Fast Break

by Regina Hart

  Violet gave a sympathetic wince. “I know. That’s a twelve-game losing streak. Now you’re back at the bottom of the division.”

  “We’re almost at the bottom half of the conference. And this is how he shows me that the team matters more?”

  “You mean that you matter more.”

  “What?” Jaclyn gave her friend a sharp look. They were sharing lunch at their favorite Chinese food restaurant. As upset as she was, they might as well have gone to a fast-food drive-through.

  “Sweetie, this isn’t about Marc and the team. It’s about Marc and you. You’re not being disloyal to your grandfather if you put your needs above the team’s once in a while.”

  “Vi, that’s absurd. Of course it’s about Marc and the team. He’s the head coach.” Jaclyn drank more iced tea.

  “Yeah. And for three months, he was your lover. And, judging by the looks of that man, those were three glorious months.”

  Jaclyn flushed. “That relationship is over.”

  Violet leaned forward into the restaurant’s table. She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Why is that again?”

  Jaclyn scowled at her former teammate. “Are you trying to annoy me?”

  “You’re being ridiculous. You broke up with Marc because he didn’t tell you what Gerry was up to?”

  Jaclyn shook her head. “It’s more complicated than that.” She released a sigh. She’d had two weeks of sleepless nights since making her decision to break off their relationship. It probably seemed a lot easier to DeMarcus and Violet than it had been in fact.

  “Then explain it to me.” Violet’s tone was somber. Her violet blue eyes were sad. “Explain why, if this was a good decision for you, you’re so miserable.”

  Jaclyn dropped her forehead into her palms. “Vi, it was hard keeping our personal and professional lives separate. I was afraid to hurt his ego by questioning his player decisions.”

  “You’d have to tiptoe around any head coach’s ego.”

  “What about my ego?” Jaclyn sat straighter. “After the reporter left his office, he should have called me immediately. Instead he went to see Gerry.”

  “Yeah. Well, how eager would you have been to tell your boss that your other boss has accused you of doing drugs?”

  Jaclyn gave the other woman a baleful look. “Whose side are you on?”

  “Yours.”

  “It doesn’t sound like it.”

  “Well, you’re a little deaf right now, sweetie. But that’s understandable.” Violet leaned forward again. “Listen. Marc should have told you Gerry was blackmailing him. No doubt.”

  Jaclyn interrupted. “Exactly. If Andrea hadn’t come to us, it would have been a horrible situation for the team.”

  “No. It would have been a hard situation for the team. But everything would have worked out in the end. On the other hand, it would have been a horrible situation for the team if your head coach really had been doing drugs.” Violet nodded. “Right? That would have been bad.”

  Jaclyn opened her mouth, then closed it again.

  Violet nodded again. “Yeah, you hadn’t thought of that, had you? And, yeah, he went on a bit of a losing spree since promising to take you to the play-offs. But, you know what, Jackie? These aren’t the dark ages when women stayed home wearing corsets while men went on quests for us. He shouldn’t have to take you to the play-offs for you to let him love you.”

  Jaclyn’s body warmed with that visual. Still, she fought against her friend’s very valid points. “We’d finally started to win. Now we’re losing again.”

  “Listening to you, no one would think you’d ever played on a professional sports team much less that you’d been the MVP of the WNBA. Teams get into slumps. You and Marc just need to figure out why the Monarchs are in a slump and how to get them back out. The season’s not lost yet.”

  Jaclyn stared at her sweating iced tea glass. “What about our relationships? Can we really work together and be together?”

  Violet shrugged. “You’re the boss. You can do whatever you like. What do you want?”

  Jaclyn moved her steamed vegetables and rice around the gold-trimmed, white china plate. What did she want? She’d already ensured the team would stay in Brooklyn. “I want to make my grandfather proud. I want to restore the Monarchs to its winning tradition. I want someone to offer Gerry a well-paying, prestigious job in another country.”

  Violet chuckled. “What about Marc?”

