Chapter 34
. . .
Will
I’m around a hundred yards from the restaurant Drew told me she was meeting Vesper at when her call finally vibrates in my pocket.
“Baby … I’m at the Italian place. Are you still there?” I gasp down the phone and not because I basically ran from where I’d parked my car, but because I can’t fucking breathe regardless. Each time I inhale, it feels like razor blades are caught in my lungs, throat constricting with every swallow.
I don’t know how to tell her.
Because I sure as shit can’t show her the screenshots, which are now circulating all over the internet.
I’m about to ask again if she’s still at the restaurant when I grind to a halt in front of its huge glass window and find my girl standing, staring at me with watery eyes so big that they could be entire oceans.
With the phone to her ear, she looks straight through me, mouth open, but no words materializing.
Face-to-face, we stand on either side of the glass. Vesper is sitting at the table behind Drew and looking deeply worried for her friend.
“H-how did our private text messages get leaked onto the internet, Will?”
Her voice is broken, a little like how the glass separating us will be if I don’t get my arms around my girlfriend in the next second.
Truthfully, I’m not certain how messages got leaked, although I have a pretty fucking good idea who is responsible for throwing us under the bus.
“We need to get every post taken down. Every screenshot.” A tear escapes Drew’s lashes, trickling down her cheek. “Every reshare.”
I shake my head, hating myself for saying this. I promised to keep my girl safe, and I’m failing, like a fucking loser. “I just spoke with Colton and my agent. They said it’s now impossible to contain.”
Drew’s head lolls forward, and Vesper shoots off her chair, pulling Drew into her chest.
Hitting End on the call, I push through the restaurant entrance and make a beeline straight for her.
She pulls back from Vesper and flops into me. “Get me out of here—right now,” Drew pleads between silents sobs.
Heartbreak isn’t something I’ve ever experienced. Until this moment.
With one arm still looped around Drew, I reach into my back pocket for my wallet.
“Sir, there’s no need to settle the bill. This one is on the house. Miss Callaghan is an excellent customer of ours, and we are all huge fans of yours.”
I nod my appreciation at a dark-haired guy, who I assume is the manager, and lace my fingers through Drew’s.
Stepping out into the cool night air, we keep walking. Vesper tails us a few paces behind. She’s carrying Drew’s jacket and purse and trying to give us some privacy, which I appreciate on a day when it feels like the whole world is judging us from their misplaced moral high ground.
When we round a corner onto a calmer street, Drew stops walking and looks up at me from beneath my arm. Eyes now red, they contrast with pale skin. “I think I’m going to puke.”
She takes a step back from me before she heaves once, twice, and empties her stomach all over the sidewalk.
I try hauling Drew into my arms so I can carry her the rest of the way home when she steps back again, one hand out in front of her.
“Wait. The messages must’ve come from your phone. I have multiple secure passcodes set on mine, and our text chat is locked down. I never leave my phone unattended and …” Her rambling fades to nothing but silence, face paling further. “Last night. Your phone.”
I shake my head. “No. I don’t think that’s when it was hacked. And I should’ve been more careful with security and listened to you when you warned me about easy-to-guess passwords.”
Trying to swallow past the lump in my throat, I attempt to gather Drew in my arms when she looks at me in horror.
“Will, please tell me you changed your password from those goddamn jersey numbers.”
Guilt charges through me like a freight train leaving the tracks. Deep down, I know the leak couldn’t have come from Drew’s cell because she’s too careful and I’m too fucking laid-back to listen to her advice when she warned that I was being lax with online security.
“Tell me you aren’t that fucking stupid, William,” she bites into the freezing fall night, big puffs of air filling the space between us.
“Drew …” Vesper approaches her from behind, hanging my girlfriend’s jacket over her shoulders. Vesper’s eyes find mine before they rest on the back of Drew’s head. “We need to get you home so we can talk through the best way forward.”
“Let me take you—”
“No!” Drew bites out at me, eyes ablaze with rage. “I’d say you’ve done enough with being a careless asshole, wouldn’t you?”
It feels like my molars might snap when I clench them together.
She’s right; I fucked up. And there’s nothing I can say or do right now to make her feel any better.
“Fuck!” I yell toward the sky, white-hot rage tearing through me.
“If you don’t think your phone was hacked last night, then when do you think it was?” Drew whispers, now shivering beneath her jacket.
She’s in shock, and it’s all because of me.
“The only time I leave my phone is in the locker room.”
Drew presses her lips together. “Are you suggesting that Tristan is behind this?” She shakes her head. “You guys might not get along, but he wouldn’t—”
“He could, and he would,” I cut her off and immediately regret it, desperate to set a palm on her hip.
I reach out, and Drew steps back again.
“My career is over,” she declares in a broken voice. “And I let it happen, knowing that sooner or later, this whole thing was going to blow up in my face.”
“Our faces,” I correct, wanting her to know we’re in this together and she isn’t alone.
“No, Will.”
Drew wraps her arms around her waist, and that’s when I see it—the disappointment in her eyes. An emotion I never wanted her to feel toward herself or us when it came to the circumstances surrounding our relationship.
“We’re meant to be together, Baby. Nothing and no one can change that.”
When Drew doesn’t argue, the tiniest seed of hope blooms in the pit of my gut.
“Maybe we are …” Her gaze drops to the ground before she looks at me again. “But that doesn’t mean I was right to risk everything I’d worked for just so we could mess around and have fun together.”
I open my mouth to speak as a car passes by, its headlights bouncing off the gold chain I only gave her twenty-four hours ago.
“I put everything on the line for us, Will.” Drew’s shoulders slump, hands hanging down by her sides.
“And you couldn’t even update the goddamn passcode on your phone.
” She blows out a disbelieving breath. “The irony is, I was supposed to fix your online presence and persona, and in the end, all it’s done is destroy everything I’ve worked for because you were—no, you are—incapable of following the rules. ”