herself sitting courtside at a WNBA game with an up-and-coming female rapper whose name, Chelsea was sorry to say, she’d already forgotten. Not that she seemed all that interested in knowing Chelsea’s either.
So, instead of attempting to feign interest in the game, she was making a list of the most sapphic date ideas. Thus far she had:
- Going to a WNBA game.
- Helping someone move and then somehow moving in with them.
- Crafting a shared Spotify playlist with Victoria Monét, Syd, and Ari Lennox. Maybe also Reneé Rapp, for diversity.
Chelsea was flip-flopping between a cat adoption event or a crochet circle for the fourth option when her date finally spoke to her.
Or rather, yelled at her. “Look out!”
Chelsea didn’t know where to look or what was happening. She just threw up her hands, and next thing she knew, there was a basketball slapping against her open palms and then coming down on her lap as she lowered her hands, the ball somehow still attached to them.
“Whoa, you caught it!” Chelsea’s date—was it Trish? Or maybe Tricia—was now fully turned to her, gaping.
Chelsea sat frozen, her chest rising and falling as she tried to catch her breath.
“Ah, hey.”
A deep, scratchy voice came from somewhere above Chelsea’s head, breaking through the noise of the arena that was now filtering back in as she began to regain her senses.
Chelsea looked up to find the source of the voice and was met with deep brown eyes staring down at her and a set of soft lips that were slightly quirked, in what was most likely amusement.
“We kind of need that back,” the person said.
It was then that Chelsea got a good look at them. Or tried to, anyway. They were quite tall and standing directly in front of Chelsea, so she had to lean back to look. Starting from the bottom, Chelsea’s eyes made their way up, scanning. The player was wearing the uniform for the New York Rebels, the home team and supposedly who Chelsea was there to root for. They were light-skinned, clearly over six feet if Chelsea had to guess, and had a sleeve of tattoos on each arm. Their soft lips were still quirked when Chelsea’s eyes made it back to their face, and that’s when she noticed the eyebrow slit on both their brows.
Chelsea wasn’t sure what it was about that that gave this person an extra point for hotness, but it definitely did.
“Chelsea,” her date said, elbowing her in the side. “Give them the ball.”
“Oh, right,” Chelsea said. Standing, she held the ball out to the player, and yes, they were definitely at least six feet, as Chelsea found herself face-to-face with their collarbone.
“Sorry,” Chelsea said.
“I don’t think you should be the one apologizing when you’re the one whose beautiful face would’ve been ruined if not for your fast reflexes,” they said.
Chelsea quirked a brow. “Beautiful?”
Before they could respond, a whistle blew, and that’s when Chel-sea was reminded that there was a basketball game going on.
“Let’s finish this later,” the player said, before winking and run-ning back onto the court.
Chelsea tilted her head as she read the back of their jersey.=
Daniels 23.
She’d need to look them up later, preferably when her date wasn’t sitting right beside her. Until then, Chelsea found herself newly in-terested in the sport of basketball as she watched Daniels 23 run up and down the court for the rest of the night.
