A dangerous gleam sparkled in Rosie’s eye. ‘I’ve got an idea. But I gotta make a call first.’
48
FALLON
‘Ifeel like we’re in a spy movie.’ Rosie whispered excitedly.
I grunted from my slouched position in the passenger seat. ‘And I feel like I need the bathroom.’
‘Suck it up. Not literally, obviously that would be impossible, you’d have to be very flexible.’ Rosie cocked her head to the side as if she was actually considering the mechanics of it.
‘Are you done?’ I snapped, arching my brow at her.
She made a face. ‘Alright… look, all I’m saying is-‘
Movement caught my eye from the other end of the car park. We’d parked up outside the football stadium. The home of Oliver’s club. There were only a few other cars in the gigantic lot so Rosie’s white Mazda stood out like a sore thumb. I whacked her on the arm. ’Ssh, she’s right there.’ We both slid further down our seats, out of sight.
When Rosie had told me about her plan, I’d scoffed and labelled it ridiculous. But when she went on to explain in further detail, the idea had slowly begun to take shape. Rosie was a genius when it came to animals, oftentimes intuitivelyknowing what they needed, and apparently, that gift spread to subterfuge.
After digging through my notes on the whole Ashley debacle, we discovered one of Rosie’s one-night stands would come in handy; in fact, he would be the linchpin for all of this to work. Surprisingly, it hadn’t taken that long to get all the dominos lined up. Now we just had to topple the first one and start a chain reaction. A few quick phone calls—and the promise of a drink the following week—had Rosie and I formalising a plan. After some minor Instagram stalking to track down our target, we tore out of my flat and drove to the stadium as fast as we could. I couldn’t do anything about the article, but I could try to do this for him. Ihadto do this for him.
A woman I’d seen on the cover of countless magazines stalked across the car park, thick sunglasses covering half of her face, even though the sun had set half an hour ago.
Something hot and unfamiliar burned deep inside my belly as I watched her flick her chocolate brown hair over her shoulder. She opened a side door and slipped in.
‘Okay, it’s go-time.’ Rosie whispered in a dramatic voice.
I narrowed my eyes at her. ‘You do realise that we’re not actually in a spy movie right?’
She waved away my comment and got out of the car.
I took a steadying breath.I was doing this for Oliver.He might be mad and have said some things that would take me some time to get over, but I still cared about him. I still wanted him to go back to doing what he loved. Even if whatever had been between us was over…he deserved for people to know the truth.
Rosie and I darted across the car park. She gave me an encouraging smile and the two of us split up. Thanks to the map we’d pulled up on the club's ticket booking website, we had a good idea of where we were going. Rosie headedaround the back to another entrance, and I followed Ashley.
She had one arm crossed over her chest as she scrolled through her phone, standing in the dimly lit hallway. As I stepped inside, I did sort of feel like I was in a spy movie. The sound of the door closing behind me drew Ashley’s attention to me. Her perfectly plucked eyebrows furrowed as she scanned me from head to toe, wrinkled her nose and went back to her phone.
She’d clearly brushed off my sudden appearance as not worth her time or interest.
When I stopped a few feet away from her. She heaved a sigh, not looking up from her phone.
‘Can I help you?’
‘Yes,’ I said simply.
‘I’m not doing photos right now.’ She waved a dismissive hand in the air.
A laugh got caught in my throat. ‘Wow.’
Her head lifted at my mocking tone. ‘I’m sorry, who are you?’
Plastering on a smile that I didn’t feel, I held out my hand, ‘Fallon Lowell.’
Peering down at my hand like she’d never seen someone offer such a thing before, her lips thinned. ‘Can I help you with something?’
‘You can actually.’ I let my hand fall to my side.
Ashley’s head tilted down as she tapped something on her phone, barely paying any attention to me.
