Chapter 30
WARD
W hen Bernie’s name showed up on Ward’s Caller ID later that evening, he fully expected his agent was about to congratulate him on a job well done on the training video. Which had since truly blown up far beyond even his own limited expectations. Shelley was right. People were interested in watching him work out – who knew?
Or watching him suffer, more like.
Regardless, it could only be a good thing to have people talk about him in a positive way for a change, instead of laughing at him falling down drunk in the park. So maybe there was something to this PR stuff, after all.
‘Hey, Bernie,’ he greeted, a smile in his voice. ‘What’s up?’
‘Even the fact that you asked tells me that you haven’t heard about Sport Starz?’
‘Yeah, I know the site, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I’m talking about Ward McKenzie’s newfound … softer side,’ his agent stated then chuckled. ‘You haven’t seen it then.’
An all-too-familiar feeling of dread formed in the pit of his stomach. What now?
‘How bad is it?’ he asked gruffly. He held the phone away from his ear and stared at it as if willing the offending article to jump out. He had no clue if it was possible to check for what Bernie was talking about without hanging up.
When his agent spoke again, there was a more thoughtful tone to his voice. ‘Well, on the one hand, it puts you in a good light, so that’s a good thing, right?’
‘Tell me what’s on the other,’ Ward grunted, striding across the room to dig out his laptop.
There was another pause, this one longer than the first.
‘It also puts you into the “cute and cuddly” category, and I’m not sure if that’s quite the image we were going for.’
He groaned. ‘What? How could you let this happen to me?’
‘Me? What are you talking about? I just wanted your image cleaned up enough to keep you from getting thrown off the team. I’m not the guy who decided that he needed to start being all sensitive and open about his feelings. What were you thinking?’
It had to be some touchy-feely bullshit Hannah had pitched based on their chat at his old place that time.
Damn it.
Ward should have known better. The problem was when he was around her, he just naturally seemed to open up to her. She seemed to be genuinely interested in him too – not the public version of him, but the actual man he was. He recalled their playful interactions that day she’d persuaded him to switch out his phone, how he’d found himself feeling so at ease that he’d effortlessly, stupidly let his guard down around her, to the point that in the diner, it even felt like flirting.
Man, he was an idiot. Of course he should have realized that some of what he’d told her would become fodder for his goddamn rehabilitation programme. But he thought Hannah was better than that.
‘Can you at least give me an idea how bad this is?’ he asked, bashing at laptop keys, until finally clicking through to the Sports Starz site. And when he saw the image accompanying whatever crap that was written, Ward stopped short.
A picture of him that day at the animal shelter, holding a bunch of kittens. He wasn’t sure who’d taken it but he definitely hadn’t posed for it with the photographer. It was a candid shot of him looking away from the camera and cracking a smile. He remembered doing so despite himself when one of the feistier kittens had swiped at this hand.
‘Let’s put it this way – the Sports Bros podcast guys are already having a field day. Joking that everyone already knew that you loved puss—’
‘Got it. Thanks.’ Ward gritted his teeth.
‘I’m thinking that you might want to have another talk with Hannah and tell her that, yes, we want to soften your image, but not turn you into a freaking marshmallow.’
‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll handle it.’
Hanging up, Ward immediately checked through his social media notifications to assess the extent of the damage.
Huh. Good thing Hannah had switched screen alerts off, otherwise the thing would’ve been lighting up like a Christmas tree. Some faint ribbing here and there, but it wasn’t all that bad. Still, it was bad enough that he was guaranteed to get some heavy-duty blowback in the locker room.
But then he also noticed a couple of missed calls from Hannah earlier. He called her back, but since it was late, it just went straight to voicemail.
‘Hey,’ he growled, leaving her a message, ‘you and I need to have another talk. When I said comic book, I didn’t mean Yogi-freakin’-Bear. Call me. Asap.’