The Game of Love: (BWWM Romance)

by K. Alex Walker

  “Without me?” Austin asked, surprised.

  “You’re flying out with the team. You guys have appearances and a parade in Dallas tomorrow.”

  “And you don’t think I’d cancel that to be with you and Ms. Caroline?”

  She raised her hand to stroke his cheek. “No. I know you would.”

  “So, what’s the problem?”

  “The problem is that right now, you can’t.”

  “I can do whatever I want.”

  “But think of your fans.”

  “And you’re my family.”

  She nibbled on her bottom lip.

  “Sommer, what’s the real reason that you don’t want me to come with you?”

  She busied herself by tracing the outline of his jaw. “Because I want to do this alone. I want to face this alone.”

  “But why?”

  “Not the entire time,” she clarified, “Just in the beginning. At this point, I don’t know what kind of shape my mother’s in and I don’t want to drag you into it until I know what I’m dealing with.”

  Austin shifted in the chair. “Interesting choice of words. Drag me into it.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  And he did know what she meant, but she wasn’t understanding what he meant. What if, when she went home, her mother was in extremely bad shape? Then he’d have to think about her being alone to handle that as well as take care of Livvie when it was his job to be there to help her shoulder the weight.

  “Sommer, when two people love each other, they share the weight,” he explained. “Everybody’s got some kind of burden to bear and the more they take on, the heavier it gets. But we’re not mules. So, when someone tells you that they love you, and they really love you, they’re telling you to give them some of that weight. Just put a little of it on their shoulders. The more people you have around that love you, the more you can evenly distribute the load so that no one is left crushed.”

  He sighed and brought her fingers to his lips. “Baby, you have your mother, Livvie, and you’re still recovering from having a baby a little over a month ago. That’s a lot of stress that you’re putting on yourself. Stress takes years off of your life and I want you around for a while, even years after I’m gone, so let me be there for you.”

  Sommer swallowed her tears. “I understand, I really do. But I’m not shutting you out. Just let me go in first. See how things are. Then we’ll go from there.”

  He wasn’t satisfied, but he also knew that he was fighting a losing battle. She wouldn’t change her mind. At least, not at that instant.

  “How long will you be gone?” He resigned.

  “Just a couple of days. Your mom’s coming with me. We’re going to try to convince my mom to come back to Dallas. Uncle Reese hired a new girl, Faye, who used to run her own bakery back in Louisiana. She’s picking up the ropes pretty quickly, so I can’t think of any excuse Mom could give me about not coming to Texas.”

  “Ma’s abandoning me too?” He playfully tossed up his hands, and then buried a kiss in her hair. “Two days, Sommer. If you’re gone any longer than that—”

  “You’re going to come find me,” she finished.

  “And then, I’m going to—”

  “Drag me by my ankles to the plane, even if I throw a tantrum in the middle of the terminal.”

  He pressed another kiss into her hair. “Promise me that if it gets overwhelming, you call me. Doesn’t matter what I’m doing, I’ll come right to you. You and Livvie, you two are my life. You’re my family. None of this is more important than you two.”

  Sommer nodded, forcing back another round of tears. “I know, Austin. I know.”

  They quietly looked out onto the city while he lazily stroked her arm, and she nestled herself deeper into his embrace. Then his stomach growled.

  “Let’s go eat,” Sommer said, easing out of his lap and pulling him up to stand. “I also ordered some dessert since you now know what a championship tastes like.”

  He grinned and tried to grab her around the waist, but she stepped out of his grasp and hurried inside. He chased her all the way to the table, and then trapped her body between his arms against the glossy wood.

  “Two days,” he reiterated.

  “Boy scout’s honor,” Sommer promised.

  “Doesn’t count if you weren’t a boy scout.”

  “Then girl scout’s honor.”

  He kissed her nose. “You were never a girl scout.”

  He moved so that she could slip out of his grasp, and they sat at the table to find the food surprisingly still warm.

