10. Chapter 10
Darius
Claire's voice stops me halfway to my locker.
I should keep walking.
Instead, I find myself standing there with a practice jersey in one hand while her conversation drifts through the partially open door to the equipment room.
I don't catch everything.
Just enough.
Her mother saw the ring-shopping headline. Her father did too. Every few seconds, her voice tightens in that way I've started to recognize over the last few weeks.
"It's not romantic, Mom."
Something in the way she says it makes my head lift.
"It's a temporary arrangement. I'm doing him a favor."
I stare at the nameplate on my locker, jaw flexing.
Fair enough. None of that is new.
"The extra money covers the hospital bills. I couldn't turn that down."
The jersey bunches in my fist before I even realize I'm gripping it.
Her voice drops lower, almost embarrassed.
"Darius Webb is the last man I'd ever actually fall for."
For a second, I'm not sure I heard her right.
The last man.
My stomach drops, quick and mean, like missing a wide-open shot in front of a packed stadium.
That shit shouldn't bother me.
It does anyway.
I hang the jersey back on the hook and instantly regret it, because now I'm just standing here listening to something I wouldn't have given a fuck about six months ago.
Outside the door, Claire keeps talking.
I stop listening.
Or at least, I try to.
***
The team bus crawls through Charlotte in early evening traffic, the city gray and crowded outside the window.
Jaylen drops into the seat next to me somewhere around the downtown interchange and asks how Claire's doing.
"Handling something with her family," I say, keeping my eyes on the window.
He nods like that tracks. "The kind of woman who handles everything alone usually needs someone who won't let her."
I huff out a laugh, low and dismissive. "She can do whatever she wants, man."
Jaylen glances over, eyebrows raised like he's trying to figure out if I'm serious. He must decide not to poke it, because he just stretches his legs into the aisle and goes back to his phone.
But instead of fading, Jaylen's words just piss me off more.
Why is this woman so damn complicated?
***
She misses the team dinner.
I notice at seven-fifteen when I scan the room for the third time and she still isn't there. It matters for optics. That's what I tell myself when I knock on her hotel room door at nine-thirty.
She opens it in an oversized cream cardigan, her notebook open on the bed behind her, a pen tucked behind her ear. She looks at me like she's calculating whether to be annoyed.
I hold up both hands. "I'm not here as a PR obligation."
She steps back and lets me in anyway.
The room is neat. Of course it is. Her travel bag is already partially repacked, her laptop open to a document I can't read from this angle. There's a half-eaten granola bar on the nightstand and a gum wrapper folded into a small square beside it.
Mine, from the plane.
She caught me leaving those everywhere and stopped throwing them away somewhere around week three.
We sit on opposite ends of the small couch, her legs tucked under her, and I wait for the version of things I'll hear now.
"They're not upset," she says.
I blink. "What?"
"My family." She gives me a tired smile.
"My mother thinks the engagement is sweet.
My father said you seem stable enough, which from him is basically a glowing endorsement.
And Jacob—" She stops and shakes her head, something softening in her face.
"He's been telling everyone at school that Hollywood Webb is going to be his brother.
Apparently he's been dragging every kid on the block into the backyard to throw the ball around. "
Something moves in my chest that I don't have a name for.
"That's—"
"I know." She cuts me off gently. "It's a lot.
So I've been explaining, repeatedly, that this is a business arrangement.
That I'm doing you a favor. That the money covers the hospital bills and that's why I agreed.
" She says it lightly, like she's just stating facts. But I can hear the layer underneath it.
The strain.
The performance of not being strained.
I shouldn't react.
I know I shouldn't.
"I heard you," I say. "Earlier. Through the door."
She goes still.
"I wasn't trying to." I keep my voice level. "You didn't have to make it sound like I'm dead weight."
She stares at me for a full two seconds. Then her eyes narrow, and I can see her deciding whether to laugh or come for me directly.
She comes for me directly.
"My problem?" Her voice is calm the way a warning shot is calm. "Darius, I am literally risking my professional license to help you. I turned down two other clients to take this assignment. And you're sitting here acting wounded because I told my parents the truth about what this arrangement is?"
"That's not—"
"You asked me a question, so let me finish.
" She shifts to face me fully. "I'm not doing this because I like you.
I'm doing it because my family needs the money and because you needed someone.
And if you're going to stomp around getting your feelings hurt every time I'm honest, this whole thing falls apart. And then we both lose."
She holds my gaze.
I look away first.
My jaw is tight and I don't say anything for a moment because I don't trust what's going to come out if I do. The part of me that's actually wounded is embarrassing. I know that. A grown man, rattled because a woman told her parents she wouldn't fall for him.
But it's not even that, not really.
It's the family she called. The one that answered. The one that's proud of her just for existing — and I don't know what that feels like.
The silence stretches. She's still looking at me, arms crossed, expression somewhere between annoyed and waiting for me to say something worth hearing.
