Fuck.I need to talk to her.No, I need to talk to Cade. Blair never wanted to talk about it back then, and I don’t think that’s changed.
Sal says something else, and I tune in enough to get the gist of him asking if I’m okay, or if I need anything, but I wave him off on both counts.
I’m fine. I’ve been through this before. I can handle it. It’s other people I’m worried about. Namely Blair. She doesn’t need a refresher of the shitty things that happened in her past.
All because thatassholeis lying unconscious in the hospital. Taunting me. Making me question if I’m about to add another death to my list. Another one I got away with.
Straightening my posture, I pat D’Angelo on the arm and jog back to the locker room, walking in on a few of the guys talking about the headlines, with Luke telling them to shut up.
“Yeah, yeah. But what I don’t understand is how come this never came up when they were making the show?” one of the rookies asks. “They need season two.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Luke seethes. “You’re talking about your teammates’ lives.”
“So?” The rookie lifts his hands in the air. “I missed out. I want to be a part of it.”
“Wow. The irony,” Luke muses and I actually smile.
“What irony?” the rookie asks, cockiness gone, his brows pinched in confusion.
“He means that you’re just like me,” I cut in, answering for Luke. “Desperate for the spotlight. But to answer your question,they never found out what I did back then because I gave them enough to stop looking.”
The guys fall silent until someone curses behind me, and I don’t have to turn to guess who.
But I do, finding Easton with a scowl that could crush souls. “You little fucker,” he seethes. “You dragged me into thespotlight… No, actually, you draggedmy soninto the spotlight to protect yourself?”
“Yep,” I say confidently, only it’s not quite true. I didn’t do it for me. “I’m sorry about your son. But I’d do it all again if I had to.”
When our previous owner decided to produce a TV show about the team, I knew they were going to start digging, and I needed the attention to go elsewhere. In the beginning, I managed to hold them off with just my cocky persona, because Amelia—Luke’s now wife and the director of the show—was a decent human being. But after she left, the producers wanted more. They needed the drama surrounding her departure to disappear, and to do that, they started looking for something bigger.
And I had the story of a lifetime.
Only, I wasn’t handing it over.
Instead, I took advantage of my situation with Easton.
I figured if I gave them all the juicy details about our fight, including me sleeping with his ex, they wouldn’t go digging.
I was right.
In a TV series showcasing the lives of a football team, what’s more dramatic than internal fighting? Juicier than teammates fucking each other’s partners? More shocking than the fact that said teammate’s partner knew who she was sleeping with, and did it to piss him off? Easton’s ex, Macy,choseme to get back at him. On purpose.
It was the perfect story to tell.
I’m not proud of it, but it worked. And as I told Easton, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Easton huffs under his breath and I admit, I feel bad. But I couldn’t risk the accident making headlines again. For my sister. My family. And Blair.
But now that it has, the least I can do is help.
Blair came back into my life for a reason. Maybe this is it.
Imake it three quarters of the way home after practice before reluctantly calling Cade. I avoid talking to him at the best of times, but discussing his sister is even less appealing, so when he doesn’t answer, I consider it a win. Until he calls right back.
“You had to go and hurt someone else, didn’t you? You’re lucky he’s not dead.”
“The fuck, Cade. What kind of person says that?”
“The kind that’s just finished talking to his sister because her best friend’s all over the news again. Sort of. You know what I mean.”
