SCOTUS: A Powerplay Novel

by Selena Laurence

  “Oh! Of course,” she said, surprised. “I’m happy that you felt that way. I work hard to be responsible.”

  “Well, if you’ll excuse us, Marcus?” he said, smiling. Marcus nodded, winked at Deanna to reassure her, and left.

  “Please, let’s sit down,” Kamal said once the door had shut behind Marcus.

  Deanna did as she was told, all the while wondering if he was going to threaten her, try to bribe her, or get her fired. One way or another, she couldn’t believe that this visit was good news.

  “I think I’ve given your newsroom such a shock that they’ll be talking about nothing else but this for the next few hours.”

  She smiled at him, waiting for him to make a move.

  “I wanted to stop by and talk to you not as a reporter, but as Teague’s girlfriend.”

  Her heart thumped harder. “Well, I’m afraid you wasted your time, then. I’m not Teague’s girlfriend.”

  Kamal looked at her knowingly, shaking his head slightly. “I have to disagree, and I’m sure if I mentioned seeing you with another man, Teague himself would be here within the hour to reassert his views on the issue.”

  She couldn’t help the small smile that crept to her lips. The First Gentleman did know his friend. “Okay, for discussion’s sake, what is it you would want to say to Teague’s girlfriend?”

  He leaned forward, his expression earnest. “I would tell her that I think he needs her. He’s struggling to deal with his brother’s death, and I think he feels that he shouldn’t come to you unless he’s whole and back to fighting shape. But as my beautiful wife would say, ‘The point of that one person is that they’re there for you no matter what condition you’re in.’”

  Deanna nodded, her throat thick with emotion.

  “I’ve been friends with him for several years, and I won’t claim to know everything about him—obviously, he’d never told me the details about his family—but I think I know the basics well enough. He’s fought hard to be where he is, and he’s not likely to show anyone his weakness. In his experience showing weakness only gives people the chance to keep him locked out of the things he’s worked so hard for. What’s happened with the Supreme Court only reaffirmed that. He let the world know about his biggest weakness, and they took away his dream.”

  Deanna covered her mouth with her hand to stifle the cry that wanted to come out. She hadn’t looked at Teague this way before, but she immediately knew that Kamal was right.

  “Add that to the guilt he feels over leaving his brother all those years ago, and it’s made a perfect storm for him to doubt everything about himself and his life. Including whether he deserves you.”

  “Oh God,” Deanna finally gasped, her stomach tightening in distress.

  “I can’t tell you what to do, just like I can’t tell him. But I wouldn’t be his friend if I didn’t at least give you the information. He needs you. I think you might be the only one who can help him now.”

  Then the First Gentleman stood, took Deanna’s hand in both of his, and squeezed gently. “He loves you very much,” he said softly. “The road has been rough, but it will get better now, if you can give him a chance.”

  Deanna could only blink at him as he slipped out of the conference room, his battalion of Secret Service men following in his wake, while reporters stuck their heads out of cubicles right and left to watch him leave.

  Marcus was back in moments, obviously having waited nearby for Mr. Masri to leave.

  “Well, what fires do we need to put out?” he asked, nearly breathless.

  Deanna shook her head, trying to clear the detritus of emotions that cluttered her synapses.

  “Nothing. He’s not upset about anything.”

  “Then what did he want?”

  “It was about a mutual friend,” she said, standing.

  “He came all this way to discuss a mutual friend? Who is this—”

  “It’s not something I can discuss with you,” she said firmly. Then she lowered her voice. “National security issues.”

  Marcus laughed as she walked out of the room, heading for the elevators. She needed to find Teague. It was time for him to stop hiding.

  Teague stared at the text in front of him. He’d been sitting in his firm’s legal library all morning. But the time was wasted, as was the effort to find a loophole for his tax-evading corporate client’s irresponsible use of commodities trading to hide profits from the Internal Revenue Service.

  He pushed away from the table, slamming an enormous legal tome closed, then stood and walked to the windows that looked down on a courtyard in the center of the building. People came and went below, some stopping to sit on the benches set around indoor trees and flowering shrubs.

  A dark head of hair caught his eye, and he watched as a long-legged woman wearing a tight red skirt and a silky white blouse strolled from one end of the courtyard to the other until she disappeared into the elevator corridor. He knew that head of hair, and the ass and legs that went with it, and he also knew that she wasn’t here by accident.

  He leaned his forehead against the window, bracing himself for his secretary’s voice on the intercom. But his heart still raced when it came.

  “Would you please bring her here?” Teague answered.

  “Of course.”

  Two minutes later, the door opened, and Deanna walked in. Teague took his time turning to look at her, and when his gaze finally locked on to hers, his whole goddamn world blew apart yet again.

  Because here was the one thing in his life that made sense, and yet it was the thing that seemed furthest from possible at the moment. He’d spent weeks mourning the years he’d wasted without his brother, the things Roland would never have or experience, the irrational injustice of fate, and humans, and society. He was in a dark place that he wanted out of but didn’t have the wherewithal to climb from.

