Page 123 of American Royalty

Chapter Twenty-One

“Jelly like a mofo / You know...”

—Duchess, “You Know”

From her position in the third row of the Royal Box, Dani looked down at the most famous tennis court in the world. The alternating lighter and darker lawn stripe pattern, the crisp white lines of the court, the stewards standing by the exits, ball boys and girls scurrying back and forth, and the almost fifteen thousand people filling the stands. She resisted the urge to pinch herself.

I’m at Wimbledon!

Flicking aside the long asymmetrical skirt of her Prabal Gurung floral dress, Dani leaned forward and braced her elbow on her bare knee, resting her chin on her curled fingers.

Technically, she wasn’t. Wimbledon was the name of the tournament; the venue was the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. And the tournament wasn’t scheduled to be held for another week. Still, the two were irrevocably linked in her mind.

Not because she knew anything about tennis. She barely knew the rules and had held a racket only once in her life! But that didn’t matter to most black women she knew if Venus or Serena was playing. And that interest, that instinctive rooting value for the black female tennis players that followed, was one of the Williams sisters’ biggest legacies. It’s how Dani had been fortunate enough to meet Yolanda Evans, a rising star in tennis who’d won the U.S. Open two years ago.

Yolanda had also been the one to school her on the history of the club and tournament. How black people hadn’t been allowed to play at the club until 1951 and that the tournament didn’t even pay men and women equal prize money until 2007.

And now my black ass is at Centre Court sitting up in the Royal Box for everyone to see.

Fucking surreal.

“It’s quite something, isn’t it?” Liam’s smooth voice poured into her ear.

She smiled. “It certainly is.”

“Do you play?”

She turned to look at him, her “Are you serious?” expression mostly hidden by the oversized Gucci sunglasses she wore. “No.”

“I played when I was a teenager. I was pretty good, but once the band took off, there was no time to devote to it.”

“That’s amazing. I had no idea. Do you still play?”

“I have a court at my house. You should come over and play with me sometime.” His lips curved. “I have a wicked serve.”

She tilted her head, and curls tumbled over her shoulder. “I bet you do.”

He grabbed one of her curls and tugged on it.

Immediately she could hear the incessant click of shutters and flashes of cameras followed by “Smile, Duchess!”

Dammit!

A gaggle of photographers was camped beneath them, in the perfect spot to get pictures of the match but also pictures of thecelebrities in the box and crowd. No doubt they’d caught that moment.

And she was conflicted by that. Yesterday’s incident at Bloom Urban had been covered by every media outlet in the world. While the organization and the upcoming concert had gotten some coverage, it had been widely overshadowed by her interactions with various parties.

For the most part, it had been positive for her. She’d been praised on how she’d handled Samantha Banks, with some in the media questioning the propriety of Banks showing up.

“Why is she there?” a woman had asked her coanchor.

Dani still didn’t know the answer to that one. She kept expecting the singer to pop out and challenge her to a game of tennis.

Some stories focused on Duchess’s interaction with the kids and her offer to buy concert tickets for them. That action was also praised, but it turned into a jumping-off point for a discussion about the price of tickets.

But the biggest story had been about her and Liam, and speculation about the nature of her relationship with the pop star.

Sure,Bossiphad topped everyone’s headline with “Duchess Snacking on That Tasty, Curly-Haired Vanilla Cake?”