  “I was a girl scout,” Sommer attested, digging into the salmon. “For two days.”

  “Oh, excuse me. My mistake.”

  She smiled and it still didn’t reach her eyes. He could tell that she was still thinking about her mother, so he did his best to keep a smile on her face. However, he’d been dead serious. If in two days she wasn’t on her way back to Dallas, he would go get them. Kicking and screaming, if he had to.

  *****

  “Austin’s not picking up,” sports agent Gary West said, tossing his phone across the room. “Do you think he’s seen them? The social media responses to Olivia?”

  The other two gentlemen that had been pulled out of bed for the emergency meeting exchanged quizzical looks.

  “And where’s Selina?’ Gary yelled. “She should be on top of this.”

  “She’s working on it,” one of the men, Eric Oldson, informed. “We’re hoping that it blows over.”

  “Blows over? We’re talking about Texas for crying out loud.” Gary pointed at the second man, Ryan Townsend. “Tell me, what are people saying now?”

  “The same stuff as before,” Ryan answered. “We have people sending in messages that revolve around adoring Olivia, but then there’s the nasty ones.”

  “And what about the web searches?”

  “People are wondering if Austin is half-black, or if Olivia is half-black, but the biggest jump of all is a search for Austin Riley’s baby mama.”

  Gary grimaced.

  “But nothing else right now? No one’s coming forth and saying that they know who she is?”

  Eric shook his head. “Not as far as we can see.”

  Gary took a seat at the meeting table and clasped his hands on the tabletop. “Okay, good.”

  “There might be one issue though,” Ryan spoke up. “Some people have inquired as to why Austin has been hiding Olivia’s mother as though he’s ashamed to say he had a baby with an African American woman. If that point of view picks up steam, we might have an issue.”

  Gary rhythmically tapped his fingers together. “Well, if nothing’s changed for right now, let’s sleep on it. If it ends up on the network, we’ll have Selina squash it. Get the focus back on the championship win.”

  The men rose, shook hands, and then returned to their rooms. Gary tried Austin a fourth time, and again the phone went to voicemail.

  “Dammit.”

  He tossed his phone again, this time onto the bed. Austin was at the pinnacle of his career and had never had any indiscretions to speak of. For years, different media outlets had tried to find ways to portray him in a negative light with all of them failing. Many of his endorsement deals also relied on that good moral character, so all it would take at this point was someone with a single shred of evidence that could make it appear that Austin was ashamed of Sommer, to turn this small event into a large controversy.

  He flopped onto the bed. His stomach was uneasy, but something told him that it wasn’t because of indigestion. Something big was coming, and he only hoped that whatever it was, their team either had a way to deflect it, or enough ammunition to fight it.

  Chapter Ten

  When Reese picked Sommer, Olivia, and Emma up from the airport, from the look on his face alone, Sommer could tell that something wasn’t quite right.

  He’d remained stone-faced and silent on the entire ride as though battling something inside. Then, when t
hey passed the medical center and headed in the direction of the Cherry Avenue, Sommer knew. Her mother wasn’t in the hospital, which meant that she was at home…against doctor’s orders.

  The two-story house seemed foreign as they pulled into the driveway. There were weeds growing up through cracks in the cement, and the hedges looked as though they hadn’t been pruned in weeks.

  That had been the second indication that something was wrong. Caroline Hayes was an avid gardener. She handled her shrubs, flowers, bushes, and herbs with as much care as one would handle a newborn baby. There was no way that a healthy Caroline would have left her babies looking so unkempt.

  “Would you like me to stay outside?” Emma asked, reaching for Sommer’s hand.

  “I don’t know anymore, Ms. Emma,” Sommer replied, the muscles in her throat sore from holding down fits of emotion. “I thought that I could handle this, but this wasn’t what I was expecting. She’s not in the hospital.”

  “She left against doctor’s orders,” Reese spoke up, telling Sommer what she’d already figured out. “Som, you need to talk to her. She’s talking crazy.”

  Sommer glanced at the house. “Crazy how?”

