Chapter Twelve #2
“I just assumed that…I thought we were going to be a family. She was always posting these cute pictures with her nieces and nephews and talking about how much she liked kids. But no. She didn’t want to have a family.”
Lulu waited, and he went on. “She said she’d think about it, but it was a no-go during the central years of her sportscaster career.
She wanted to wait, but really, she kept pushing it off.
Pregnancy. Parenting. Not so great for TV, apparently.
Eventually, we realized we wanted different things.
And so together, we agreed it would be best to go our own ways.
And our divorce wasn’t mean or angry or anything.
Sad, yes. But we’re still friends. Well.
We respect each other, is more like it.”
So. Just to clarify. Tyler Demming was…available? Beneath her compassion, a host of sensations bubbled to the surface. Hopefulness. Desire. Attraction. Connection. Desire. Did she say that one already?
A self-conscious laugh escaped his lips, and he covered it with a quick, “Forget it. I’m just rambling.”
It occurred to her, possibly for the first time in years, that maybe he had had some rough patches in the road, too. And in that space, where they were floating out in the vast sea of the jungle on a tiny life raft, she trusted him.
“I guess I get it, wanting to stay out of the spotlight like that,” she said. The press loved to get a story out of the bad boy of pickleball. “I heard about that time when you went into the locker room after a tournament and Saran-wrapped the urinals. That article about poor sportsmanship!”
“Exactly. My genius was underappreciated.”
“And the flaming paddles?” she jibed.
He went silent, all of his cheery bravado flying away. “I did that because I made a promise I would.” Lulu’s eyes flashed. He had made a promise to her years ago, too, but he didn’t go out of his way to hold to it.
Tyler misinterpreted her reaction. “I paid for the damages. And nobody was hurt.” He must have recognized his own defensiveness in his words because his tone shifted.
Softly, he said, “Looking back, it was a dumb move. But a promise is a promise. I just wish they hadn’t kicked me off the tour.
I really miss playing competitively at that level.
” Disappointment pricked at his eyes. Still she wondered, if it wasn’t for Sapphire, who was worth making that kind of a commitment for?
Outside the screened porch, the buzzing jungle turned up the volume, then dimmed again. She lay down on her back, and he mirrored her, both of them listening to the wild symphony.
“Did you know cicadas are the loudest insect in the world? Up to ninety decibels. As loud as a lawnmower.”
“Wow. Thank you, Alejandro’s kiss-ass protégé.”
“See?” he asked. “This is why I missed you.” When she looked, he was smirking, but then his expression softened, and she let those words sink into her.
The mattress shifted with his movement as he rolled onto his stomach.
He folded his hands under his cheek as he gazed at her.
Lulu heard the slow intake of his breath.
She felt sleepy, exhausted really, but she fought herself awake to extend this odd, out-of-time sensation where she felt so on the cusp of understanding why she was drawn to him, and why she was still afraid of connecting.
“You know how you asked me,” he began, “what I planned to do after this tour? And I kind of brushed it off?” He scrunched his lips.
“It’s not just that I miss playing competitively.
It’s that…I’ve never done anything else.
Besides this. Pickleball is a kind of limited skill set.
So I really shot myself in the foot with this one.
Burned down my reputation along with that field. ”
“I think you’re pretty good at coaching.”
“Thanks.” He was silent for a moment. “I like it. But like I said. It’s the high level of play that keeps my blood pumping.
And now I don’t know how I’m going to work my way back onto the pro courts after that, well, pretty stupid lapse in judgment.
But enough about me,” he said with a puff of a self-conscious laugh.
“What about you? Any mortifyingly embarrassing moments from the tennis superstar Lulu Gardner that I haven’t seen pasted all over social media?
” Beneath his floating words, the cicada’s hum dimmed to background noise.
She felt the weight of it then. The fact that he had gone first. Had stripped himself bare, with the chance that she might not reciprocate. But now, she gathered her nerve.
“Actually,” Lulu said, braving forward. “I have recently had a scandalous and very public mortification.” Outside of Rooster and Laverne and Ariana, she had told no one, not a single one of her teaching colleagues. She felt too humiliated to admit what had happened.
