‘Just ask, Fallon.’ Oliver sighed.
‘Where did things go wrong?’
His lips lifted in a rueful smile. ‘I’ve asked myself that, so many times. What happened? How was I the only person in my life not to see what a manipulative bitch she was.’
I frowned. ‘People didn’t like her?’
‘She paid no attention to people unless they were important. But if she thought you were valuable… she’d play to her strengths. She’s smart. She knew how to talk to older men with a soft voice, to laugh at their jokes. And she knew she needed to blend in with my teammates by teasing me and flirting.’
‘It didn’t bother you?’ I asked incredulously.
Oliver hesitated. ‘I wasn’t the greatest boyfriend in the world, I’ll admit. I didn’t pay her that much attention. My whole focus was football, so if she wanted to flirt to get certain members of the club to like me a little better, I thought, what could it hurt? I didn’t anticipate her going after Cole.’
He shook his head, like the memories were clouding his vision, and sat up straighter, placing his half-drunk coffee on the table. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs, clasping his hands together in front of him.
‘It wasn’t until my drug tests started to come back inconclusive that I began to question things. Even then, it didn’t occur to me to look at her. I blamed the testing, other teammates, guys I’ve known for years. Hell, I even accused my brother of sabotaging me.’
I had my mouth open in question. Oliver held up his hand. ‘I know. I was a prick. But I was being called in for questioning by the board and Cole—who looked at me like he was so fucking disappointed. The only person who believed that I’d never touched a drop of the stuff was George. After I’d apologised to him, he brought up Ashley. He said he thought maybe I should look a little closer to home. She and I were living together at that point. It stillseemed too far-fetched that she would put stuff in my food.’ He clenched his fists, anger rippling off him.
‘She drugged your food?’ The words tasted horrible.
His face hardened. ‘I found a small bag of coke under the kitchen sink, hidden behind the bleach.’
‘What did you do?’ To my mind, nothing in the world could redeem Ashley. Any ounce of goodwill I might have harboured went up in flames.
‘I confronted her. That’s when she changed the narrative. She said she knew I’d been using and that the bag of coke was her proof. It was the performance of her life. She left that night. I had no idea where she’d gone, but I went to Cole to tell him, to show him that this wasn’t my doing, that she had set me up…’ He trailed off.
’She had got to him first,’ I guessed.
Oliver’s head dipped in a slow nod. ’She’d been getting closer to him, and I hadn’t realised. It became really fucking obvious that I’d been as blind as a bat when I stood on his doorstep one night, and she was behind him, staring at me like I was the one who had ruinedherlife. She’d spun some story to him about me being verbally abusive. Apparently, she was scared for her wellbeing.’
‘For fucks sake.’ I collected the items in my lap and set them down on the table with more force than necessary.
Oliver’s brow drew together.
‘I don’t understand how someone can manipulate people like that.’ A red flush was working its way up my neck. I pictured the blonde woman I’d seen splashed across the front pages of magazines recently.
My brain spiralled down, pulling out all manner of unsavoury names for his ex-girlfriend. I didn’t immediately notice Oliver staring at me with a look that resembled a boy being told that Father Christmas wasn’t real. His lips partedon a breath, eyes staring at me with no small amount of disbelief.
‘Why are you staring at me like that?’ A different flush stained my cheeks under his gaze.
He shook his head, ‘You don’t have a question you wanna ask me?’
I looked rapidly around the room, sure I’d missed a vital part of our conversation, but couldn’t for the life of me think what it was.
‘I mean, I’ve got a list-‘ I went to open my laptop when Oliver reached out and put his hand out to stop me. The skin of his palm barely brushed the top of my hand. A spark shot through my hand, all the way through my body—warmth that I hadn’t felt in years settled in my stomach.
Oliver pulled his hand away quickly, running a hand through his unkempt hair.
I tried to hide my disappointment and the loss of contact; the intense stare that not an hour ago he’d been levelling at my suicidal coffee machine was searching my face.
‘I’ve just told you that my ex called me verbally abusive and feared for her well-being. You’ve also seen the video of me punching a guy in the face. Most people follow up that statement with a question along the lines of, “Were you abusive?”’
My mouth parted in an O. Honestly, that question didn’t cross my mind because I knew it wasn’t true. Thinking about it, I had no reasonnotto believe it was because Oliver was right. There was a video of him being violent, and then these accusations came out; it wasn’t a hard leap to make.
Some inexplicable feeling niggled in my stomach. The Oliver in the press, the one that fell out of night clubs with glassy liquor-hazed eyes, the one seen assaulting someone and walking away as if nothing happened, those were like faded polaroids. Distorted images, so you know who’s in thepicture but can’t make out the details of their face. And then there was the Oliver who knew how I took my coffee and insisted that my cuddly toy be in every one of our meetings. He was the one who heard how my ex talked to me and stood behind me, doing something no one apart from Rosie had ever done: stand up for me.
That Oliver—my Oliver—sat and watched ducks in the park near my flat. When I felt he was getting a case of cabin fever, we’d take walks down there and sit on the bench wiling away hours as he talked about football. Face softening when he recalled stories about his teammates and his best games. I was either becoming a master of cognitive dissonance, and Oliver kept his violent, drug-addled side under wraps until the book was done, or something wasn’t right.
