The former NBA player tells PEOPLE he was "skeptical" going into the Bravo dating series but found an "incredible connection" with Janaye
Janaye and Carlos
Carlos Boozer and his girlfriend Janaye.
Warning: This post contains spoilers for the season finale of King's Court.
Carlos Boozer has found his queen!
The former NBA player, 43, ended his season of Kings Court with girlfriend Janaye and PEOPLE can confirm the pair are still together. In fact, the day the finale episode aired, Sept. 14, happens to mark the couple's one-year anniversary.
"When he asked me to be his girlfriend, that was actually on September 14th, and that's when the finale [airs]," Janaye tells PEOPLE in a joint interview with Carlos ahead of the finale. "So it'll be our year anniversary officially on the finale of the show."
The couple are celebrating the occasion with a trip. "We're going to Napa. We're going to spend our anniversary in Napa, so we'll be drunk on wine all weekend," Carlos tells PEOPLE.
Janaye and CarlosJanaye and Carlos
Carlos Boozer and his girlfriend Janaye.
The Queens Court Bravo spinoff followed Boozer, Tyson Beckford and Titus O'Neill, as they spent a month living in a house with 21 eligible women vying for their hearts.
One year after the experience Boozer says, "Life is great."
But the two-time NBA all-star admits that while he was "kind of skeptical going into" the show, he was happy to be proven wrong.
"I was like, I probably won't find a match, just how dating goes," he recalls. "It's hard to really make a connection in the real world — do you really think you're going to find a connection on a dating show?"
It was different with Janaye, though. "The great thing about the show was, we talked every single day, all day. She got to see me ugly and handsome, with a haircut, and the whole thing," he explains.
"So I got a chance to really get to know her. So I knew if she was going to be someone that I would pursue pretty quickly — and I obviously wanted to pursue her, pretty quickly."
Janaye says she applied for the show because she was "looking for my person" and felt a "need to put myself back out there."
"I've always wanted a family of my own, wanted to get married, wanted to have kids," she shares. "And I'm 32. Obviously, it was like, I'm not getting any younger."
Janaye and CarlosJanaye and Carlos
Carlos Boozer and his girlfriend Janaye.
When filming wrapped on the show, Carlos and Janaye emerged as boyfriend and girlfriend, with an "incredible connection" that Boozer says "everybody on the show and the set" could clearly see.
Keen to finally have some alone time, "away from the cameras and away from distractions," Boozer brought Janaye on a week-long trip to Mexico. "It was, again, just her and me, and no escaping, and it was just us vibing with each other and just cementing what we already had found."
"It was so nice," Janaye says of the trip. "It just really was an extension of everything in the house."
Life as a couple in the real world has been going well so far for the pair. "It's been smooth the whole time, honestly," Boozer says. "I feel like the transition into the real world was actually really seamless."
The biggest challenge they face is distance, as Boozer lives in Miami and Janaye is still in Tampa, but "we make time for each other," he says.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
"We both have kind of busy schedules, so we travel a little bit here and there. But we're so intentional about making time for each other, so it hasn't been that big of a deal."
Carlos Boozer and his girlfriend Janaye.
Janaye Robinson/Instagram
Looking to the future, Boozer, who is a father of three, says they are going to "continue to build the relationship."
"We're at a really good place," he says. "And we're building towards the next steps, whether that's moving in together and eventually marriage one day."
"Each day has been an awesome day," he continues. "For me personally, it's been really refreshing. So I'm looking forward to a super bright future with her.
The first season of King's Court is now streaming on Bravo.