Chapter 6 Off The Air

Lexi's POV

Mark was screaming so loud that the windows of the production truck were shaking.

"Kill the feed! Kill it right now! Who approved that camera angle? Who let a little boy run into the middle of my live shot in front of the whole country?" He slammed his hand down on the console and knocked a half-empty coffee cup across a pile of scripts.

Nobody answered him. All six monitors were playing the same video over and over.

My son's face was on every screen.

The tunnel camera had gone out live, and someone had already cut the clip and posted it online. In the video, Eli ran toward me in his big jersey with his curls bouncing, then he turned and looked straight up at Chase.

The biggest monitor had a headline across the top that said:

WHO IS CHASE HOLLOWAY'S MYSTERY KID?

My stomach dropped hard.

Rosa pushed into the truck behind me, holding Eli's backpack and his little jacket. "Lexi, please tell me that's not—"

"It's Eli, and we're leaving right now." I grabbed my phone, which was already buzzing on the counter.

Mark spun around to face me with red cheeks. "You cannot just walk off this production! We're covering the biggest game of the season, and your personal situation is turning into a national story!"

I grabbed my bag from under the desk and looked straight at him. "My personal situation is a four-year-old child who never asked to become tomorrow's headline. You want an explanation? Then explain why my son is playing on six screens in this truck without my permission. Explain why your production team is treating a child like breaking news. Then you can explain it to SBN's legal department, because I am done here tonight."

Mark stopped talking.

Eli walked up beside Rosa, holding the small football he had begged me to buy before the game. He stopped smiling when he saw my face. "Mommy, are you angry with me?"

I dropped down on my knees in front of him and gently pushed a curl behind his ear. "Never, baby. You have not done anything wrong. Not one single thing."

"Then why is everybody shouting at each other?" Eli asked, looking past me at Mark.

"Because grown-ups sometimes forget how to behave," I said, and I kissed his forehead while keeping my voice soft for him. "But Mommy is going to fix it, okay?"

He nodded and put his small hand in mine.

We followed Rosa down the narrow hallway behind the truck. The video was spreading fast, and I knew the questions would start as soon as someone connected Eli to Chase. People would ask who his mother was and why Chase had never claimed him.

The service hallway smelled like concrete and old popcorn. Rosa pushed open a steel door and looked behind us first. "Service gate three is open, and my car is parked right outside. The video is already trending on two sports sites, Lexi, and someone tagged Chase in it."

Of course they did.

We slipped through the gate just as two photographers came around the far end of the loading area.

"Lexi Carter!" one of them called out while lifting his camera. "Is that Chase Holloway's son?"

Rosa stepped between us and the photographers without slowing down. "Keep walking and do not look at them."

I pulled Eli close to my side and walked faster. We reached Rosa's car, got in quickly, and drove away before anyone could block the exit. My hands were shaking.

Eli sat in his booster seat, swinging his feet and turning the football over in his lap. "Mommy? Why did that man say I belong to the quarterback?"

Rosa looked at me in the rearview mirror.

I had practiced this conversation for years. I had planned to wait until Eli was old enough to understand the difference between being related to someone and being loved by them. I never thought a stranger would start that conversation for me outside a football stadium.

"Some people say things they do not understand, baby," I told him. "You belong with me and with everybody who loves you. That is what matters."

He was quiet for a few seconds, then he went back to playing with his football.

I turned toward the window so neither of them would see me crying.

Rosa stayed at my apartment for hours. She ordered dinner, helped Eli put on his pajamas, and sat next to me on the couch while I checked the locks.

"You know this is not going to disappear by morning," Rosa said. "And if Chase recognizes him—"

"He will. He saw Eli in that tunnel, and the internet made sure he cannot pretend he did not see him."

She took my hand. "So what are you going to do?"

"Protect my son."

"And yourself?"

"I have been protecting myself for five years."

"That is not what I asked you, and you know it."

I stared at the blank television. "I do not know, Rosa. Every time I think about him, I feel like I am twenty-two again, standing in that hallway, and I am so angry that I cannot breathe. I never let myself feel any of it. I just packed one suitcase and kept going, and now he is on every screen in the country with my son."

Rosa kept holding my hand.

After she left, I put Eli to bed. He slept with one fist under his cheek. He had my laugh, my stubbornness, and the same way of wrinkling his nose when he concentrated. He was his own person, and no one named Holloway got to claim him.

At midnight, my phone lit up in the dark kitchen.

It was a Dallas number. I knew that number by heart.

I stood there and watched the screen until the call ended. A few seconds later, a text from Chase came in: "We need to talk. Tonight."

There was no apology. He did not ask if his son was healthy, happy, or scared of the cameras. He just sent me an order and called it a conversation.

I turned the phone face down.

I barely slept. Every sound in the hallway made me sit up in bed.

At seven in the morning, three firm knocks hit my front door.

I put on a cardigan and looked through the peephole.

Chase Holloway was standing outside alone. He had a baseball cap pulled low and sunglasses covering half his face. He was holding a coffee in each hand, like we were old friends meeting for breakfast.