  That one wasn’t as easy. She wanted their shared passion for basketball during the day and their passion for each other all night. But she couldn’t go back to the way they had been, because he’d only embraced one part of her. “I want to know whether he can accept all of me, his boss and his lover.”

  Violet shrugged again. “So ask him.”

  Jaclyn shoved the fingers of her right hand through her hair. “I don’t think he knows. I don’t think he understands there’s more to me than the woman he wants to sleep with.”

  “You said he told you he’d take the Monarchs to the play-offs to prove that you matter to him and your team matters more to him than his image.”

  “That’s what he said.” Jaclyn drank more iced tea.

  “Then, sweetie, he does understand. Apparently, better than you understand yourself.”

  DeMarcus heard his father’s footsteps behind him before Julian spoke. “You need to get some sleep. Tomorrow will come soon enough.”

  “It’s already here, Pop.”

  Brooklyn Monarchs versus New York Knicks. Win or go home. DeMarcus crossed his arms over his black Monarchs jersey and considered the early-morning scene outside their sitting room’s bay window. It was after one o’clock Wednesday morning. Still, there were lights on in other houses and cars cruising down the street.

  Brooklynites had welcomed spring and turned their clocks ahead almost a month ago. Blossoms replaced the ice that had imprisoned tree limbs at the beginning of the season.

  His father came to stand beside him. “You’ve done everything you could to prepare for the game tonight except sleep.”

  DeMarcus glanced at his father. The older man wore his blue and red flannel robe over his pajamas. Black slippers covered his feet. “Why are you up?”

  Julian slipped his hands into the pockets of his robe. “I was thinking about the game, too. When I heard you come downstairs, I figured we could think about it together.”

  DeMarcus smiled and returned his attention to the view of his neighborhood. “A win tonight will move us into eighth place in the Eastern Conference and guarantee us a play-off berth.”

  “Thanks to your ten-and-three run, you’re in control of your destiny.”

  “We’re playing in Madison Square Garden.” DeMarcus brought an image of the venue to mind. “The Knicks will have home court advantage.”

  “They’ve already clinched a play-off spot. This game doesn’t mean as much to them as it means to the Monarchs.”

  DeMarcus shook his head. “This is a cross-borough rivalry. We can’t fool ourselves that they won’t bring the heat.” He turned to meet his father’s eyes. “I wish Mom were here. Win or lose, I’d want her to see this game.”

  Julian put his hand on DeMarcus’s shoulder. “So would I.”

  He couldn’t put off any longer the question Jaclyn had urged him to ask his father months ago. “Did she know how much I appreciated all the sacrifices you both made for me?”

  “Your mother knew everything.” The older man managed a smile. “She said you always called early in the day when you were lonely and later in the evening when you just wanted to talk.”

  DeMarcus chuckled. “I’d talk about nothing just to hear her voice or to make her laugh.”

  Julian dropped his hand from DeMarcus’s shoulder. “This house had a lot more laughter when your mother was alive. And then when Jackie came into the picture.”

  DeMarcus stared out the window again. “I came back to Brooklyn because I wanted to be with you. I agreed to coach the
Monarchs to honor Mom. But this win tonight against the Knicks will be for Jack.”

  “What are you doing for yourself?”

  DeMarcus grinned. “Beating the Knicks. That way I get the win and the woman.”

  “But what if you lose?”

  The question scared him more than he wanted to admit. “It’s win or go home. If we lose, I’ll come home.”

  “What about your relationship with Jackie?”

  “I don’t know, Pop.” DeMarcus paced away from the window toward his mother’s chair. His bare feet sank into the Oriental rug.

  “If you want her back, you’ll have to do something more than get into the play-offs.”

  That was one of the worries that had driven DeMarcus from his bed. He ran his hand over his hair. “Like what?”

  “You said she wants you to remember she’s your boss.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And she said she’s in love with you?”

  DeMarcus swallowed. His voice was husky. “Yes, she did.”

  Julian shrugged. “It seems simple enough to me.”

  DeMarcus watched his father settle into his armchair. “Care to share your wisdom?”

