Page 48 of Hard to Love

The news is on the TVs positioned randomly throughout the seating area. I half-heartedly watch it as I balance my coffee, my carry-on, and my backpack. My phone is vibrating inside my backpack somewhere, probably the last place I shoved it as I went through security, but I just don’t have enough hands to grab it yet.

“In the sports world today,” the anchor on the twenty-four-hour news station says, the opening line, always grabbing my attention. “It seems tennis superstar Stevie Lancaster just can’t seem to catch her breaks. Worldwide News hasn’t independently confirmed any of the source material yet, but—”

“American Airlines flight forty-four is now boarding . . .” drones over the intercom and knocks out the sound on the televisions.

But I can still see the images on the screen. Stevie leaving the Vegas hotel surrounded by press five- to six-people deep. They shove microphones in her face and shout questions at her. She lowers her head without speaking and her bodyguards help push her back into the hotel.

What the hell?

It’s not your problem, Finn. Not a fucking one. Whatever she caused or is in the middle of isn’t your fucking issue to deal with. And yet I stand, staring at the TV screen long after the story has moved on, unable to get the image of her standing there out of my head.

The woman is used to the media. Hell, she’s lived her life under its scrutiny for most of it, but there was something about the look on her face—shell-shocked, overwhelmed, vulnerable—that says this is out of her control.

My phone vibrates again against my back, prompting me to find a seat so I can drop my shit and grab it.

It vibrates as my fingers close around it and I’m already dreading what I’m going to see on its screen. There are five missed texts from Carson as I google Stevie’s name on my browser to see what the hell is going on.

After years of living in silence, Mary Johnson steps forward to speak about her tennis superstar daughter, the man who paid her off for years, and if that man, is in fact, Stevie’s real father . . .

“Jesus fucking Christ,” I mutter after reading the opening line of the article. I stand there, my stuff on the seat beside me, and skim the rest of the article. Cash payments made regularly to keep her away. A mother desperate to connect with her estranged daughter. A woman who was promiscuous in her early twenties who put Liam Lancaster’s name on the birth certificate without knowing who Stevie’s real father was.

I silence a call from Carson that comes in, needing to read this again and see what other sites say. Needing to think first before I respond to him.

Greed.

That’s what this whole interview, all of these interviews that seem way too coordinated for me, screams of. They’re unfounded claims from a woman desperate for attention or money.

But why now? Because Stevie’s fiercest protector, Liam, is now gone? Or is there something more sinister here? An opponent trying to mess with a competitor they’re fearful—or jealous—of?

I twist my lips and stare out the window to the runway and know the opponent theory is far-fetched, but I’ve seen it happen before.

But this? This screams a plea for money. This sounds like a desperate woman got advice from a smart person who knows Stevie is at her most vulnerable right now. That she won’t want all this noise heading into training for the US Open and therefore her advisors will tell her to make the payment with a heavily clad NDA to quiet the noise so she can concentrate.

It’s amazing when you’re famous who comes out of the woodwork to stake their claim. And it’s sad that I’ve seen it more times than I thought I would in my ten years of being an agent.

They announce first class boarding and I grab my stuff. This is not where I’m needed. Yes, Stevie Lancaster is going through more shit, but she has the strength and fire to beat it. She’s proven that.

Despite the look on her face I’m trying to forget.

My phone rings again when I’m one person back from the ticket counter and I know Carson will keep calling until I answer.

“I’m boarding my flight, Car. I’ll call you back when I land.”

“Finn.” Stevie’s voice is so soft, I can barely hear her say my name.

My stomach twists at how lost she sounds.

I wait to go numb. For my ears to hear the buzz of indifference that I choose to listen to when it comes to women. For the fight or flight to kick in that always opts for flight. For my emotions to fall flat.

But they don’t.

They feel.

They don’t harden, they intensify.

And what the fuck is up with that?

The man in the line behind me taps my shoulder to tell me to give the airline worker my boarding pass and for a moment I forget what I was doing.