There’s a smaller subheading underneath, one that makes bile rise in my throat:“Sources say she’s ‘emotionally unstable’ and jeopardizing the team image.”
They don’t have a source. They have vultures. And then the detail that makes my legs go weak:“Witness reports seeing Alycia arriving at Kyle Hendrix’s condo late last night.”
My blood turns to ice. Someone followed me or caught the camera feed or got lucky at exactly the wrong moment. The comments under the article blur together in a sickening smear.
She probably slept over to fix her little mess.
So unprofessional.
Why is she even allowed near players?
Hendrix looks unstable, but she looks worse.
She’s gonna get fired. Calling it now.
My stomach lurches because this isn’t just gossip and speculation anymore; it's the new narrativedesigned to chew me up. My fingers shake around the phone, and the warm safety of the morning drains out of the room so fast it’s like someone yanked the sun out of the sky.
Behind me, down the hall, I hear Kyle’s sleepy footsteps approach, and I drop my shoulders back, fix my face, and force my lungs to keep moving.
He cannot see me fall apart. Not yet.
Kyle stops in the doorway as if the sight of me steals whatever air he had left. His eyes travel from my hair—still messy from his hands—to the hem of his shirt hanging loose around my thighs. Something soft flickers across his face as he steps toward me.
“Hey,” he says, voice warm with sleep, still gravelly around the edges.
He’s not wearing shoes. His hair is a mess from my fingers last night, with his T-shirt twisted around his torso like he rolled over it a dozen times. He looks peaceful. The way people look when they wake up in their own homes, with someone they care about close by. I feel anything but.
“You’re up early,” he murmurs, rubbing the heel of his hand over his eyes. “You okay?”
Lie. Lie. Lie.
“Yeah,” I say lightly, the word too bright. “Couldn’t sleep.”
He looks at me for a beat too long, and I swear he can hear the lie even if he doesn’t name it. He steps closer, hands rising to my arms. His palms glide over bare skin, causing my breath to shudder at the contact.
“You left the bed,” he says quietly, like he’s trying to understand something important.
“I didn’t want to wake you.”
“You wouldn’t have,” he murmurs. Then, softer, “You didn’t have to leave.”
I glance down at my phone and quickly flip it face down, the headline burned into my brain. “I just… needed a minute.”
Kyle studies me the way he studies game footage, looking for tells I don’t know how to hide. His thumb traces the inside of my wrist, gentle enough to undo me. “Alycia, talk to me.”
His eyes search mine like he fears what he’ll find but is more scared not to look.
“It’s nothing.”
“Hey… don’t do that. Don’t shut down on me. Not after last night.”
A quiet, sharp ache pricks behind my ribs. Last night and the way we said I love you like we’d been holding the words in our lungs for years. If he knew what was happening online, what people were saying, he’d burn the world down before I finished explaining. And that terrifies me.
“Kyle, it’s… It’s fine,” I whisper, turning back toward the coffee machine because I need something to put between us, even if it’s just hot water and plastic.
He steps behind me, close enough that I feel his body heat at my back. His hands smooth gently down my arms, fingertips brushing the insides of my elbows before settling lightly at my hips.
“Don’t lie to me,” he murmurs into the space near my ear. “If you’re scared, just say that. I can take it.”
