30. Busted
THIRTY
BUSTED
ISABELLA
There’s an incessant buzzing that pulls me into the land of the living. I quite literally slept like the dead last night. After all the emotional turmoil and the desperate way we fucked, my battery was drained to zero.
I blink my eyes awake to locate the source of the vibrations and deduce that it’s one of our phones. I think it’s mine? But I’m still caged into Ryan’s body with his arm banded across my stomach, his legs tangled with mine.
Just as I’m about to work myself free, it stops. I let out a sigh and settle back in. It can wait.
And then his phone starts to go.
For the second time in twenty-four hours my stomach curdles. It would have to be some sort of world ending emergency for both of our phones to be going off right now. Especially this early in the morning. Cutting my eyes over to the window, I can tell it can’t be too much later than sunrise.
“Ryan,” I whisper as I attempt to jostle him.
That only succeeds in making him grip me tighter and groan into my ear where he’s buried his face into my neck.
“Ryan,” I try again, voice louder but rough with sleep.
“Mmm? What time is it?” he mumbles, words slightly slurring together.
“I don’t know, but our phones keep going off.”
“Hm? Why?” His hold still doesn’t loosen. Pretty sure he hasn’t even opened his eyes.
I chuckle. “I don’t know. Haven’t really been able to reach for it.”
“Oh, sorry,” he apologizes as his grip finally releases enough for me to move. A glance over my shoulder shows me the pink tint of a blush coloring his face. He dips his head close for a quick kiss on my cheek before he fully lets me go.
“You texted your mom last night, right?” I ask as I roll toward my nightstand to retrieve my phone, and he does the same for his.
“If you didn’t, I’m sure it’s her worried about—” My words break off as I wake my phone to see an apocalypse worth of texts, missed calls, and social media notifications, the latter of which I’ll deal with later.
There are five missed calls from Jordan, three from Liz, and about another dozen or so texts between the two of them and our group chat.
Liz
Isa?
You awake?
Jordan
isa
this is actually important
i know you were probably dicked down after playing nurse or whatever but call me!
Liz
Or me!
Literally either of us
Jordan
or both of us
Their individual messages say much of the same. With the exception of one not at all concerning message from Liz.
Liz
In the hopes that you see these messages before we talk: don’t check your socials
Don’t check my socials? Why?
“Um, Ry? Do you know what’s going on and why my friends are telling me to call them?
And not to look at socials?” I ask, nerves causing me to practically vibrate.
I glance up to see Ryan’s face pale and eyes wide as he looks at his own phone.
Feeling my gaze on him, he lifts his head and opens his mouth to reply as my phone vibrates in my hand with an incoming call from Liz. I swipe quickly to answer.
“Liz, what’s going on?” I ask in greeting. “Your messages are freaking me out and Ryan looks like he’s seen a ghost,” I rattle off.
“Yeah, well he may have a cause to look like that,” she starts, words stilted.
My brows furrow in confusion. I put her on speaker while I start to comb through the other notifications.
“Promise you won’t shoot the messenger? I had really hoped Jordan would’ve been the one to catch you. ” Her voice comes out soft.
“Promise. Now tell me what’s going on.”
“So… it seems someone may have snapped a photo of the two of you leaving the stadium last night.”
My fingers freeze over my Instagram. Ryan’s face is grim. His lips are pressed in a straight line and he looks sad. “It’s bad, isn’t it?” I ask, voice nearly a whisper.
I hear Liz heave a deep sigh over the line before she replies which tells me everything before she even speaks.
“Yeah, Isa. It’s kind of bad.” Before she can even start to explain, I click into the app and see my notifications have absolutely exploded.
Thousands of follow requests and another hundred or so tagged photos. Those are what I click into first.
And they’re all a few different shots taken of Ryan and me as we left the stadium. The most damning of them all is the one with his arm around my shoulders, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. I can remember the exact moment this was taken. But I don’t remember seeing any press or photographers.
“Who—” I clear my throat to try and dislodge the ball that’s formed. “Who took these?”
“We’re not entirely sure, but they didn’t need to be on the grounds to have snapped the photos.