  Julian smiled. “Jackie is rich and beautiful. She can have any man she wants.”

  DeMarcus took his mother’s armchair. “No news flash there, Pop.”

  Julian held up a hand. “She’s also an independent woman. She doesn’t need any man, but she wants you.”

  “I still don’t understand your point.”

  Julian shifted in his seat to face DeMarcus. “You fell in love with an independent woman. You’re trying to change her and you don’t understand why she’s upset about that.”

  DeMarcus scowled. “I’m not trying to change her.”

  “She asked you to take her team to the play-offs. That’s all. You were upset when she wouldn’t let you buy the arena for her. Then you tried to handle Gerry’s blackmail attempts without talking to her.”

  DeMarcus stood to prowl the room. “When I love someone, I want to take care of them. That’s who I am.”

  “I understand, son. I’m the same way. And Jackie reminds me of your mother. We had to learn to make decisions together and not for one another.”

  Tension drained from DeMarcus’s neck and shoulders. “I can work on that.”

  “Yes, you can. Now you just have to convince Jackie.”

  Some of his tension returned. “That will be harder.”

  24

  Jaclyn stood in the visiting owner’s box, watching the Knicks and Monarchs warm up before the game. Madison Square Garden’s sound system played Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’s “Empire State of Mind.” Jaclyn thought of the record as a love song to the city.

  Her heart was racing. Her palms were sweating. Every muscle in her body was a knot on top of a knot. If she didn’t distract herself, by game time, she’d pass out.

  “Thanks again for letting me join you in the box.” Marylin Evans’s tone was distant.

  Jaclyn looked at Warrick’s wife. “I appreciate your coming.”

  Marylin was similar in height to Jaclyn, although Jaclyn’s four-inch black stilettos gave her a boost. The other woman looked pretty and serious in one-inch black pumps and a brown pants suit. The cream shell peeked from beneath the three-button jacket and complimented her cocoa skin. Her straight, dark brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail that fell to the nape of her neck.

  The shooting guard’s wife sipped her diet ginger ale as she studied the court. “Where are the other wives?”

  “Over there.” Jaclyn pointed toward the seats behind the Monarchs’ bench where the players’ and coaches’ wives and girlfriends sat. “They tend to talk during the game. I was afraid, if that happened tonight, I’d take someone’s head off. But you don’t talk much during the game.” And no one spoke to Marylin, which was something else Jaclyn had noticed.

  Marylin’s lips curved in the slightest smile. “I don’t make it to many of them. It’s amazing how many women go into labor during basketball games.”

  Jaclyn laughed. “Rick mentioned you and a friend were opening an obstetrics/gynecological practice. Good luck.”

  Even the slight smile disappeared. “Rick tells you a lot of things.”

  Marylin may prove more of a distraction than Jaclyn had anticipated. “Was it a secret?” She faced the other woman. “Listen, Mary, Rick has been a good friend to me over the years. I want us to be friends, too.”

  Marylin’s smile didn’t reach her chocolate eyes. “Of course.”

  Jaclyn turned away, disappointed. Where had the other woman’s animosity come from? She hoped Julian arrived soon. She needed a friendly face during the game. Jaclyn had a feeling that wouldn’t be Marylin’s.

  Gerald was waiting for him at the entrance to Vom Two when DeMarcus emerged from the visitors’ locker room. “This is your last chance, Marc. Are you sure you’re going for the win?”

  DeMarcus planted his feet. “Positive.”

  Gerald shook his head. “That’s not the smartest decision you’ve ever made.”

  “You’ve lost, Gerry. Jack owns the arena. The Monarchs aren’t going anywhere. The community hates you. Sell your shares to Jack. She’ll give you fair market price.”

  “That’s what she wants.” Gerald’s dark eyes glowed with animosity. “For decades the Jones family has gotten what they wanted. Now I’m going to destroy what they care about the most. And if you won’t help me, I’ll destroy you, too.”

  DeMarcus stepped around the other man. “Get over yourself, Gerry. You sound like a bad nineteen fifties movie villain.”

