“The British press. They don’t have to follow the same rules, and Des, she just did the paparazzi equivalent of throwing a steak to a pack of hungry lions.”
“But you said Jay was with tour officials. Won’t they at least protect her from the reporters?”
“It’s not Jay we have to protect now,” Hank said, a slight crack in his voice. “Look, it’s Des.”
As the car turned the corner onto their street, they nearly hit a wall of people. Even with the crowd’s collective back to them, she could clearly tell they were mostly reporters from the camera flashes and extendable microphones. And from the tight circle they’d formed, she suspected they’d trapped someone in the middle. Hank’s lion comment rushed back to her. He hadn’t been talking about Destiny’s comment. He’d been talking about her leaving the grounds unattended. Destiny was the hunk of meat they all wanted to tear apart.
Without thinking, she hopped from the car while it was still rolling and sprinted toward the crowd. Her daughter was in there somewhere. Her daughter was getting pushed and jabbed and hounded. Sadie raised her elbows and plowed through. If the reporters were lions, she was a rhinoceros. She would horn or trample or toss whoever she needed to get to her child. She wasn’t even aware of who she was hitting, but she must have made her presence and purpose clear, because several people jostled aside to reveal Destiny with her hands over her head and her eyes wide with terror.
“How long have you been sleeping with Jay Pierce?” someone shouted.
“Are you a lesbian, or did she seduce you?”
“How many other tennis players have you been with?”
A man was right next to her ear, shouting questions with his camera flashing inches from her face. Sadie’s vision flashed red. “Get away from my daughter!”
She hurled her body toward a reporter, causing him to jump back, and she wedged herself into the space his withdrawal created. Then, wrapping an arm around Des’s shoulder, she urged her forward to the door. The reporters in front of them, however, refused to budge. She prepared to lower her head and plow them over, but suddenly Tad emerged from the throng in full dress uniform and beret.
“Clear the way,” he barked commandingly. “Stand down!”
Several reporters jumped back, and several others stopped pushing long enough to glance around confusedly. Tad used their disorientation to flank Destiny’s other side. At the same moment, Hank came bowling up from behind.
“Stay together,” Tad called. “Forward march.”
“Hey, that’s not the military,” someone shouted. “That’s just her dad.”
But before the press could regroup, their motley guard managed to push Destiny through most of them right up to the hotel door.
A harried-looking bellman motioned them inside and then tried to hold the press at bay while they sprinted across the small lobby.
“Go,” Tad ordered. “I’ll stay here until you’re clear.”
“I’ll help hold them,” Hank offered, skidding to a stop next to Tad.
Sadie barely glanced over her shoulder to see them forming a wall across the doorway as she and Des broke for the stairs to the second floor.
They didn’t stop running until they reached Destiny’s room and piled inside. Sadie pressed her back against the door, gasping for breath, and Destiny fell onto the bed in a heap. Neither one of them spoke as the realization sank in that nothing was going to be the same for them ever again.
★ ★ ★
Darkness surrounded her as she slipped out of the unmarked town car. Hank had texted that a few zealous members of the press were camped outside, but they couldn’t get to the back door. Jay used the shroud of night to her advantage and slipped along the stone walls, down a driveway, and through a small parking area. Then she caught sight of a sliver of light in the wall. Checking over her shoulder one more time, she pushed through the door Hank had left ajar. The light inside hit her like a flash fire, and she almost shrank away from it. She’d been in the dark for so many hours, both physically and emotionally. Her afternoon had been a long series of interviews with tour officials and publicists, and even lawyers. She sank further into a depression with each one as she repeatedly answered the same question. No, she had not had a romantic relationship of any kind with Destiny Larsen, and each time she watched the doubt play across their faces.
Then when she’d finally been allowed to leave, the press hounded her, relentlessly pushing her back into restricted areas every time she so much as stuck her nose out of the business wing of the building. She had to wait until the grounds of the All England Tennis Club closed and had been cleared of all nonessential personnel before she could accept a ride in a tour-owned car, and even then, she’d had to slip in the back like a cat burglar.
Still, as she padded quietly up to her room, she could at least say she’d accomplished her two primary goals for the afternoon. She’d kept Sadie’s name completely out of the conversation, and she’d made certain with tour officials that both the Larsens and Hank would be safely and quietly flown back to the U.S.A. before any sort of formal inquest began. They would, no doubt, both be called in for more questions eventually, and she had no idea what Destiny would say, but she couldn’t control anything from this point forward, and she wasn’t going to even try. All she could hope for now was to take a long, hot shower and attempt to get some sleep.
Unlocking her room, she leaned onto the door, letting the dead weight of her body swing it open, but before she even had the chance to fall forward, she found herself in the full embrace she hadn’t even allowed herself to crave.
Sadie’s mouth found hers, and all the exhaustion fled from her body. They kissed breathlessly, passionately, clinging to one another as if neither one of them had the strength required to move on their own. Sadie held her face in her hands, and Jay wrapped both arms around her waist. Air came in painful gasps as she sucked up every minuscule drop of affection she could take.
“I love you,” Jay murmured between kisses.
