5. Chapter 5
Claire
If Darius Webb catches fire inside Lakewood Church, at least there will be witnesses.
The place is enormous. My father's church in Sugar Land seats maybe two hundred people on a packed Easter Sunday. Lakewood has a Jumbotron.
A Jumbotron.
I keep staring at it like someone is going to explain why a church needs one.
Around us, people stream into the sanctuary with the same energy football fans bring to a playoff game. Every seat fills. Every aisle buzzes. Half the room already has a phone out.
From a publicity standpoint, this is perfect.
From a personal standpoint, I'm trying very hard not to look too excited about finally being here.
I've wanted to visit Lakewood for years.
This is still work.
It is also, quietly, a little bit for me.
Darius looks around the sanctuary, takes in the massive screens, the packed rows, and the production booth hanging over the back of the room.
"Big place."
Big was one word for it.
I would've taken him to Grace Fellowship if circumstances were different. My father's church didn't have a Jumbotron or a television audience, but it had something Lakewood couldn't manufacture: people who knew how to welcome somebody back from a mistake.
Unfortunately, my father was still recovering from his pre-surgery consult, and introducing Darius Webb to Pastor Samuel Wells felt less like a church visit and more like lighting a fuse.
One crisis at a time.
I smooth my skirt and check the row.
Darius is to my left in a navy blazer and white button-down, the top button undone. Most men wear church clothes. Darius somehow manages to look like the leading man in a Hallmark movie about a billionaire who learns the meaning of Christmas.
Which is distracting.
And deeply unhelpful.
His shoulders stretch across the back of the chair. The sleeves pull against his forearms when he unfolds the church bulletin, and for one ridiculous second I find myself wondering whether women have always been this vulnerable to men in blazers or if or if I’m personally defective.
Probably the second one.
"You've been here before?" I ask.
"Church?" He glances around the sanctuary. "Not one with a light show."
I look up at the giant screens, the stage lighting, and the production booth hanging over the back of the room.
"It's not a light show. It's worship production."
"Claire."
"It isn't."
A spotlight sweeps across the stage.
His eyebrow goes up.
I sigh.
"Fine. It's a very inspirational light show."
His grin appears immediately.
The traitor.
Around us, people rise to their feet as the music starts. The room fills with sound, thousands of voices joining in at once.
For the first time all morning, he's quiet.
Joel Osteen takes the stage twenty minutes later.
I've watched him through a laptop screen often enough to know what to expect.
Darius, apparently, has not.
He opens with a joke — the kind that's so wholesome it shouldn't be funny, except the whole room laughs anyway, including me.
Then his voice shifts. Gets quieter. More certain.
He says something about God not being finished with the people who feel like they've already used up their second chances, and I feel the room lean in all at once.
Darius leans forward, elbows on his knees, completely focused. He isn't checking his phone or looking around the room. He's listening.
A little spark of satisfaction lights up in my chest.
This is what wins people over.
Not a press release. Not a carefully scripted interview. A man showing up, paying attention, and acting like he actually wants to be here.
If somebody snapped a picture right now, I could probably cancel half my marketing plan.
Unfortunately, I'm a little distracted by the way the morning light catches his freshly trimmed beard.
There are at least four phones aimed our direction from nearby rows. I keep my posture open, my expression attentive. I let my hand rest close to Darius's on the armrest between us — not touching, just near. Just visible.
The congregation rises for worship.
I know this hymn. It's one my father used to hum while he made coffee on Sunday mornings, and my mouth finds the melody before I've made any conscious decision to sing.
Beside me, Darius stays quiet.
I glance over just long enough to see him staring at the lyrics on the screen like they're written in another language.
The realization makes me smile.
Of course.
He's at a megachurch for the first time in his life. Why would he know the words?
I lean slightly toward him.
"It's okay if you don't know this one," I whisper.
His head turns, and for a second we end up closer than I intended — close enough that I catch the clean scent of his cologne, and his shoulder brushes mine when someone shifts in the row behind us.
"I don't know any of them," he whispers back.
I smile.
"I'll teach you."
His gaze holds mine for a beat longer than necessary.
Then he gives a small nod.
The music swells around us, and we both turn back toward the stage.
For some reason, I'm still smiling.
***
During the closing prayer I hear the faint click of a phone camera.
My spine goes rigid but I don't move. Not here. Not in the middle of a prayer with thousands of people around us.
I breathe. I wait.
Outside in the atrium afterward, while Darius shakes hands with two men who recognized him and are doing a very poor job of acting casual about it, I check his Instagram.
The post is already up.
A photo of the stained glass panels above the main stage, warm amber and deep blue. The caption reads: Trying to get right. Pray for me ?????? #SundayReset.
Eight hundred likes. Climbing fast.
My stomach drops straight to the floor.
I refresh the page like maybe I misread it. I didn't. The post is real, it's live, and the comments are already filling with praying hands and fire emojis and at least two sports reporters I recognize by handle.
Clause seven of his media conduct agreement. Signed. In front of me and Evan. Eleven days ago. No unscheduled social content during the review period without advance approval.
He knew. He sat in that pew right next to me, waited for the closing prayer, and did it anyway.
Darius finds me the moment the two men walk away. He looks like a kid who broke a rule on purpose and is daring you to do something about it.
It makes my blood pressure spike.
