Chapter Twenty-One
Heart racing, Eliot went out to Danny’s yard to make his phone call. If this was something sensitive, something that had happened to Ben, he didn’t want to broadcast it, even to Danny.
He liked Danny—hemorethan liked Danny—but he had loyalty to Ben as well, and he wasn’t about to break that. Until he knew what was going on, privacy was the best option.
Thankfully, Danny’s nearest neighbor was too far away to hear him having a phone conversation at normal voice levels.
His stomach tightened as he dialed Ben’s number. He’d never texted Eliot after hours before. Sometimes, he responded to emails when he really should have been sleeping, but he’d never made anything seem this urgent in the entire time Eliot had been working for Cocky.
“Eliot?” Ben answered the phone on the second ring.
“It’s me,” Eliot confirmed. “I got your message.”
“Where are you?” he asked, sounding worried. That was… not good. Ben had never sounded worried before, either.
“I’m, uh. I’m at a friend’s place.”
“Danny Harper?”
Eliot frowned. How the hell had Ben known about Danny? He didn’t seem like the kind of man who cared about celebrity dating gossip.
“Yes.” Eliot wet his lips. “Why?”
Ben breathed a heavy sigh into the phone. “I’m about to ask you a question, and I need you to be honest with me, or I can’t help you. Do you understand?”
Eliot swallowed.
He thought back to the conversation he’d had with Meg, to the uncomfortable feeling he’d had about his slip. He thought he’d gotten away with it, but if Ben was asking…
“Okay,” he agreed. “Yes, I understand.”
“Did you take money from Danny Harper in exchange for pretending to be in a relationship with him?” Ben asked.
Eliot’s head spun. He felt sick to his stomach, and had to stumble over to Danny’s outdoor setting to sit down. How did Ben know? How didanyoneknow?
Meg couldn’t have found all that out so quickly, could she? Even if she suspected something was off after their conversation, she wouldn’t havefactsyet. He and Danny were the only people who knew about it, and Danny would never have told.
“I…” Eliot began, his voice breaking. “Yes, but…”
“I don’t want to hear an excuse and as far as I’m concerned you can do whatever you want in your spare time,” Ben interrupted. “But you should know that the story’s just broken on the web. It’s already all over the place.”
“Meg?” Eliot asked quietly. He didn’t want to believe that she’d do him any harm, but the timing…
“What? You mean Meg Webber? No, no. I know she does dating stories, but she wouldn’t have dropped you in it like this.”
Eliot breathed a sigh of relief. It didn’t solve the larger problem, but at least someone he thought was kind of his friend hadn’t betrayed him.
“Then I don’t understand… I mean, she didn’tknow, but I think she suspected… where the hell did this come from?”
“Article says an inside source. I’m guessing not you or Danny, so someone else must know. I’ll email you the link.”
Eliot’s stomach went cold again as he realized whodidknow.
“Walter,” he said out loud. “Uh, Danny’s—the team’s manager. He knew, he was the one who paid me, and it was his idea. But he has nothing to gain from this, unless...”
Eliot paused. He was already suspicious. There’d been something off about Walter from the beginning, and now this. His preliminary research into the team’s finances had thrown up a few red flags, but…
That would also explain why Walter had been weird with him after the hockey game. Maybe he’d suspected then that something was up. Maybe...