  “Like quitting crazy.”

  “You mean, like giving up?” Emma’s grip tightened around Sommer’s fingers. “You’re not telling us everything, are you Reese?”

  He shook his head, but didn’t say anything more.

  “I should’ve let Austin come,” Sommer realized, her gaze hovering over to Emma. “I was wrong. I can’t do this alone.”

  Emma pushed open the car door. “You don’t have to. I’m coming in with you.”

  Sommer mechanically exited the car and reached inside to remove Olivia from the car seat. Reese gently touched her hand.

  “I’ll bring her inside,” he offered, removing the straps. “You two go on in.”

  Climbing the steps felt as though she was wading through a marsh. Her legs felt thick and heavy, and her chest tightened and expanded as though made of elastic. Emma was holding her hand but she could no longer feel her fingers. She couldn’t feel much of anything outside of the sheer anxiety that mounted with each sluggish step.

  When she pushed open the door, she found the third indication that something was wrong and had been wrong for quite some time.

  Caroline Anne Hayes never kept a messy house. In all of Sommer’s years, she’d never seen more than a few specks of wayward dust on the pristine oak cabinets. However, clothes were now strewn on the sofa and spilling onto the floor, the dining table was littered with envelopes, folders, and paperwork, and pots, pans, and dishes were piled high in the sink.

  “You never checked on her?” Sommer asked as Reese walked in behind them with Olivia in his arms.

  “I promise you, Sommer, that I didn’t know it was like this until I brought her home today. She kept coming over to me and Marcie’s and we figured that she was just lonely, so we didn’t push it.”

  Sommer moved to the hallway. “She’s in her room?”

  Reese nodded.

  “How did she look when you last saw her?”

  He hung his head. “Just go in, Som.”

  Her eyes darted to Emma who nodded to help bolster her courage. Then, swallowing more nervous saliva down her quivering throat, she pushed open the slightly ajar bedroom door.

  The two lamps by the bedside were turned on and the blinds were drawn shut. Scattered clothing spilled out of half-opened drawers and littered the bed. She found her mother on the mattress, slightly askew as if granting more room for the clothes than her own body. The covers, a pink and beige floral quilt, were pulled up to her chest and her soft curls were low on her head. As Sommer drew nearer, she saw sunken eyes and tired, grey tinted skin.

  “Why are you walking so slow?” Her mother’s weak voice squeaked out. “Come over here, Sommer.”

  Sommer moved closer, stumbling slightly before her knees were touching the side of the bed.

  She’d been dead wrong.

  She needed Austin.

  “Mom, why did you lie to me?” She accused. “We talked just a few days ago. You said that you were fine. Doing well. You said that your results looked promising.”

  Caroline reached for her daughter’s hand. “I’m sorry I lied to you, honey, but I didn’t want you worrying over nothing.”

  “Nothing?” Sommer gestured to her mother’s frail body. “You call this nothing? Mom, I’m standing here looking directly at you and I can’t even find you. I can’t find your eyes, your voice, your face—”

  “There wasn’t much that we could do,” Caroline admitted, a tear rolling down her cheek. “The chemo didn’t work. I’d already known that the cancer had spread months ago.”

  “So, when you were in town for Olivia’s birth—”

  “I knew,” Caroline finished.

  “What else did you know?” Sommer hoped that her mother didn’t say what she felt was coming.

  Caroline sighed. “Baby, I’m going to—”

  “Don’t you dare say die,” Sommer interrupted. “Don’t you dare tell me that you’re going to die.”

  “I’ve known for some time now, Sommer.”

  Pulling her hand from her mother’s grasp, Sommer moved across the room. She was trembling. Hard. The room was spinning and there didn’t seem to be enough air to draw a breath.

  “Why would you keep this from me?” She cried, plastering her body into the corner.

  “Because there was nothing I could do.”

  “You could have come to Dallas. I could have taken you to see a specialist. Some of the top specialists in the nation are there.”