  DeMarcus walked onto the court to watch the Monarchs warm up and do a final pregame check of the Knicks. Their opponents looked confident and relaxed. The Monarchs looked tentative and tight. That was their season in a nutshell.

  He raised his gaze to the visiting owner’s box. Jaclyn and his father stood with their faces almost pressed to the glass. The other woman in the box looked like Marylin Evans, Warrick’s wife. Although he couldn’t see Jaclyn’s expression clearly, DeMarcus could sense her tension. Or was it his? The next four quarters would determine whether the franchise would end the season with a financial boost or start yet another year with a shoestring budget.

  DeMarcus waited until Anthony Chambers took possession of the ball after the New York Knicks had added another three-point shot to their now thirteen-point lead. One minute and nine seconds remained in the third quarter.

  Win or go home.

  “Time-out.” He would not lose this game. He could not.

  DeMarcus pinned Barron with a look. “Pass the ball to Jamal.”

  The point guard hooked his hands on his hips. “For what? He doesn’t know the plays.”

  “He’s been wide open. He can take the shots.” DeMarcus struggled with his temper. The television cameras could pick up their exchange. He didn’t want his confrontation with the Monarchs’ team captain to lead TNT’s Inside the NBA.

  “I can take the shots.”

  “You’re forcing them.”

  Anthony put his hand on Barron’s shoulder. “Bling, man, we’re down by thirteen. Trust the rookie.”

  Barron shrugged off Anthony’s hand. “He’s a ball hog.”

  Vincent swallowed a gulp of water and recapped his bottle. “You afraid he’ll shine brighter than you out there?”

  Barron glared at the center. “Watch your mouth, Vinny.”

  DeMarcus clenched his teeth. “Are you going to pass to Jamal?”

  Barron raised his chin. “No.”

  DeMarcus jerked his head over his shoulder. “Take a seat.”

  Barron’s lips parted. “What?”

  DeMarcus looked around. “Rick, you’re in.”

  Barron’s eyes widened. “You’re replacing me with Rick? You should replace Jamal.”

  DeMarcus spared the team captain a glance. “This isn’t a democracy.” He spoke quickly to Warrick. “I don’t know what kind of mental blo
ck you’re working through. I don’t care. You’ve brought the heat in practice. This is just like practice, but a zillion times more important.”

  Fear flashed in Warrick’s eyes. “Coach, you need to keep Bling in the game.”

  Barron interjected. “That’s right.”

  From the corner of DeMarcus’s eye, he saw Oscar pull the angry point guard to the bench. “This is a time-out. Not halftime. I don’t have all day. You get the looks, take the shot. No hesitations. Be aggressive. But, for the love of God, don’t foul out. Jamal’s already carrying four fouls.” He grabbed the veteran’s arm. “Do you have this?”

  Warrick’s shoulders straightened. His eyes focused. “I’ve got this.”

  DeMarcus commanded the other man’s gaze. “Don’t be afraid to lose.”

  The buzzer sounded. The starters hustled back on court.

  Anthony inbounded the ball to Vincent. The Monarchs’ center took the ball to the paint, gesturing his teammates into position. The Knicks’ Timofey Mosgov shadowed him. Warrick and Serge had the perimeter, defended by Amare Stoudemire and Danilo Gallinari, respectively. Anthony stood at post with New York’s Wilson Chandler. Jamal covered Bill Walker in the paint.

  Vincent passed the ball to Warrick. The shooting guard pick-and-rolled to the post with a blind pass to Anthony. The Monarchs’ forward grabbed the ball and slammed it into the net for two points. DeMarcus pumped a fist. Monarchs closed in on the lead, 86 to 75. Forty-nine seconds remained in the third quarter. Shot clock reset to twenty-four seconds.

  New York’s Chandler grabbed the ball, passing it to his teammate Mosgov. Mosgov hustled back down the court. The Monarchs set up their triangle defense. Mosgov flung the ball to Stoudemire. Warrick smacked it away. Jamal caught the loose ball and charged unchallenged back up the court. Monarchs fans went wild.