Holy fuck.
Cam and me in the VIP section at Cavo, my hand to his lips. Him kissing the corner of my mouth, my body flushagainst his. Locked together on the dance floor, his body curled over mine and his hand high on my thigh. Picture after picture of us on the sidelines of games. Standing just a little too close. Bodies always turned towards each other. One from after his touchdown, exactly like the picture Sophie took of the jumbotron. One from just yesterday, my hand grazing the outside of his leg as we stood on the sidelines with Drew and Tyler.
They’re all a little blurry, like they were taken on a phone or grabbed off someone’s social media, but it doesn’t matter. No one who sees these pictures all together would doubt that Cam and I are exactly what we are to each other. And no one who reads the article will think anything else but that I am the whorey female doctor with a sort-of-famous family who bagged a player my first month on the job.
Congratu-fucking-lations to me.
My family.
Thoughts of them reading this article have my heart slamming against my ribs, and my palms growing sweaty, my hands shaking as my brain races with the implications of this. This is the worst-case scenario.
When Cam gently takes the phone out of my hands and sets it on the bed, laying a big hand over both of mine, I jolt, my head snapping up to look at him. “Baby, I am so, so sorry this happened.”
I’m devastated. Furious. Incandescent with rage. Irritated as shit. All. Everything. I can’t grab onto a single emotion as I spiral into the abyss. Cam’s eyes are steady, calm and determined as he radiates a kind ofwe can fix thisenergy that for some unknown reason makes my anger burn hotter. My devastation dig deeper.
“My career,” I say as quietly as I can manage, my voice shaking with the force of my emotions. “Everything I worked for. They made it sound so…trivial. Like the entire reason I came to work for an NFL team was so I could find a player to fuck. Myfa—” My voice catches and I swallow hard, trying again. “My family is going to read that. Be asked about it.”
Cam shakes his head, his hands squeezing mine. “It’s unfair. It’s so fucking unfair. You’re brilliant, Maddy. You’re amazing at your job, and you were born to do this. You have done an incredible thing with the team this year. We’re playing in the AFC Championship next week for the first time in almost a decade, and so much of that is because of you. Everyone who matters knows it. People who think otherwise don’t matter.”
“Don’t they?” I say slowly. “Sports fans and half the men who work for this league already think women don’t belong anywhere near the NFL. They’ll read this article and it’ll be one big bro-fest ofI told you so. If we had been able to tell people on our own terms, during the offseason, maybe we would have been able to avoid the fallout, but we live in this world now.”
I pick up my phone and click back into the browser to refresh the screen. Just as I suspected, ten more articles from different local news outlets and sports blogs pop up, all breathlessly reporting on the initial blog post. “And in this world, I’m the slutty team medical professional who seduced the squeaky-clean single dad, obliterating professional ethics rules and probably team rules and definitely the rules of all the asshole men who think they get to tell women where we belong.”
“You belong right here,” he says, laying a hand on my cheek, holding my face steady when I try to look away from his kind, understanding eyes. “In this league. With this team. With me.”
I let out a laugh that sounds brittle even to my own ears. “That might be true, but it won’t matter. Because it doesn’t matter what’s true. It matters what people believe. And since some wanna-be sports reporter cheerfully tossed a bomb straight into the middle of my career and my personal life, people are going to believe that.”
Cam shakes his head. “You did everything right, Maddy. Absolutely everything. We tried to stay away from each other. We couldn’t. And when it was clear we couldn’t, you didn’t treatme. I’ve never sat on that couch in your office as a player or a patient or anything other than the man who lo—” Cam cuts himself off, and my heart gives one painful throb because I know exactly what he was about to say.
The man who loves me.
Five hours ago, I would have been overjoyed to hear those words from him. But right now is absolutely the wrong time, and I think he knows it because he shakes his head and tries again. “You did everything right,” he says again. “You didn’t break any rules. We didn’t break any rules. Everyone who matters will understand that.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. He’s saying all the right things. Somewhere inside my brain is the voice telling me to put my smart-girl hat on. To talk to Cam and figure out a way forward. That this really isn’t as bad as it seems. That everything is going to be okay. But that voice is buried too deep because my brain also pummels me with a thousand worst case scenarios in rapid succession.
The commissioner of the league deciding that, actually, he doesn’t want the psychologist sleeping with a player to be the example for other team mental health professionals to follow in terms of how to do this job well.
My own players losing confidence in my ability to help them.
Brian being stuck in between the fallout from my choices and the fact that he’s my family.
My brother being asked about my relationship instead of his own game performance.
My mom’s clients reading about it, and her having to answer for me.
Riley and Ethan reading the articles. Hearing about it at school.
Shit.
I should have told Brian about Cam and me that day in my office when I got interrupted by Riley’s call so he wouldn’t be blindsided like this. I’m such an idiot. The thought of all thepeople I love most in the world having to answer for this, defend me for this, when I did the wrong thing, is what breaks me. My hands clench into fists, my nails biting into my palms, and a cold sweat drips down my back. Everything is on the line because I fell for the football player with the kindest eyes and the softest heart who makes me feel everything.
I realize it’s been a long time since I’ve said anything when Cam cups my face in his hands and presses a kiss to my forehead that has me swallowing back a sob. When he pulls back and starts to speak, for reasons I don’t understand and don’t have the headspace to work out, his earnest eyes and soft words make me want to jump out of this bed and run.
I don’t deserve to be looked at like that. Talked to like that. I’ve fucked up my life and so many other people’s too. The magnitude of it is more than my spinning brain can handle right now.
“It’s unfair, Maddy. It’s so fucking unfair that people are going to spout bullshit and other people are going to believe it. But there are so many other people who won’t. People who know you and believe in you and are going to have your back no matter what. Your family. My family. And me. I believe in us, and I believe in you. So fucking much, baby. You are my heart and soul and my whole fucking universe. I’ve been walking around in the dark for years, and I didn’t realize it until you stepped into my life and brought the light with you. You brightened up my world with your smiles and your laughs and your Celine Dion power ballads. With your bags of M&M’s and your orange soda obsession and the way you care for my kids. I’ll never not be on your side. I’ll go to fucking war to tell the entire goddamn world how amazing you are. There is nothing on earth that I wouldn’t do for you. You’re mine, Maddy, and I protect what’s mine.”
We stare at each other for a beat, my heart thrashing wildly, anxiety gripping me in a vise and his words hanging in the air between us. And then, without warning, to my absolute horror, my eyes fill with tears. They spill over and slide down my cheeks,my breathing coming in shuddering gasps. Cam reaches out to pull me to him, but I shake my head, swiping at my cheeks, an irritated sound falling from my lips.
