Chapter Six
WAKE UP, PATHFINDERS NATION! IT’S GAME DAY!! ?? #ATLvsPDX #PathfindersNation
PUMPED AF! LF GOOOOOO!!! ?? #ATLvsPDX #PathfindersNation
Currently at Pathfinders Stadium and there’s a noticeable heightened security presence. We were just stopped going into the
tunnel and told no photos. All press was made to put away phones and cameras. More to come. #ATLvsPDX
chels @chelsyeah · 5m
you guys are never going to believe this but i’m working concessions at the pathfinders game and lyric adair just walked past
me. wtf is happening rn ??
Poppy chewed on her thumb, shredding her nail, watching as the clock on the jumbotron counted down the minutes until kickoff.
Down on the field, the players were finishing their pregame warm-ups, some of them already headed for the locker room. In
the end zone, Cash tossed a football back and forth with Pathfinders’ tight end DeAndre Jones, who said something that made
Cash laugh so hard he doubled over, hands braced on his knees.
“Holy shit,” Cassidy, DeAndre’s wife, gasped and Poppy whipped her head to the side, mildly terrified that at nearly nine months pregnant,
Cassidy’s water had broken. Cassidy stared down at her phone, jaw hanging open. “Oh. My. God.”
“What is it?”
She practically shoved the iPhone in Poppy’s face. “Lyric Adair was just spotted inside the stadium. This stadium. Holy shit, what is she doing here?”
Someone had snapped a picture of Lyric entering the stadium, flanked on either side by plainclothes security guards.
“Wait.” Cassidy pinched the screen to zoom in on the photo. “Number three.” She looked at Poppy, eyes bulging. “She’s wearing
Cash’s number.”
It wasn’t just his number—it was his jersey. An actual game-worn jersey the league would fine him at least five hundred dollars for giving away. It dwarfed Lyric’s petite frame, the sleeves, even rolled, hanging down past her elbows
and the hem grazing the middle of her thighs.
“Wow.” Poppy tugged on her earring. “Huh, that’s, uh . . . that’s crazy.”
“No fucking way.” Cassidy scoffed. “You knew. You knew and you didn’t tell me. The fuck, Poppy?”
Poppy winced. “I plead the fifth.”
Cassidy smacked her arm. “Your constitutional rights aren’t going to keep me from kicking your ass. I can’t believe you kept this from me.” She paused, eyes flitting to the field and narrowing. “Wait. Did DeAndre know about this? Oh my God, I am going to murder that man.”
“De didn’t know,” Poppy promised. “No one did.”
Other than Cash’s parents, who were picking at the buffet on the other side of the suite, the only people who’d been told
Lyric would be at today’s game were the Pathfinders’ and stadium’s security teams. Even they had only been apprised of the
situation on a need-to-know basis, liaising with the pop star’s personal security detail to keep her safe going in and out
of the stadium.
Poppy had personally put Lyric’s management in contact with both the Pathfinders’ director of security and the facilities manager, a task that,
as Cash’s publicist, really hadn’t been her responsibility. But she’d gone the extra mile, cc’ing Rosaline on every email,
Poppy’s way of silently thumbing her nose at her. Suck on that, Rosaline Sinclair. That would teach her to underestimate Poppy Peterson’s work ethic.
Cassidy grabbed Poppy by the arm, looking her dead in the eye. “Tell me everything.”
Poppy shrugged out of her hold. “I kind of can’t say anything.”
Cassidy gave her an incredulous stare. “You had to sign an NDA?” She laughed softly and shook her head. “Who am I kidding?
Of course you had to sign an NDA. It’s Lyric freaking Adair. Holy shit.” She glanced at the suite’s door then back at Poppy.
“Is she coming here?”
Poppy didn’t see the harm in confirming that much when any minute now Lyric was going to walk through that very door. “Mhmm.”
“God,” Cassidy breathed and patted the top of her head. “How’s my hair?”
Poppy smiled. “You look fine, promise.”
Cassidy rested a hand on her bump and sighed. “If I’d have known this was going to happen, I’d have gotten induced last week.”
She pouted. “DeAndre’s giant-ass baby is pressing on my bladder, but I don’t want to be in the bathroom when she gets here.”
Not five seconds later, the door to the suite opened, and in stepped one of the burly, plainclothes security guards Poppy
recognized from the photo. He performed a quick visual sweep of the suite from the doorway before stepping to the side, whispers
rising from the fringes of the room as Lyric stepped inside, Cash’s number splashed across her chest like a mutual claim.
She spotted Poppy almost instantly, her megawatt smile lighting up the room as she ignored the stares and crossed the suite,
throwing her arms around Poppy’s shoulders. She smelled like vanilla birthday cake, marshmallowy sweet.
“It’s so good to see you,” she breathed against Poppy’s ear. “I’ve been so nervous all morning, I thought I was going to throw
up.”
