Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
Creed
“I’m just saying I should have won that soft toy,” Roman insists as he climbs out of the truck. “I was so close! Maybe we should go back and try again.”
I can hear the smug grin in his voice, and I roll my eyes, shaking my head. “A seven-year-old beat you, Roman. You don’t get to talk about ‘close.’ And there’s no way we’re going back. We’re home now.”
“Age before beauty,” he counters, laughing louder now.
“Tell that to the child who was practically flying through the game,” Sloane chuckles.
Roman is still working himself up over that ring toss. His pride might take a while to recover, but it’s all in good fun.
“You’re just mad you didn’t get the plush llama,” he adds with a teasing smirk. “You know it’s your spirit animal.”
“Thanks for that,” I mutter, nudging him playfully. “You’re a real gem.”
Ezra, walking along the driveway beside us, shakes his head, his deep chuckle, a quiet rumble in his chest. “You two are positively absurd.”
I laugh, my eyes scanning the glowing lights ahead, everything sparkling under the night sky.
For a second, nothing matters. We’re just here, in this moment, surrounded by the buzz of the small town, the glow of holiday lights, and the warmth of mulled wine still lingering in my veins.
But then, my phone buzzes again. This time, it’s louder… more insistent. My pocket feels weighted, the vibration rattling through my body.
I freeze for a split second, my fingers tightening around the phone in my pocket before I even pull it out. I try to ignore the sudden unease slithering into my gut, but it doesn’t work.
The photos hit me like a punch in the chest.
I swipe across the screen, not fully ready for what I’m about to see. But I know. I already know.
Sloane. Kissing me over Christmassy cocktails. Then Roman and her on the ice rink, holding on to one another, looking too damn intimate for comfort. And then another one. Ezra, leaning in, the way he looks at her in the photo, as if she’s the only thing in the world.
The night we thought we were sharing, just the four of us. Now it’s out there for everyone to see, for anyone who cares to look.
I blink, trying to calm myself, but my heart’s already in my throat.
The world shifts under my feet, my mind racing with everything those photos mean. How the hell did they get these? How did it all go from a laugh-filled, magical night to… this?
Roman cuts through the fog in my head. “Creed?”
I don’t respond at first. My fingers are trembling too hard to pull the phone back out of my pocket, so I let it sit there. I don’t need to look at it again, not when it’s already carved that hole into my chest.
But Roman knows something’s off. He’s got this instinct, this way of reading the atmosphere before anyone else can.
“Creed?” he repeats, his tone more urgent now.
I take a deep breath, which is hard, like trying to pull air through a broken straw. The photos, the strain of what’s happening, is pressing down on me.
“Look,” I rasp, looking at Sloane as the cold bites at my skin. “We need to get inside. Now. I’ll talk then.”
Sloane glances at me, eyes narrowing in confusion, but she follows me as I start walking faster. I hear Roman’s footsteps behind us, and then Ezra’s, but none of them make a sound as they trail behind me.
By the time we reach the cabin, I’m practically running. I can feel my heart pounding too hard against my ribs, and I can’t shake the image of those photos.
I push open the door, my hands shaking as I turn on the light. I move to the table and pull out my phone, the screen still flashing with the images.
“Show us,” Roman says from the doorway, sharp now.
There’s no playfulness in it anymore, only a cold edge.
I can barely meet his eyes as I hand him the phone. He swipes through the pictures, his jaw tightening with each one.
Sloane’s breathing catches in the back of her throat when she sees them, too, and the quiet suffocates the room.
“This is bad,” she whispers, almost shaking. “Look at the comments. Oh my, and the articles spreading…”
I let out a bitter laugh, the sound harsh and dry. “Yeah, this is going to go viral.”
I turn away, pacing the room, every step heavy. My head is spinning. I want to throw the phone out the window, burn the damn thing, but it’s already out there.
“They’re already being shared everywhere,” I mutter, grabbing the nearest bottle of whiskey and pouring myself a glass, my hands trembling. “And it’s just getting started. The scandal’s already blowing up online.”
Sloane’s hand shoots out to grab my wrist, her fingers tight, like she’s trying to ground me. “What do we do?”
I can barely look at her, the question making my stomach churn. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to fix this.”
The tension in the room is palpable, each of us silently processing the fallout in our own way. The photos, the headlines… they’ve shattered the fragile illusion of control we had here.
Roman leans back against the table, arms crossed tightly across his chest, and eyes burning with an almost frustrated intensity.
“This is a damn circus,” he mutters, staring down at the phone as if it’s personally betrayed him. “Who the hell would do this to us?”
His words hit hard, slicing through the silence like a blade. He’s never been the type to take the press well, but this? This is different. The world he’s built around him, one of charm, control, and deflection, is crumbling in real time.
For once, that effortless confidence is gone, replaced by something raw, something he doesn’t know how to hide.
Ezra’s posture is rigid beside him, the faint twitch in his lips the only sign of his inner turmoil. “If they’re turning this into a love triangle, we need to figure out how to take the narrative back. Otherwise, we’ll be buried in it.”
I wish I had all the answers. But I have nothing.
Fuck.
Sloane’s gaze is fixed on the phone in her hands, her body a little too still, her breath too shallow. She’s quiet, too quiet, her walls going up so fast I can feel the distance stretching between us. The sharpness of her features softens, though it’s only for a moment, before she masks it again.
“I never wanted this,” she says tightly, not quite a whisper, but not far from it. “I’ve been through a scandal before. A work-related one, and I thought that was bad. But this? This is different. This isn’t my world. I don’t belong in it.”
Yeah, this might be rough for her. I remember the first time I experienced a scandal—it was bad, but I chose this life.
She’s been dragged into it.
It’s too much for her. I can see it in her clenched fists, her shaking fingers. She wants to run, and I don’t blame her.
I can almost feel her anxiety pressing against me. She’s strong, I’ve seen it in her eyes when she fights through her own demons, but this is different. The walls she’s built to protect herself from her past are being pulled down by a force she can’t control. And it hurts her.
It hurts her in a way that makes me ache for her.
What the hell can I do?