Chapter 7
BECCA
"Late night?"
The too-smooth, bordering on creepy, voice was the last thing I wanted to hear this early in the morning.
I looked up from my desk and tried not to grimace. "Hello, Harvey. Are you lost?" I could point him toward the sewer access, but he might make it his life's work to find dirt on me and humiliate me with it. Not that he'd find much, but what little he found, he'd twist into something ugly.
"Not at all," he said smoothly. "I just thought I'd stop by and see how your date went last night."
I didn't even blink. "I didn't have a date last night. I had a business meeting." I looked back down at my computer and silently hoped he'd go away. No such luck, of course.
"Is that what they're calling them these days?" He chuckled, but it sounded mocking.
"Yes. When that's what they are," I said, my teeth gritted. I glanced back up. "If you have something to say, why don't you just say it?" Then fuck off. Far away. To another country would work for me. Another planet even.
He leaned his arms on the top of my cubicle.
"Are you sleeping with Hawk Florence?"
I snorted. "No." I wouldn't tell him if I was, but the idea was hilarious. Hawk and I were barely civil, much less sexual.
I thought about it, of course; I was only human and had a pulse. Okay, I thought about it a lot. He was hot. I expect he knew how to please a woman. On the other hand, I was still angry with him and I had a bet to think about. Sex would complicate that. And just about everything else in my life.
"Like I said, it was work. I'd tell you what we talked about, but you'll have to wait until it's published, like everyone else." I smiled sweetly.
Harvey looked down his nose at me. "Wishy washy sentimental bullshit? Hard pass. No one is interested in that kind of crap. Screw his brains out and write about that. People will eat it up."
He made me sick to my stomach.
"Not everyone likes trash," I said coldly. Seducing someone for a story might be his MO, but it wasn't mine. I couldn't imagine being so desperate I'd sink that low.
Harvey laughed out loud at that, long and derisive.
"Keep telling yourself that, sweetheart," he said finally. "Sex sells. Always has, always will. Think about it. People will talk about you for decades. They might even make a movie. I know a couple of…specific actors who could play you."
He walked the line of sexual harassment so close it was a miracle he didn't topple off.
He'd obviously done this many, many times before.
Just enough to be rude and raise eyebrows, but not enough to get sued.
The list of people, especially celebrities, who were waiting for him to slip up was likely to be long.
You can't ruin careers without making some enemies along the way.
I was shocked no one had been able to sue him for libel yet.
"I'm sure you could," I said dryly. "You might want to think about the kinds of shows you watch. They seem to be influencing your perception of the world."
"Too much porn turning my brain to mush?" He grinned. "You might want to work on your insults. That one needs some work."
I shrugged. “It’s not an insult, it’s an accurate observation.”
"Too little porn makes you uptight," he said. "I know which one I'd prefer."
"Don't you have somewhere to be?" I asked. The other side of the universe would be perfect. Why was he here, talking to me about porn of all things? I didn’t want to lose my breakfast.
"But the company here is so nice," he said sarcastically. He looked directly at my chest, but clearly knew better than to comment on the view. "You could be a bit friendlier though."
"I'm always friendly," I said. "To people who are respectful."
"So you are sleeping with Hawk Florence," Harvey said, as if he scored a major point.
I hadn't meant that kind of friendly, and I knew he knew it. He could dig as much as he wanted, he wouldn't find a story here.
"No," I said firmly. "I am not."
"Who is?" he asked. "Gimme a name and I'll get out of your hair."
"As much as I want you out of my hair," I said, "I don't have a name. Nor would I give it to you if I did."
So why exactly did I feel the tiniest flutter in my belly at the idea of Hawk with anyone else?
It wasn't as if I cared about him. No way.
After he put his ego ahead of my teen feelings, he was lucky I hadn't kneed him in the dick.
I wasn't going to fall for him, ever. No way, not even a little bit.
"I guess I'll keep my eye on your Mr Florence," Harvey said. "I might find out all his salacious details before you do. Don't worry, I'll send you the link when it goes live."
"He's not my Mr—" I started to say, but Harvey was gone.
The smell of cheap aftershave lingered, along with the sick feeling I got every time I spoke to him.
I knew one thing—he would go on digging until he found something he thought the public would eat up.
It wouldn't have to be true, as long as there was enough truth, preferably with photos to back it up.
I shook my head. I saved the article I was writing and opened my browser. I entered Harvey Danbury in the search field and pressed return.
The result was a page of links to stories he broke and photos he took. Some were slightly blurry. Others had black dots to cover chests and groins.
At the bottom of the page were several photos of Hawk in swim shorts, in the company of a woman with pale blonde hair and a perfect figure.
They stood on a beach somewhere. In the water in one shot, out of the water in another.