  And now this beautiful angel stood in front of him, and he wanted so very much to let her unfold her magic wings and rescue him—fly him out of the hell he was in—but he was also terrified that his weight might be so great, he’d only pull her down with him. And that was something he couldn’t risk. He’d left Roland in that deep, dark hole for all those years. There was no way he’d allow another person he loved to go there too.

  “Teague?” she said softly.

  “Hi,” he answered, because his heart was racing so fast, it was all he could get out before he lost most of his breath. Fuck, she was gorgeous. His hands itched to touch her, reach out and stroke her soft skin, kiss her silken lips.

  She came closer, and he tensed. She must have sensed his reticence, because she stopped, wrapping her arms around her waist, looking wary.

  “How are you?” she asked.

  He gave her a wry smile, bitter really, even though he didn’t mean it to be.

  “I’m here,” he said.

  She nodded as though she understood, but her face was so sad, it nearly broke him.

  “I miss you,” she said softly.

  “Dee, I don’t think—”

  “No. It’s my turn now.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’ve waited, Teague, and I’ve been patient. I know you’re hurting, but you can’t keep hiding. It’s time to let me help you.”

  He shook his head like a three-year-old telling his mother “no.”

  “Teague…”

  “I can’t,” he whispered, turning back to the window. “You have to realize I can’t because I love you. I’ll just drag you down. You’re so talented and beautiful. You have your whole life ahead of you. You can have it all—the career, the family, everything pure and good. And now you have your dad back, he can help you, and he’ll be a fantastic grandfather to your kids someday.”

  “Yes, he will,” she interjected. “When you and I have some.”

  He spun to face her. “Dee, I can’t. We can’t do that now. I’m…” He struggled to find the right words. “Tarnished. I’m dark and damaged, and frankly, I’m not a very nice person. I won’t
ever be a Supreme Court justice, I’m barely hanging on to my partnership here, and the entire world knows that I’m the guy who left his brother to rot in a prison cell for seventeen years.”

  “No,” she said, her voice dripping with empathy. “That is not how the world sees you. Not even close.”

  He snorted. “Easy for you to say, baby.”

  “None of this is easy for me. None of it,” she shot back. “I waited twelve long years to find you again, and now, after everything we’ve been through, you’re going to walk away without even trying? You think you have the market cornered on feeling like crap right now? I loved Roland too, and yet the one person who shares that with me won’t speak to me.”

  Shit. His gut roiled. “Dee…”

  “No.” Her eyes flashed in anger. “You don’t get to act sorry for it. I paid for what I did to you in college. I paid by missing you for twelve years. I paid by the constant guilt and loneliness I endured. I’m done suffering for you, Teague Roberts. If you won’t take this chance that we’ve been given, a chance to be together the way we were meant to, to have all the things we wanted and planned for, then I can’t wait anymore. I hope you find something to bring you joy.” Her voice cracked then. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t do it.”

  She was out the door only a few minutes before he realized how badly he’d fucked up. Not only was he betraying the promises he’d made to Dee and his own heart, but also to Roland. His brother hadn’t wanted him to live in the darkness. He’d wanted him to live in the light, where Roland never got to, where he never would. And it was that final thought that had Teague’s feet moving. He started walking, then moved into a jog, and by the time he hit the stairwell, he was running full speed, in dress shoes and a tie.

  He flew down the stairs, leaping over three and four at a time, his heart pounding in his ears. He blasted through the door from the stairwell to the lobby, startling his fellow workers and the security staff at the building’s concierge desk.

  He didn’t give any of them a second glance as he raced across the marble floor and shoved the large glass door open, exploding onto the vast sidewalk outside. His head swiveled first left, then right, his hungry eyes searching for that beautiful head of hair that he knew so well, and there she was, across the street, half a block down, waving for a taxi, and goddammit, he wasn’t sure why, but something inside him said he had to get to her before she got in one.

  Teague was a boxer, and while that meant he was in good shape, he didn’t run to race, he ran to keep fit, but in that moment, with his adrenaline at an all-time high and the woman he loved about to walk out of his life for good, he ran as if he’d been a college track star. He darted around pedestrians, hearing more than one complaint as he weaved in and out of the foot traffic, and when he was directly opposite Dee, the busy street of cars between them, he saw a taxi pulling up to the curb where she waited.

  “Dee!” he yelled, looking both ways of the street before he decided to go for it, dodging the cars that were in stop-and-go mode on the busy street. She didn’t hear him, but he was close. He saw her opening the door, climbing into the taxi. The driver was looking to pull out. Teague bolted between two car bumpers while they were stopped in traffic, using the hood of the back car to vault himself three feet farther, landing next to the taxi, where he pounded on the roof. The driver jolted, honked the horn, then rolled down the window and started yelling at Teague in something other than English.

  “Sorry!” Teague said breathlessly. He pointed at the backseat. “I need to talk to her.”

  Then the back window rolled down. “Teague?” she said, looking at him like he’d lost his mind.

  “Please. Just give me a few more minutes. Please?”

