Lila matched my pace. “Good job.”
“Was it?” I asked because my pulse was still jumping.
“It was,” she replied. “You didn’t lie, you didn’t feed it, and you didn’t give them a quote they could loop all night.”
“Cool,” I answered, rubbing my palms on my sweats. “Love that for me.”
I headed back toward the clubhouse, jaw tight, trying to shake off the sound of questions about Faye and the way the room had leaned in. I’d barely made it down the aisle when a trainer stepped out and raised a hand.
“Matthewson. Two minutes.”
I gave him a quick nod. “Yeah.”
“Thanks,” he replied, already steering me toward the training room. “Just a quick check, then you can run off to wherever you’re sprinting to.”
“I’m heading to meet up with my family before my sister starts a riot,” I answered.
He laughed and handed me a bottle of electrolytes. “Then drink the whole bottle.”
By the time I got released, my phone was already buzzing again:
Marcos: Call me now
I leaned against the wall of the hallway and called him back.
He answered immediately. “Where are you?”
“In the stadium. Just got out of media.”
“Good,” he answered. “You know about the headline, I take it?”
“Yeah.” I blew out a breath. “I saw it.”
“It’s already moving,” he warned. “It’s not just one outlet. It’s being copied everywhere, and they’re going to keep pushing the same angle.”
“The angle being?” I asked, even though I already knew.
“That you and the president’s daughter are dating,” he replied bluntly. “That’s the version they can sell in one sentence, so that’s what they’re going to run with.”
My jaw tightened. “Cool.”
Marcos kept going. “Here’s how you’re going to handle it. You don’t give them a second location tonight. Not with her there.”
I balked. “I’m not dragging her to a bar with my teammates.”
“Good, because right now they’ve got a photo of her at Fenway. The next thing they’re going to try to get is you with her. Don’t give them that after a headline like this, because then it turns into a bigger story that doesn’t stop.”
“So what do you want me to do?” I asked.
“You go see your family,” he replied. “You keep that part private. She leaves with her detail. You don’t walk out with her, you don’t meet up with her later, and you don’t do the ‘we’ll be discreet’ thing.”
I exhaled, annoyed that he wasn’t wrong. “Okay.”
“And if you celebrate with the guys, fine,” Marcos added. “Do it with the guys. No cameras. No random places. No hanging outsomewhere just because someone wants a smoke and suddenly you’re in the background of a photo.”
“That’s a very specific example.”
Marcos didn’t laugh. “Because it happens.”