In a third, the woman's bikini top was gone, replaced by black censor dots.
Hawk was looking in her direction, eyes toward her chest.
I saw these photos before, but never really looked. Now I did, I wonder if my perception of him might have been influenced, just a little, by his rejection so long ago.
Whoever the woman was, she might have been a girlfriend, or even a friend. There certainly wasn't a world wide web full of him with a dozen different women. At least, not that I could find. I searched for him after I was finished grimacing at Harvey's portfolio of 'work'.
Mostly I found photos of him playing football. Shocking, I know. It was almost as though that was the centre of his world, not strutting around on beaches with half-naked women.
Okay, so my perception of him was a tiny bit warmer than it was. That didn't mean I was going to fall for him. Absolutely not.
"Know your enemy," I said under my breath.
He wasn't really the enemy, except where it came to our bet.
If he thought he was competitive, he hadn't seen anything yet.
Winning would be good for my own ego, but also my career.
Okay, a part of me wanted to take him down a few pegs.
Even if the internet wasn't littered with pictures of him and various women, I was sure he didn't get turned down often. I would change that.
That teenage ego he had? It was about to get a metaphorical punch in the dick.
I closed the browser and got back to writing my article.
While I worked, I couldn't help but think about the look on Hawk's face when Fred Franks spoke.
His mouth was set in a firm line and his eyes looked as though he'd blurred them.
He was present in the moment, but he also seemed to be thinking about something.
Or someone. I presumed it was Lori, but now I thought back, I wondered if there was something more. Someone else he lost.
I was tempted to reopen my browser and search, but it felt like an invasion of his privacy to do that. If he wanted me to know, he'd tell me. If we ever became close enough for that. Which we wouldn't.
I wrote about the press conference and thought about what Hawk told me afterward.
Lori Franks was like a mother to much of the team.
She used to bring cakes and biscuits, or fruit during the season.
She knitted ugly Christmas sweaters with the Humpbacks’ logo, a whale surfing on a football that almost looked like a wave, on the front.
"That would have taken some talent, and a lot of work," I had said. My grandmother tried to teach me to knit, but I had no patience for it.
"We all wore them to the Christmas party," Hawk said with a wistful smile. "Even though she used the ugliest wool she could find. Except Ollie Tucker's. His was navy blue. I think she had—has a soft spot for him."
"God's Gift," I said with a grimace. "I wouldn't want to try to live up to a nickname like that. Or live it down."
"It's better than Fumblethor," Hawk said, a smile creeping onto his face.
I laughed. "Yes, I suppose it would be." No one wanted to be the one to fumble the ball, and hand the win to the other team as a result.
"What's the worst nickname you've ever heard?" I asked.
Hawk frowned in thought. "Remember Joshua Cribbage? His was Cabbage. That's pretty bad."
"Unless you like cabbage," I pointed out. "He used to bite into it, raw."
"Yeah. He was weird," Hawk said.
"Just a bit," I agreed. "I wonder where he is now."
"Last I heard, he's a lawyer," Hawk said. "Onto marriage three. Or is it four?"
"Some people didn't waste time after they left school." I poked a spoon into my tiramisu.
"I guess not," Hawk agreed. "It makes me wonder what I've been doing with my life."
"Right," I drawled. "Star quarterback for the Lowball Bay Humpbacks. That's quite the waste. Just think, you could have gone into computer game design."
He exhaled loudly. "What a missed opportunity. I should have known playing football wouldn't get me anywhere."
"Just everywhere," I said.
He shrugged. "It opened a door or two. I've certainly seen and done things I wouldn't otherwise have seen and done. I've met some amazing people. I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said it's influenced every aspect of my life. I'm lucky."
"You put your success down to luck?” I asked, half-teasing.
He smiled. "No. It's been a shit-ton of hard work. That's the thing most people don't realise. Not just that though, it's about the people you surround yourself with. They've helped me to get through all the rough patches."
"Like Lori Franks?" I said softly.
"Yeah. And you," he said. "If it wasn't for you—"
"Someone else would have tutored you," I said firmly. "Or you might have realised you needed to apply yourself a bit more."
"We already agreed high school me was a dumbass," he said with a self-deprecating smile. "I wanted to play ball. I didn't want to understand Shakespeare. He had nothing to do with my ambition, as far as I was concerned."
"The point of Shakespeare is how well he understood human nature," I reminded him.
"Yeah." Hawk gave me a regretful look. "High school me failed at that too, remember? But I have three weeks to prove I've changed. You'll see, I'm way more awesome now than I was back then."
With the memory of those words ringing in my ear, I reached for my coffee mug, but found it empty. I'd need a refill to give me a boost to get this article written.
The longer I worked, the more I wondered if I'd ever really known Hawk Florence. And what was going to happen once I did.