Grammy-winning superstar Lyric Adair, who’d performed sold out shows inside arenas much larger than Pathfinders Stadium, was
nervous to—what? Meet a few players’ wives? Poppy bit back a smile. That was actually really endearing. No wonder Cash was
head over heels for this girl. “It’s good to see you too. I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me too.” Her gaze drifted over Poppy’s shoulder, scanning the field, undoubtedly trying to spot Cash. “I didn’t miss anything,
did I?”
“Kickoff’s not for another five.” Cassidy waved. “Cassidy Jones, DeAndre’s wife.”
Lyric’s eyes lit up with recognition. “Cash’s friend! Tight end, right? Number . . . eighty-nine?”
“You got it.” Cassidy grinned. “And clearly you need no introduction.”
“Well, it feels bizarre not introducing myself, so . . .” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Lyric, Cash’s girlfriend.”
Cassidy’s brows disappeared beneath her bangs. “Girlfriend, huh?” She darted a quick glance at Poppy before reaching out and
shaking Lyric’s hand. “Welcome. I was about to head to the bathroom, but you want me to introduce you to a few of the other
players’ partners?”
Lyric beamed. “I’d love that.”
Cassidy linked her elbow with Lyric’s, setting off across the suite.
As if sensing Poppy wasn’t following, Lyric paused after a few steps and looked over her shoulder. “Poppy? You coming?”
Across the suite, Nina and Alexis, wives of Devon and Jerome Daniels, brothers and both linebackers who’d been drafted from
Miami and Tampa respectively, waved at Lyric.
“You go ahead.” Poppy wasn’t a WAG—a wife or girlfriend of one of the players—and sometimes it felt a little like some of
the wives were humoring her. Like, if she wasn’t dating Cash, they didn’t quite understand what she was doing hanging around.
“I’ll catch up with you later, okay?”
A soft, skeptical frown creased Lyric’s forehead. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.” Poppy pasted on a smile. “Have fun.”
Lyric, who was originally from not far outside of Orlando, could bond with Alexis and Nina over . . . hurricanes and humidity,
sinkholes, and . . . falling iguanas. Poppy didn’t know. The farthest east she’d traveled was Denver. Florida was as foreign
to her as the moons of Jupiter.
“Pathfinders are favored by three points.”
Poppy jumped, elbow knocking the waist-high table in front of her, a frisson of pain shooting down her arm to her wrist. “Jesus Christ.” Her hand flew to her chest, heart fluttering frantically under her palm. Rosaline stood beside her, staring out at the field,
arms crossed over her black-and-green plaid shacket. Poppy blinked at her. “Where did you come from?”
Rosaline looked at her askance. “The door?”
Poppy rolled her eyes. No shit. “You took me by surprise, is what I mean.”
Rosaline turned slightly, pivoting to face Poppy. “You knew I was coming.”
Again, not what she meant. “You could’ve, I don’t know, walked less like a freaking jungle cat.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. “I’ll make sure to announce my presence next time.” She gestured to the field. “I’ll borrow
a megaphone from one of the cheerleaders, maybe.”
Cheerleaders in the NFL were dancers, really. “They don’t use megaphones.”
Rosaline’s stare bore into the side of her face. “I was joking.”
Poppy tugged the sleeves of her sweatshirt down over her wrists. “Funny.”
“Question: Are you going to ice me out over our phone call all game?”
That was rich, coming from her. “The game hasn’t started yet.” Hurt bled into her voice, words wobbling and mortifyingly reedy.
Rosaline heaved a sigh. “You want to talk this out right now?” Her brows rose. “Really?”
You know what? “Forget it.” Rosaline was right. Now wasn’t the time to be having this conversation, assuming there was even
a conversation to be had at all. “The game’s about to start.”
The Falcons had already taken to the field along with the Pathfinders, the captains heading to midfield for the coin toss.
“Poppy.” The way Rosaline said her name, almost plaintive, made Poppy sigh and, against her better judgment, turn, reluctantly
meeting Rosaline’s eyes. Her gaze was already trained on Poppy, piercing and inscrutable, the rest of her expression equally
hard to read, giving Poppy nothing. “I’m sorry, okay? I don’t often find myself in a position of needing to apologize.” She
shrugged tightly, her voice dropping not to a whisper, but close. “Clearly, I don’t really know what I’m doing.”
“Something Rosaline Sinclair doesn’t excel at?” Poppy scoffed under her breath. “Alert the presses.”
Rosaline flinched, a flicker of hurt flitting across her face. “That’s less of an anomaly than you seem to think.” Her jaw
shifted, her tongue pressing against the inside of her cheek. “Trust me.”
Poppy’s stomach twisted unpleasantly. “Okay, look, I’m—”
“No, you look.” Rosaline darted a quick glance over her shoulder before stepping closer, standing hip to hip with Poppy. Her
perfume tickled Poppy’s nose, woodsy and sweet, citrus and patchouli. “I have been Lyric’s publicist for the better part of