38. Xander
The buzzer sounds, signaling the end of the game. I skid to a halt and catch my breath.
Theo skates up to me and bumps me with his shoulder.
“Fuck yeah, another win!” he hollers. I laugh.
As we line up to shake hands with the opposing team, I catch eyes with Sophie, who’s standing in her usual spot, toward the back of the tunnel near the Bashers box.
She’s wearing my jersey and smiling at me. She mouths, “good game” to me. I mouth back, “thanks, gorgeous.” I wink at her. She beams.
My heart slingshots around my chest. It felt amazing having Sophie cheer me on when I played when we were fake dating.
But now that things are real between us—now that we’ve both told each other exactly how we feel, it’s on a whole other level.
To know that a woman like Sophie is in love with me feels incredible. I feel like the luckiest guy on the planet.
Once we finish up on the ice, we head toward the locker room. As the rest of the team walks off, I stop to say hi to Sophie.
I grab her and kiss her. A couple of my teammates whistle, but I ignore them.
“You were amazing,” she says, grinning at me.
“Thanks. I’ve got post-game press, but after that can I take you out?”
She beams. “I’d love that.”
I kiss her one more time. When we break apart, I see Coach Porter walking over and looking at us.
He smiles at Sophie
“Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, honey.” He turns to me and nods before heading into the locker room.
I think back to our talk at the fundraiser last weekend after what Sophie’s ex did to her. He trusts me to take care of Sophie. He trusts me to be a good boyfriend to her. I feel that now.
I tell Sophie bye before walking into the locker room and getting cleaned up. I head to post-game press with the stuffed bear that she gave me.
I answer the standard questions about my performance and how I feel about all the goals I scored.
“Xander, care to comment on the video that was released of you tonight?” a reporter asks.
“Which one? There were a lot of clips of me from tonight’s game,” I joke.
The reporter falls quiet. Everyone looks at him.
“I don’t mean video of the game. I mean your sex tape.”
I laugh. “Um, what?”
“There’s a video of you circulating online. With a…lady friend. You two were having an intimate moment together, it looks like.”
It’s so quiet in the press room you could hear a pin drop. I frown at the reporter, still confused as hell. Is he joking?
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say with a laugh.
Alanna, the head of the Bashers’ public relations team, stands up and addresses the reporters. “That’s it for tonight, folks.”
A few reporters start to speak but she cuts them off. “I said we’re done. Thank you.”
I walk out of the room with Blomdahl and Theo, who were also part of tonight’s post game press.
“Dude, what was that about?” Theo asks.
I shrug. “I have no idea.”
Just then Alanna runs up to me. “Xander, could I speak with you in private for a moment?”
I tell her sure and follow her to her office. She shuts her door and looks at me.
“We have a problem.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
She pulls her phone out of her suit jacket pocket and shows it to me. It’s the homepage of some gossip website.
When I read the headline, my stomach drops.
Bashers panty dropper drops a sex tape!
What the fuck…
I scroll down and see a photo of me, shirtless and smirking at the camera. I look really young. Like probably eighteen or nineteen years old. I’m racking my brain to figure out what this is from, but I come up empty.
After a second, I realize it’s not a photo, it’s a still of a video. Without thinking, I tap the video and it plays.
The sound of me laughing blasts from Alanna’s phone.
“Show me why they call you panty dropper,” a woman’s voice says from off screen.
Video me laughs again. My eyes are glazed. I was wasted whenever this video was filmed.
“Sure thing, baby,” I slur.
The camera jerks away and the image is blurry, but after a few seconds, it focuses again. Dread pools in my gut when I see the image in focus.
The woman in the video is holding the phone and recording so I can’t see her face. She’s laying on a bed, her legs propped up and bent at the knees, spread open. And there’s my face between her thighs. I kiss the inside of her thigh and reach my hands down, out of camera frame, and slowly pull off her panties.
I lower my head between her legs and out of frame. Thank fuck. She starts laughing before she moans.
“God, you’re so good with your mouth,” she rasps.
In the video, I make a muffled sound.
“Just wait till my friend joins us later.” She giggles. “She’s gonna love that mouth of yours too…”
I hear myself make a satisfied groaning noise. And then the video ends.
My stomach churns as the gears in my brain finally fall into place. The memory rockets to the front of my mind.
I was nineteen and in my first season in the league. I was a cocky, horny motherfucker who slept with any hot woman who hit me up.
The woman in this video is Makenna Marley, Del Richard’s ex-girlfriend.
This was right after they broke up. She and I hooked up a handful of times. A couple of times she invited her friend to join us. And now that my memory is back up and running, I remember she recorded us on her phone a few times when we were together.
A cold sweat breaks out across the back of my neck. My ears ring.
What the hell…how the hell did this get out? A million thoughts flood my brain, but I come up with nothing. There’s no way Makenna would have released this. She’s a famous supermodel for fuck’s sake. She wouldn’t release her own sex tape from years ago.
But if she didn’t do it, how the fuck did it get released then?
Just then I feel someone touch my arm.
“…okay? Xander, are you alright?”
I register that Alanna is talking to me.
I shake my head. I feel lightheaded. Like I’m gonna be sick.
She helps me into a chair. I almost drop her phone, so she takes it from me.
I shake my head. “Sorry, I, um…I don’t…”
“It’s okay,” Alanna says gently.
She steps away and grabs a small bottle of water from the mini fridge in her office and hands it to me.
I try to twist the cap off, but my hands are shaking too hard. Alanna takes the bottle from me, unscrews the top, then gives it back.
I take a long swig, swallow, and cough.
“Just take a deep breath, okay?” She says gently.
I nod. I do what she says and take a deep breath in, then exhale. It comes out shaky, just like my hands. I rest my elbows on my knees and cradle my head in my hands.
“It’s gonna be okay, Xander,” she says after a moment.
I let out a weak, sad laugh. “There’s no way this is going to be okay. This is all over the internet, Alanna. If a random sports reporter knows about it, imagine how soon it’ll be before everyone finds out…”
Sophie
Acid curdles in my stomach. If Sophie sees this, she’s going to think I’m a scumbag…she’ll remember what a manwhore I used to be and not want to be with me anymore…she’s going to break up with me…I’m going to lose her…
I shoot up from the chair, almost knocking it over and make a beeline for the door.
“Xander, wait. I can help you with this, just hold on…”
I ignore Alanna and run toward Sophie’s office as fast I can.
I need to go to her and explain what happened. I can’t lose her, not like this.