I'm the one who started this. I know that.
***
"I lost my brother," I say. Quiet. Barely more than breath. "He was five."
Claire's whole body shifts — her arms drop, her eyes widen, her face softens like she's bracing for something she didn't know she needed to be ready for. She doesn't speak. She just waits. Open. Present.
I look down at my hands. My voice feels too big for my throat.
"We were playing," I say. "Climbing where we shouldn't have. I was supposed to be watching him. I was supposed to…" The words scrape out of me. "The bookshelf tipped. I heard it fall before I understood what it meant."
Claire's breath catches — a tiny sound, but I hear it.
"I called 911," I say. "I was shaking so hard I gave them the wrong address. Had to say it again. Slower. Clearer. Like if I got it right, they'd get there in time."
My jaw tightens. My eyes burn.
"They didn't."
Silence folds around us — heavy, but not suffocating. She's holding it with me.
"After they took him to the hospital," I say, "I sat in the waiting room. I kept thinking my mom would come get me when she got off work. That she'd walk in any minute."
I swallow hard. The next words rise up — the real ending, the part I've never said out loud — and hit the back of my teeth like a warning.
"That's when…" I stop. The rest lodges in my throat like a stone.
If I tell her this part — the whole truth — what will she think of me? What will she see when she looks at me?
I can't risk it. Not yet.
When I finally look up, Claire isn't blinking. Her eyes are wide, shining, devastated on my behalf.
"Oh my God, Darius," she whispers. "I had no idea. I'm so, so sorry. That must have been unbelievably hard."
She steps closer — not touching, but close enough that I feel her warmth, her steadiness, her care.
And for the first time in years, the memory doesn't feel like something I'm carrying alone.
***
We stay on that couch for a long time.
Claire pulls her knees up and when she finally speaks, her voice is softer than I've heard it.
"My dad's been having heart problems." Her eyes lift to mine. "The kind that make you lie awake wondering if the next call is going to change everything. That's why I took this assignment. That's why I said what I said to my parents tonight."
She swallows. "I didn't think it would matter to you."
"I don't see you as a prop, Claire."
She blinks like she wasn't expecting that.
"You've been impressive since the first day I met you. I don't say that lightly."
The room goes still.
I stand, meaning to leave, but she rises too, almost instinctively, like she's not ready for the moment to end. We meet near the door, closer than I expected, close enough that I can see the way her breath catches.
The quiet between us changes.
Not loud, not dramatic. Just charged with something new and fragile.
I reach for her waist, slow enough that she could step back if she wanted to.
She doesn't.
Her eyes lift to mine—wide, steady, like she's waiting for me to close the distance.
And something in me just snaps loose.
Finally.
The moment I've been daydreaming about since the second we met.
I lean in before I can talk myself out of it.
Her breath warm against my mouth. Her lips soft when they meet mine.
Everything I've been trying not to want, right there.
The kiss hits warm and soft, the kind that steals your breath because you didn't realize you were holding it.
Not gentle because I'm careful—gentle because I'm gone.
And then it hits—
a jolt straight through me, like someone plugged a live wire into my chest.
The whole room sharpens around her.
She exhales against my mouth like she's been holding something back too.
I lean in again without thinking—drawn to her like I don't have a choice.
But her hand hits my chest like a car slamming its brakes.
Everything in me lurches to a stop.
She pulls back just enough to break the kiss, her breath catching as her eyes fly open.
For a second, neither of us moves.
Then she swallows, voice barely above a whisper.
"This can't go further," she says softly. There's sadness in it—not rejection, just reality. "Not tonight. Not like this. This complicates things way too much, and I can't even think about that right now."
Her eyes flicker — to my mouth, to my eyes, back again. I know she felt it too. Fear. Hope. Surprise. Want. All tangled together.
I nod. Not because I want to stop — but because I understand. And because for the first time in my life, the kiss was enough. More than enough. I wasn't thinking about anything past it. I wasn't trying to get her into bed or into a moment I could brag about later.
I just wanted her.
I take a step back, and the space between us cools instantly.
"Goodnight, Claire."
"Goodnight."
I walk the full length of the corridor back to my room feeling the echo of that moment the whole way. Not the kiss — the way she touched my chest. Gentle. Careful. Like she was protecting both of us from something too big to name yet.
By the time I reach my door, my heart feels lighter. Fuller. Like maybe I finally met someone who's real. Someone who isn't using me, chasing me, or trying to mold me into something I'm not.
Someone who sees me.
***
My phone buzzes on the nightstand.
I glance at it, then shake my head. It's late. Whoever it is can wait till morning.
But then again…
Could be one of the guys. Practice changes. Film review updates. Coach loves sending those at stupid hours.
I sigh and pick it up.
Unknown number.
I open the message anyway.
And everything in me goes cold.
I know the engagement is fake. Do what I say, or I'll expose you. — Camille
My stomach drops so fast it feels like the floor disappears.