Keep Me Hanging On

When stickball champion, Slade Locklear, is denied financial help from his college to take his team to the World Series Stickball Games, he must ask his reluctant ex-best friend, Makaiyah Henderson, to help him fundraise enough money to go to the championship.

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Slade Locklear is Oklahoma's reigning stickball champion, and his team is closer than ever to competing in the World Series Stickball Games. There's just one problem-without funding, they're not going anywhere. After his college dean turns him down, Slade is forced to seek help from the one person he never thought he'd have to face again.

Makaiyah Henderson.

His childhood best friend.

Makaiyah has always carried the weight of the world on her shoulders. Brilliant, driven, and fiercely protective of her Afro-Indigenous roots, she's dedicated her life to uplifting her community and fighting for representation in a world that never allowed for it. Helping a former stickball star who once broke her trust was never part of the plan. But when the opportunity arises to raise funds for the stickball team after her college denies them, Makaiyah agrees. Reluctantly.

Through three fundraising events, Slade and Makaiyah are forced back into each other's lives. Working side by side reignites more than old memories, but unresolved wounds don't disappear just because feelings resurface. As the championship draws closer and the pressure mounts, they'll have to decide whether they can rebuild what was broken between them, or let the truth about their past cost them everything they've worked for.