“I love you,” Sadie whispered, as she pulled her lips free. “I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry,” Jay panted, burying her face in the crook of Sadie’s neck, trying to surround herself in the comfort of her scent one more time.
“If I had come to the match . . .” Sadie said, kissing her cheek.
“If I hadn’t come to your room last night . . .”
“If I had texted you sooner . . .”
“If I’d told you about Destiny’s demands sooner . . .” Jay said, then pulled back enough to search Sadie’s eyes. “Destiny. Is she okay?”
Tears filled Sadie’s eyes, giving Jay the answer she hadn’t wanted. “She won’t speak to me.” Sadie dropped her head to Jay’s chest. “She’s scared and she’s hurting, but she’s so damn mad. It doesn’t matter if I yell or cry or plead. It’s like I’m trying to communicate with a wall. Worse, it’s like I’m not even there.”
Jay held her tightly. “Does she know you’re here?”
“She knows I’m supposed to be packing my stuff.” Sadie motioned to her suitcase, fully loaded and standing by the door. “But I don’t know if she’s even aware I left the room, or if she cares.”
“She cares,” Jay whispered. “She cares about you more than you understand.”
Sadie snorted.
“I mean it,” Jay said. “She loves you.”
Sadie shook her head. “Where did I go so wrong with her?”
“You didn’t.”
“What she did to you today—”
“Was a mistake,” Jay said emphatically. “She’s seventeen.”
“She knows better.”
“Of course she does, but she shot off her mouth in a moment of extreme pressure. I’d love to say I wouldn’t have done the same, but I know what it’s like to have the world breathing down your neck at your worst moment. I did worse, and I did it for much longer.” Jay kissed Sadie’s forehead. “But she’s going to face consequences now.”
“She
’s already seen it. The press followed her back here.” The fear in Sadie’s voice tore at Jay’s heart. “They mobbed her. They wouldn’t let her in the door. They kept shouting awful things. She looked so small and young, and they all wanted blood.”
Jay shivered at the memories and stepped back. “That’s why you have to go. You need to get her far away from here, away from me.”
“No.” Sadie shook her head. “That wasn’t the deal. Hank said we were going back to America. I thought he meant all of us.”
She stared at her white tennis shoes and swallowed the bile rising in her throat.
“Jay,” Sadie said softly, “you are coming back with us.”
“I’m staying here. I have to go forward.”
“In the tournament? You’re going to play your match tomorrow?”
“Yes,” Jay replied slowly, not yet having the strength to say the rest.
“But then you’ll join us?” Sadie’s question was almost a whisper now.
“We can’t be seen together.” No. That wasn’t fair. No more hiding and half-truths. That’s what had gotten them here. “We can’t be together. It’s over.”
“Over,” Sadie repeated as she inched away from her.
“It’s the only way.”
“Liar,” Sadie said, but didn’t manage to put any force behind the word. “You kissed me. You told me you loved me.”
“I do, which is why you have to stay away. I am only going to bring more pain to you and Des. What you saw her experience today was just the beginning. I can’t do that to her.”
“She did that to herself. She made that mess. She needs to clean it up. We can help her, hold a press conference or something, I don’t know, but we’ll make things right.”
Jay shook her head. “This isn’t some little parenting lesson, Sadie. Papers all over the world are printing headlines right now. Remember how I told you the press was gearing up for their big show? Well, this is it. The story is already all over the internet.”
“Then we have to change the story.”
“What could she possibly tell people? That she woke up to find her tennis partner making out with her mother while she slept, and she became so enraged that she resorted to physical violence and veiled accusations of sexual coercion?”
Sadie blanched at the retelling, but she managed to squeak out, “That’s the truth.”
“No one cares about the truth,” Jay said. “They care about villains and victims. One of us is going to be cast in each role either way. And I knew that going in. You have no idea what the public eye can do to you, to Destiny.”
“She might have to face consequences. I know it won’t be easy.”
“They will paint her as a spoiled, mean girl. They will assault her character, they will talk about her as morally unfit, they will look for deficiencies in her upbringing. Come on, Sadie, you know how this story ends. You’ve lived it before. How many times have you told me you’ve heard everything there is to hear about black, teenage, single moms?”
Sadie sank onto the edge of the bed, and something cracked inside Jay. The pain on Sadie’s face clearly said she was winning this argument, and she hated herself for it, but she would hate herself more if she let all her dire predictions unfold without doing everything in her power to stop it. “And there’s the story of you dating your daughter’s tennis partner. They’ll paint pictures of sordid rendezvous, say you lacked control, that you used your position as a tennis mom to—”
“Stop,” Sadie snapped, as she hopped up off the bed. “I’m not going to sit here and listen to any more of this.”
“Then you have to leave, because if you stay, if you try to make this go away, you’re going to hear all of that and much worse every day for a very long time. The press will pick apart every aspect of your relationship with Destiny. We’ll forever be seen as some sort of sordid triangle. We will never be free of it.”
“I’m strong.” Sadie lifted her chin defiantly. “I’ve been black my whole life. I’ve been an unwed mother for seventeen years. Do you have any idea what that does to a person’s resolve?”
