“Well, who the hell’s gonna admit to cheating?” Grady said.

The comment was a huge red flag.

“Besides,” Grady continued, “you can’t throw a hissy fit just because things don’t go your way.”

“Why not? Men do it all the time,” Lainey chimed in.

“And they get penalized when they do,” Grady said. He looked at me. “Tyson, man, where do you come out on this?” he asked, clearly mistaking my silence for being on his side.

“Serena’s the GOAT,” I said.

“Okay. But do you think the ump was being sexist?” Grady pressed me.

Sexist and racist, I thought. At the very least, there was unconscious bias at play. But I’d made it a long-standing policy to only debate worthy adversaries, so I simply shrugged and said, “Hard to tell.”

“Well, I still say she’s a poor sport,” Grady said. “And tacky.”

“Tacky?” Lainey fired back.

“Yeah. Remember the ridiculous spandex suit she sported at the French Open?”

“What was so ridiculous about it?” Lainey asked. Shaming a woman for her clothing was a big no for her.

“She’d just given birth,” Hannah said. “She wore it to combat blood clots.”

“Still. You shouldn’t be allowed to wear shit like that in tennis. It’s a matter of decorum,” Grady said, then doubled down on his racially coded language. “Tennis is a genteel sport. Nobody should behave that way. Black, white, or purple.”

I stared at him, marveling at both his cluelessness and his brazenness. Here he sat, critiquing a Black female—two things he’s not and never will be—with two women and a Black man. We were all more qualified to speak to Serena’s experience, yet he was so convinced that he had all the answers.

I finally broke.

“You’re right, Grady,” I said. “She can’t act that way. She’s held to a different standard and has to be completely beyond reproach. She’s gotta be twice as good and half as reactive knowing that she’s going to get double the scrutiny. And on that day, she wasn’t. When that ump accused her of cheating, she reacted like a normal, frustrated human being who’d just been accused of doing something she hadn’t done. She lost her cool. So yeah. You’re right. She can’t act that way.”

Grady nodded, then drained his pint of beer, obtusely triumphant. Meanwhile, Lainey squeezed my leg under the table, as if to tell me to calm down, he wasn’t worth it. I wasn’t going to change his mind, nor was I going to change Hannah’s mind about him. I bit my tongue for the rest of the night, and during the few times I’d seen him since.

One thing life had taught me was how to keep my mouth shut. I was good at that.

But now, as I hang up the phone with Lainey, I realize that I’m off the hook: I can finally tell Hannah what I think of her asshole fiancé. Ex-fiancé.

Bottom line, I know Lainey is right. I know I have to fly down there and be with Hannah. We made a promise, and I don’t break promises.

—

A few minutes later, I’m standing in Martin Strout’s office doorway. Martin is the head of our firm’s white-collar defense practice group and a D.C. legend. There’s no one who understands the False Claims or Foreign Corrupt Practices Act better than he does. I’ve watched up close and in awe as he navigates complex issues of fraud, money laundering, and trade sanctions violations, defending heavy hitters in pharmaceuticals, financial services, retail, and energy.

He also happens to be a world-class asshole who believes that things must be done the way he did them back in the eighties. In other words, we all must be sitting together in a conference room, day and night, sometimes just watching him think. Even during the height of the pandemic, he expected us all to come in, and he made it clear that masking up annoyed him.

“Can I help you, Mr. Bishop?” he asks now, looking up at me with a scowl.

“Hi, Martin,” I say. “Do you have a minute?”

“I have thirty seconds.”

I nod, take a deep breath, and tell him that I need to go out of town this weekend.

“Come again?” Martin says, whipping off his wire-rim glasses with one hand. He flings them onto his desk, continuing to stare at me. It’s one of his go-to intimidation tactics that I’ve witnessed in many depositions and trials.

I repeat my statement verbatim.

“We’re going to trial next week, Mr. Bishop.”

“I’m aware. And I apologize for the unfortunate timing. But this is an emergency.”

“Has there been a death in your immediate family?” he asks, making it clear that attending the funeral of, say, a grandparent or cousin would not be an acceptable excuse.

“Nobody has died,” I say.

“Are you on your own deathbed?” he asks.

“I am not.”

“Then no,” he says. “You can’t go.”

I shift my weight from one foot to the other but maintain eye contact. “Well, Martin, I wasn’t asking for permission.”

He stares back at me, his red face turning redder than it usually is.

“Well, Mr. Bishop, let me put it to you this way: If you’re not in the office this weekend, then you’re off this case.”

I nod and tell him I understand.

“Good. So you decide which matter is of greater importance to you.”

He gives me a smug look, confident that he’s just laid down a trump card.

“Will do,” I say with a curt nod. “Thank you, Martin.”

“What are you thanking me for?” he grumbles.

“For framing the issue so clearly,” I say, then turn on my heel, determined to have the last word.

—

“So, what are you going to do?” Nicole, my girlfriend of nearly a year, asks after I give her the update. We are sitting at the bar in a little bistro in Georgetown, waiting for a table to open.

“I’m going to Atlanta.”

“Seriously?” she says, making a sharp ninety-degree turn on her stool.