  Her pretty lips compressed into that line that every woman exasperated with a man made, but she told the taxi driver to cancel the ride and got out on the sidewalk. Teague made his way over and stood in front of her, panting harder than he’d like.

  She crossed her arms. “Okay, talk.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, figuring that was always a good way to start. Except he didn’t really have much beyond that. But he was an attorney, for Christ’s sake. He spent half his time on extemporaneous speaking. Surely he could manage this.

  “I was wrong…” Another good one to use and usually guaranteed to relax the opponent. “I’ve been so mired in guilt over Roland that I forgot I’m still alive. And he wanted me to live—in the light—not to spend my time here punishing myself for what happened to him. And dammit, I love you so much, I can’t breathe sometimes. You slay me—with every word from your lips, every breath from your lungs. You challenge me, you comfort me, you understand me better than I understand myself.”

  He dropped to one knee in front of her on the concrete sidewalk, and people around them began to titter and slow down.

  “Deanna Forbes, I love you with all my heart. Will you please be mine for always?”

  She looked at him, a little smile curling the edges of her lips, then she reached down and pressed her warm, soft palm to the stubble on his cheek.

  “You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?”

  “But I’m your pain in the ass,” he answered, grinning.

  “And I’m yours,” she said, leaning down and kissing him on the lips.

  Some observers nearby clapped, and Teague stood up and took a bow. Then he grabbed Deanna’s hand and tugged her along behind him.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, struggling to keep up.

  “The nearest bed.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Baby, it’s been years.”

  “Weeks. It’s been weeks.”

  “Too long,” he muttered, pulling her across a street at the intersection.

  “What if I need to get back to work?” she asked, resisting his momentum just the tiniest bit.

  He stopped, turning and looking at her with an anguished expression. “Do you?”

  “Well, technically not, but—”

  “Don’t mess with me like that.” He towed her along again.

  She laughed, and he stopped one more time, pulling her into his arms right in the middle of a busy Washington walkway.

  “I love you so much,” he said, lowering his mouth to hers slowly.

  “I know,” she answered, smiling against his lips.

  “This is it now, for always.”

  “Forever.”

  Epilogue

  Teague smiled as the teens spread out along the stairs to the new building, all gangly legs and giggling. He watched one young boy in particular—Jesse—a tough fifteen-year-old who hung back from the others a touch, watching what was going on more than participating.

  “Is that him?” Deanna asked as she leaned closer and pulled on Teague’s arm so his ear was near her mouth. He loved the combination of her mouth and his ear—her mouth and any part of him really.

  “Yeah, the skinny one at the back.”

  “But he agreed to do it?”

  “Yep. And I’ve seen what he wrote. He’ll do great, and I’ll be right there with him.”

  “You’re a good man, Teague Roberts,” she said, kissing him softly on the cheek.

  He chuckled. “You just wait,” he answered before kissing her back, then making his way onto the steps with the teens.

  He tapped the microphone at the lectern a couple of times, and the crowd that had assembled beneath the steps quieted down. He looked behind him first, at the special guests assembled—President Hampton, the First Gentleman, three US senators who held their seats courtesy of Derek Ambrose, and two Supreme Court justices—then he looked back out at the audience, finding that head of mahogany hair that kept him grounded at times like this. He grinned and began speaking.

  “Thank you so much, everyone, for being here. Especially our distinguished guests, who all worked so hard to get this project off the ground.

  “When I first mentioned this idea to my brother, he was thrilled. The idea that we could create a place where
kids from neighborhoods like the one Roland and I grew up in could go not only after school or for a few hours, but overnight if they needed shelter, and during the day if they needed guidance. A place where there is always staff available, twenty-four seven, to advise, counsel, listen, or just hang out with. Staff who are like family, and often actually are family, because this is a place devoted to the kids but available to the entire neighborhood.

  “So Roland loved this idea, and he asked one thing of me. He wanted these special places to offer something that had meant a great deal to him when we were growing up, and that he had missed dearly during his years of incarceration. He wanted there to be Sunday dinner.”

  The crowd shifted, and Teague saw several tissues come out of pockets and purses. He could make this speech now, talk about Roland without breaking down, because of the building and the people standing behind him. He would never forget his brother, and now neither would anyone else.

  “When we were growing up—” He smiled at his mother, who stood to one side, her arm around Deanna’s waist. “Momma never worked on Sunday nights. So no matter what, we would always have Sunday dinner. Now, some weeks, that consisted of pork and beans from a can, because that’s all the money we had—” He grinned, and the crowd chuckled. “But some Sundays, it was hamburgers or spaghetti. And no matter what the food was, the three of us were there for it, and we’d talk and laugh, and catch up on what had happened during the week. Roland loved those dinners, and so every Sunday here—“ He gestured to the building behind him. “We’ll have Sunday dinner. And we’ll always have some special guests. Some Sunday, you might come to eat and find the president here. Another it might be your favorite rapper. You’ll just have to stop by to see.” He winked at the audience and the kids behind him.

  “Finally, my brother hoped that eventually we could put these centers in every poor neighborhood in every major city around the United States, and that’s what we’re going to do. This is the first, but there will be many more.”