"We're not doing this here," I say. "You've got cameras on you right now and the last thing either of us needs is a clip of us arguing outside Lakewood Church."
"It's already at twelve hundred likes."
"That's not the point."
"Isn't it?"
I hold his gaze and keep my voice level, even though what I actually want to do is take that church bulletin out of his hand and hit him with it.
He opens his mouth, closes it, and turns toward the exit.
I follow him.
He violated a signed contract in a house of worship and he's acting like he just ran a good route. No apology. No acknowledgment. Just twelve hundred likes and a smirk.
I give him the silent treatment while we wait for the car.
The black SUV pulls up two minutes later. Derek, his driver, eases to the curb and gets out to open the door.
I get in first.
The air is cool and sharp and Darius is restless beside me in the way he always is when he has to stand still — weight shifting, hands in his pockets, eyes moving.
"I used to go to church," he says.
I wait.
"Foster care. The family I was with made us go every Sunday. Dress up. Sit still." He says it like he's reporting facts, not feelings. "I was terrible at it. Got in trouble every week for talking, laughing, not taking it seriously. I never felt like I belonged there."
My eyebrows go up before I can stop them. Foster care. I would not have guessed that in a hundred years. I stand still and listen. But something about the way he said it, plain, no swagger, no spin, makes my chest go a little soft in a way I wasn't prepared for.
A minute ago I was thinking about assaulting this man in a church parking lot. Now I want to give him a hug.
"Today felt different," he says.
He's looking at the street, not at me. And then, quieter: "Did I do okay in there?"
It's genuine. No angle to it, no performance. Just a man asking an honest question because he actually wants an honest answer.
I look at him. "You were present. That's more than most people manage the first time in an unfamiliar room."
He nods once. Takes it in. Then: "The post stays up."
"The post is a problem."
"It's already working."
"You agreed not to post. I'm trying to keep you out of trouble."
He almost smiles.
He is absolutely testing my patience. But the post is climbing, the optics from inside were exactly what I needed, and twelve hundred likes is twelve hundred likes.
I'll take the win.
***
Monday morning, I'm drafting the Next Play Foundation content calendar when Don Hartwell appears in my office doorway.
Don is the Stallions' Vice President of Football Operations. Six-foot-two, silver at the temples, expensive suit, and the kind of smile that convinces people to agree with him before they've heard the full proposal.
Half the women in the front office have had a crush on him at one point or another.
The other half are lying.
He rarely leaves the executive floor unless something requires his personal attention.
Which means the second I see him standing in my doorway, I know this isn't a social call.
"Morning, Claire."
His tone is pleasant.
Unfortunately, that's not reassuring.
He closes the door behind him and holds out his phone.
"This came through the league's communications office this morning," he says. "Copied to me and the GM."
I take the phone and read.
The email is from Camille Pierce.
The tone is warm. Professional. Almost aggressively reasonable.
Camille Pierce introduces herself as the Director of Communications for the Atlanta Kings and requests a brief conversation to discuss "the Atlanta situation" and ensure everyone is working from an accurate understanding of the facts.
She signs off with her title, her cell number, her personal email, and a line about transparency and cooperation.
I read it twice.
Then I hand the phone back.
"She's nervous."
Don's eyebrow lifts.
"About what?"
"Good question."
I lean back in my chair.
Nobody sends an email this careful unless they're trying to protect themselves from something.
The request itself is ridiculous. There's no reason for Atlanta's communications director to schedule a handoff call with Houston's publicist. Darius doesn't play for them anymore.
Which means the conversation isn't the point.
Camille wants to know what we know.
And she wants a paper trail showing she tried to be helpful before anyone started asking questions.
"I'll handle it," I say.
He studies me for a moment. "You know who she is?"
"I know exactly who she is."
He nods, then pauses. "One more thing."
Of course.
"The church post." A second printout lands on my desk. "Positive reception publicly, but it wasn't in the approved content plan. League office wants a written explanation on record."
I sigh and pick it up. "They're right to flag it.
Social media conduct is one of the most critical pieces of this rehabilitation plan — his posting history is part of what got him here in the first place.
If we want the public to believe he's changed, he has to behave like it.
I'll sit down with him today and address his conduct directly.
You'll have my written response once that conversation is done. "
Don nods and leaves.
I sit very still for a moment.
This is precisely what I warned Darius would happen. The exact scenario outlined in clause seven. I told him, in plain language, with specific examples. He smiled and signed and did it anyway.
And now I'm defending him in writing for a consequence he walked directly into with his eyes open.
I take a breath so I don't throw my phone and type:
My office. Today at three.
His reply comes in under a minute:
On my way.
I set my phone face down on the desk.
It's not even ten a.m. I'm going to need another Starbucks.
***
Darius knows why he's here.
I can tell before he says a word.
He shows up at three o'clock sharp, still wearing practice clothes, the collar of his shirt damp from the Houston heat. He closes the office door behind him and sits down across from me without waiting to be asked.
No jokes.
No commentary.
Interesting.
"I need to ask you something directly," I say. "And I need a direct answer."
He nods.
"Okay."
"Has Camille Pierce contacted you since the trade?"
Darius looks away immediately, and that tells me everything I need to know.
My stomach sinks.
Because people don't pause that long unless they're deciding how much they want to tell you.
And suddenly I'm not wondering whether Camille reached out.
I'm wondering what she said.