Jay shook her head.
“I love you. I can take it.”
“Maybe you can, but you’re not the only one involved here. What about me? What about your daughter?”
Sadie didn’t respond as quickly this time.
“You can’t have everything here,” Jay said softly. “I’m sorry I let us both believe that we could. I should’ve known all along that, sooner or later, you would be forced to make a choice, and you’ve told me from day one that your choice will always be Destiny.”
“Then it doesn’t sound like I really have a choice, do I?” Sadie said, the hard edge back in her voice. “Seems like you’ve made all the choices for me.”
“I won’t be the person who comes between you and Destiny,” Jay said, her resolve stronger after giving voice to the internal arguments that had filled her head all day. “You might be able to live with that for a while, but the resentment would eventually be too much.”
“So, we’re back to this? You and Destiny deciding that you know what’s best for me?” She shook her head. “I thought I’d made it clear how much I hate other people making choices for me.”
“It’s not just you, Sadie. It’s all of us. I have my pride, too. I’m just as stubborn as you are. I’m not going to be railroaded into letting you make all the decisions because you’re the mom. I’m not Tad.”
Sadie winced. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means everyone has always rolled over when the mama bear growls, but this isn’t your arena. It’s mine. This is my life and my career, too. I’ve been through this before, and I’m going to take the lead now.”
“By take the lead, you mean hide and lie and run?”
Jay sighed. “If that’s how you need to think of it, sure, but I’ll do what it takes to survive. You don’t have any right to take that away from me because you don’t like other people telling you what to do. This is my choice.”
“And your choice is to send me away? That’s the bottom line, isn’t it? You’d rather face everything alone than with me by your side?”
“Yes.” Her voice held more volume than anger. “It’s going to take every ounce of strength and fortitude I have left in me to survive this hell, and I want you as far away as possible while I do.”
Sadie stared at her, eyes wide with hurt, lips parted in shock, as if Jay had just run her through with a knife.
“Sadie,” Jay pleaded.
She held up her hand. “You’ve said enough.”
She grabbed the handle of the suitcase and swung it toward the door. “You go ahead and do this your way.”
“I’m trying to do the right thing for all of us.”
“Letting people run over you is not the same as standing up for what’s right. That’s not strength, that’s cowardice,” Sadie said. “You’re a coward, Jay.”
Jay hung her head. She couldn’t argue. Even if she’d had the energy or the desire, she didn’t have a defense.
“You made me believe, for the first time in my life, that I could have it all. You made me believe you could give me that,” Sadie said, as she swung open the door.
“I’m sorry I’m not the person you fell in love with,” Jay said softly.
Sadie shook her head. “Me too.”
Then she was gone, and Jay was once again truly alone.
Chapter Fourteen
Sadie quietly pushed open the door to Destiny’s room and edged her way past the suitcases standing ready for the departure before adding her own to the mix. In the dim light from streetlamps outside the window, she could easily make out the shape of Destiny’s form curled atop the bed. Even with sadness slackening her limbs, she felt the pull of her daughter too much to resist. Easing into a chair beside the bed, Sadie surveyed her smooth face, relaxed in sleep instead of twisted in fear or fury. All the old, familiar emotions welled up in her again. They didn’t replace the anger
she’d felt earlier, but they certainly complicated it. If there was one capacity every mother possessed, it was the ability to be simultaneously furious and filled with love.
Could that skill extend to Jay, too?
She closed her eyes and hung her head. If her feelings for Destiny were complicated, her feelings for Jay were downright convoluted. Jay had been right, at least about Des. She was still young and naïve. She didn’t fully understand the chain of events she’d set in motion, but Jay did. Jay should know better. Jay should have the strength to fight for herself, for them. Of course she was scared, and of course she didn’t want to go back to the way things had been before, but shouldn’t that be all the more reason to stand up for herself, to tell her own story, to make her own voice heard? Unless of course she didn’t think Sadie was worth the effort.
Sadie sighed and hung her head as the fear she’d barely held at bay all day broke through the chaos of other concerns clouding her mind. Tears swam behind her eyelids as the echo of Jay’s “no comment” rang through her mind. They spilled over onto her cheeks as she envisioned the blank expression on Jay’s face as she’d said she wanted her as far away as possible. No matter what the reason, that still hurt.
All this time, she’d been dreaming of someone to share her life with. The good and the bad, the ups and the downs. Even that morning, when Destiny had been behaving so badly, Sadie had longed to have Jay by her side, to talk to, to hold, to pull strength and comfort from. She hadn’t relished the idea of a teenage fit on international TV, but a small part of her had looked forward to sharing the experience with someone she loved for the first time in her life.
“Mom?” a groggy voice asked.
She opened her eyes. Destiny squinted up at her.
“Are you crying?”
“No.” Sadie spoke automatically, but then gave herself away by dabbing her eyes with the sleeve of her sweatshirt.
“You are.” Destiny sat up. “Where did you go?”
“To get my stuff from our room.”
“Our room,” Destiny said slowly; then she jumped to her feet as if the phrase had burned a hole through her exhaustion. “You mean Jay’s room? You saw her, didn’t you?”
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