‘Have you read my text?’ Tony barked out—the sense of urgency in his tone, making me sit up straight.
‘I haven’t had time?—’
‘Read it now,’ he demanded. ‘She sold you out.’
I heaved a sigh. ‘If it’s another article about Ashley, I really don’t need to read that shit.’ I stopped torturing myself with those vapid articles a long time ago.
‘Not Ashley,’ Tony’s voice dipped low. ‘Fallon.’
Those words turned my blood to ice.
‘What the fuck are you on about?’ I snapped.
’I just got a proof of the article that is going live tomorrow morning.’
I put him on speakerphone, my hands trembling. It took several attempts to open the article he’d sent me. My body refusing to cooperate with me.
When I finally had it open. The bottom fell out of my stomach.No. No.This wasn’t happening again. This wasn’t fucking happening again.
The words blurred together as I tried to make sense of what I was reading.
‘I’m sorry, Oliver,’ Tony muttered gently.
Insider Exclusive: Oliver Blake’s Biographer reveals heartbreaking loss of mother in tell-all book.
“Grief isn’t linear. There’s no set path it takes, and for Oliver, it’s the undercurrent to every decision he makes. The loss of his mum—Cora—is the driving force that keeps him moving. But what happens when he stops? What happens in those quiet moments when you have no choice but to let the sorrow settle in your soul.
You do the things that make you feel close to that person. For Oliver, it’s watching David Attenborough documentaries late at night. The world thinks they know who this man is. They assume parts of his life because he gives them so little to go on. It’s human nature to embellish things we know little about. What the public sees is an egotistical man who perhaps knows just how good he is and has no trouble flaunting his ability. But in private, you have a man who is blindly trying to struggle through life, carrying the weight of his grief and love for his family wherever he goes…”
My knuckles turn white from how hard I was gripping my phone. I couldn’t read anymore.
For the second time in one year, I was about to lose my shit.
46
FALLON
Papers lay scattered around me as I tapped furiously on my laptop—the words pouring out of me like water. It was tantalisingly close to completion, and the finish line was within sight, beckoning me forward. I knew there were still endless steps to take, but this was the first big milestone that was nearly completed.
A surge of apprehension enveloped me as I thought about Oliver reading it. I knew he wouldn’t mince his words, and I didn’t want him to. This was his life that he was offering up for people to read and inevitably… judge, so it had to be perfect. Ineededit to be perfect.
All of a sudden, my mind started to slow from a flat out run to a light jog. My fingers easing from their hurried pace. My back ached from my spot on the sofa. I did a cat-like stretch and checked my phone, frowning when no new notifications popped up.
I hadn’t heard from Oliver since yesterday. He’d said would be coming round at some point today to go over a portion of the book I needed to get his approval on—it was about his first transfer to a club—I just needed some clarificationon the technicalities. And infuriatingly… I missed him. Doing my best not to think about him and the way he had single handedly turned my insides to a bowl of custard, I stood up, did another stretch and went in search of some food. I’d been hyper focused for the last four hours and had only been ingesting Red Bull, so my stomach was starting to cramp. As I rummaged around my fridge, my mind kept bouncing from one thing to the next.
I still hadn’t been able to shake the odd conversation with Charlotte the other day. It hadn’t lasted very long. She’d stared at my clothes with such disdain that I went and got changed. When I came back out and offered her a coffee she declined and made stilted conversation with me for the next five minutes before announcing she had a meeting with a client to get to. She gave me the worst hug in the world—it was like hugging a triangle—and left. Really strange. Although, my sister couldn’t exactly be lauded as the model of normality… even for her, it had been an odd experience.
I pulled out all the ingredients to make a sandwich and was about to slice up some dubious looking tomatoes when a pounding on my front door made me leap out of my skin. A sharp shriek flew past my lips and I clutched at my chest where my heart seemed intent on trying to make a break for it through my ribcage.
Another loud knock sounded; this one even more demanding.
I took a few steps towards the door before my feet faltered.What if it was Charlotte… Again?I’m not sure I could handle another encounter with her just yet. Rationality crept in. Charlotte didn’t have that loud of a knock. I crept to the door as quietly as I could—even if I wanted to pretend I wasn’t home, my scream from earlier gave me away—and peered through the peephole.
My heart started galloping for an entirely differentreason when I saw the shadowy figure outlined in the hallway.
Oliver had his hands resting on his hips, eyes staring fixedly on the ground.
I unlocked the door, fingers trembling with anticipation.