“I got suspended from my teaching job for accidentally posting a recording to all my students that basically called them a bunch of bullshitters.” There was some relief in saying it aloud.
To Tyler’s credit, he didn’t laugh. Eyes wide, he said. “Oof.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “That’s why I joined Rooster and Laverne on this trip. I needed a reset. A getaway from all that stress. And I guess, to get out of my head and try something new.”
He studied her, and she read surprise in his expression. And truthfully, her spontaneous choice had surprised her, too. “That’s brave. How are you feeling about the job?”
She had been considering it a lot, despite the fact that she promised herself she would set it aside. “I think they’re probably going to fire me. At least that’s the sense I got from my principal.”
The strangest thing happened as she spoke those words aloud.
Getting fired. That was the worst that could happen, right?
And in the grand scheme, would that really be so terrible?
She thought about Tyler’s comment, that he felt sad he wasn’t getting a chance to play competitive pickleball right now, and it made her think.
Did she really love teaching? Did she miss it like Tyler missed his pro tour?
“You know,” she said, “weirdly, I don’t know if that would be the worst thing.
If I couldn’t go back to that job. I’m not sure my heart is in it like it was when I started.
” Even as she said it, she knew that her thoughts about stepping in a new direction were settling in her system.
“I’ve been looking into trying something else. ”
“Like…?”
“Good question,” she said. “Not necessarily getting out of teaching altogether. Maybe just finding a new angle. Something more fulfilling.”
He said nothing for a beat, his focus on the dark canopy beyond the screened porch. “Whatever you put your mind to, I know you can do it.”
His confidence lifted her. “I know I want something with more flexibility. So I can spend more time with Zoe.”
“Yeah.” Tyler fell silent. There was a long, dense pause, and then his voice came, tight and distant. “So, are you still together with Zoe’s dad?”
Lulu rolled to face him, surprised. “Zoe’s dad? No.” Had he been harboring that concern this whole time—much like her misconceptions about his marriage to Sapphire Roe?
Tyler’s lips parted and she knew what he wanted—the how, the why.
She weighed Tyler’s revelation about his divorce and wondered if she could feel safe telling him the heart of her feelings.
It had been some time since she wrestled with that part of her past. But here, harbored in the nest of the night, she felt protected and exposed all at the same time.
Measuring her words, she said, “Zoe’s dad was my boyfriend.
We’d been sort of off-and-on dating for about half a year when I realized I was pregnant.
And…” She collected her breath. “Let’s just say he wasn’t all in.
” The sting of her ex’s reaction had dulled since then.
Still, she blinked away the residue of his rejection.
“For me, then, the choice was simple. Keep the boyfriend or the baby.” She kept her voice light.
“So we went our separate ways, and I had Zoe.”
“Hmm.” He digested her words. “That’s you, though, isn’t it? You were always the one to rise to a challenge. I wouldn’t have expected anything less from you, Lu.”
And there it was, the way he said her name again.
Like returning home after a stressful day at work or getting into your own bed after sleeping in bad hotels with lumpy mattresses.
There were few people who had known Lulu Gardner since her childhood and it struck her now that she liked having someone around who knew her well.
And now that their truths were out in the open between them, a shelter of intimacy cocooned them as palpably as this haven in the jungle.
“You’re lucky,” he said. “To have Zoe.”
“That’s for sure,” she agreed, sleepiness slowing her words.
“Raising her by yourself? That’s been okay?”
She nodded. Mostly it had been doable. The parenting part, at least. Having the help and companionship of a partner would have been easier, perhaps, but not better. Not with her flaky ex, at least. Still, with all the uncertainties that had pursued her, Zoe was a constant surety.
“And you’re happy?”
“I feel kind of adrift right now, you know?” she admitted.
He nodded. “It sucks that you had to deal with all that. The boyfriend. The school thing. But look at you. You made choices, like you did with having Zoe. And you stuck with them.” He rolled onto his back.
“You’re like an actual grown-up. I’m kind of all over the place when it comes to”—he adopted a gruff, preachy tone—“taking responsibility for my actions.” A self-deprecating laugh escaped him. “But I’m working on it,” he said.