  Caroline motioned her daughter over, but Sommer didn’t budge. She couldn’t. Literally, at that moment, she couldn’t even command her feet to move.

  “Look, Sommer, we both already knew that this second time around was going to be difficult,” Caroline explained. “When my test results came back, I decided to focus on living the best life possible. That best life included seeing my daughter fall in love and start a family. If I’d told you that I was sick, you would have been on the first flight out to Yearwood. But you needed to be in Dallas. You needed to be with Austin.”

  “I needed to be here,” Sommer contested. “Mom, I love Austin. I truly do. But no one can replace you.”

  “And no one can replace you, Sommer. How you see me right now is how Olivia will see you one day. She might even already see you that way. But you’re so stubborn and scared of everything that I had to push you to start your life. You’re the only woman I know who was actually reluctant to start a family with the man she loves.”

  She motioned again. “Come over here, baby.”

  Sommer pushed herself off of the wall and back over to the bed.

  “Are you happy in Texas?” Caroline asked.

  “I don’t know anymore, Mom.”

  “Are you happy in Texas?” Caroline repeated.

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “And how is Austin treating you?”

  Sommer’s eyes began to burn. “He’s been perfect.”

  “And how about Olivia?”

  “Even more perfect.”

  Caroline nodded. “Good. You’ll be well taken care of.”

  The tears finally broke through their restraints and plummeted down Sommer’s cheeks. “Taken care of how?”

  “When I’m gone,” Caroline answered with more nonchalance than Sommer cared to hear.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Sommer argued, her face contorting with grief. “You can’t, Mom. Caroline Hayes, you’re not going anywhere.”

  Tears rolled down the side of Caroline’s face. She was on borrowed time, she knew. She’d known months ago that she didn’t have very long left. It was only days now.

  “Is Livvie here?” she asked. “I want to see my grandbaby.”

  On cue, Emma appeared, her face moist and her nose red. Olivia was in her arms, innocent and fast asleep, and Emma’s legs suddenly took on extra weight as she c
arried Olivia across the room to the bed.

  Caroline pushed up into a sitting position and swatted at Sommer’s hands as she tried to help. Emma gently placed Olivia into Caroline’s arms, and pressed a kiss against her dear friend’s temple.

  “Don’t you breakdown on me, Em,” Caroline teased, but the two other women didn’t laugh. Couldn’t laugh. It was as if Caroline couldn’t see or hear how ill she sounded. And if she could hear it, it was as if she didn’t remotely care.

  “So beautiful,” Caroline cooed, touching Olivia on the chin. Olivia’s eyes fluttered open and her brows came together as she looked up into her grandmother’s face.

  “This is your face, Sommer,” Caroline said. “My goodness, it’s like looking down at you when you were born. That first night I held you, life seemed perfect. I remember your beautiful eyes looking up at me, so big and brown. I fell in love with you over and over again. Gosh, how easy and perfect life seemed back then. Even your father, who’d never really been attentive to me in any way, stared at the two of us like he was taking a mental photograph. Like he never wanted to forget that moment.”

  She ran her fingers over Olivia’s soft black hair.

  “I felt like I had all the time in the world back then. That my life would be filled with experiencing all of your firsts: first steps, first words, first day of kindergarten, first boyfriend. I could go on. And, for the most part, I was granted the ability to see most of them. I was even granted the ability to see my first grandbaby. I just never expected to leave you so young…”

  Her voice trailed off and a sob escaped from the back of Emma’s throat.

  “Caroline, why didn’t you say anything?” Emma pleaded.

  “There was nothing anyone could do,” Caroline repeated. “But it’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay,” Sommer jumped in. “You’re sitting here acting as though everything is fine, but you’re scared, Mom. I’m scared. Mom, I need you. Mom, I love you.”

  Caroline smiled and placed Olivia back into Emma’s arms. Reaching forward, she wrapped her arms around Emma in a tight hug. Then she looked towards Sommer.

  “Come give your mother a hug, Sommer.”