It could’ve been a fan outside the gates with an incredible camera or even someone from the press with a telescopic lens.
It really could’ve been anyone, and the tabloids posting them aren’t listing their source,” Liz explains, the sympathy clear in her voice.
“How did they get my name?”
“Again, I’m not sure, sweetie. But you’re at all the home games. Plus, you and Ryan follow each other on socials, right? The internet can be a terrifying place when it comes to sleuthing abilities and your puzzle isn’t the most complex one to put together, unfortunately.”
“Okay,” I whisper. “I, um, I think I’m gonna go now. I need to figure out what to do next. But thanks for telling me before I found out for myself.”
“Anytime, sweetie. Let us know if you need anything. We’re here for you.”
“Thanks, Liz,” I say as I end the call.
Ryan is still wearing that same grim expression. “Isa, I—” He cuts off as his phone rings with his agent’s name. “Fuck. I should get this. But we need to talk.” I give him a nod as he rises from the bed and holds his phone to his ear, walking out to his living room. “Danny, hey.”
I look back down at the phone in my hand where Instagram is still pulled up.
I start scrolling through the comments on some of the tagged photos and instantly regret it.
But it’s like that trainwreck expression—you want to look away, but you also can’t.
The comments are a siren’s song and she’s pulling me into the deep end to drown me with her.
RF7_Updates: can’t believe he’s dating someone so NORMAL
FletchFan: god I hope this is just a hookup because he’s supposed to be my future husband
Baseballgurlie007: apparently she’s not even a baseball fan?! what kind of blasphemy is this???
Some even go as far as to nitpick what they can see of my appearance and every little flaw.
The internet really is a cruel place.
Now I understand why they tell you to never read the comments.
I quickly navigate into my settings and switch off the ability to be tagged in more photos before it can escalate further.
I might even delete the app, but that seems a bit drastic.
I do the same with all my other social accounts, making sure their privacy settings are beefed up as high as they can go before I toss my phone to the end of the bed.
Sitting there for a moment, it all sinks in. We’re outed. I’m all over the internet. There’s no way in hell Boseman doesn’t see this. I broke the one rule I was supposed to follow.
Absolutely no fraternization with the athletes or production crew.
Fuck. FUCK. I’m screwed. I’m completely and utterly fucked. I don’t think there is any way I can fix this.
My eyes burn with tears, and I’m honestly surprised I even have any left after last night. I let myself fall back into the bed and bury my head in a pillow, curling up into myself.
I don’t know how long I cry for, but eventually I’m rocked as the bed dips under Ryan’s weight when he climbs in behind me, wrapping me in his arms.
“Isa, I’m so sorry.” His voice cracks. “I wasn’t thinking. I just…” A sigh. “I don’t want to make any excuses. All I can do is apologize and hope you’ll forgive me.” He buries his head into my hair and inhales deeply, squeezing me even tighter to him as if I might drift away if he doesn’t hold on.
I turn my head enough to speak without the pillow muffling my voice. “It’s not all your fault. We were both careless. Our minds were still shellshocked after your injury that neither of us were thinking.”
“I hate to ask… but have you heard anything from work?” he asks.
I start to shake my head as I hear the telltale ding of an email notification.
I let out a resigned sigh. “Cazzo.”
He releases me to retrieve my phone from where I tossed it and passes it across to me, propping himself up behind me so he can read over my shoulder.
Yep. There it is in black and white. An email from Peter Boseman himself.
I click into the email and scan through it, but I didn’t need to. I already knew what it was going to say.
From: Peter Boseman
To: Isabella Rossi
CC: Boseman HR
Subject: Meeting
Ms. Rossi,
I’ve sent a meeting invitation to accompany this email for first thing this morning. Please be punctual.
We’ll be discussing details that appeared in the press overnight and your future.
Regards,
Peter Boseman
CEO, Boseman Production Security
The meeting invitation comes through at the exact moment I finish reading the email. With shaky fingers, I tap accept.
Locking my phone, I start to calculate how much time I have to get ready.
I wasn’t prepared to spend the night at Ryan’s this last minute, nor was I anticipating needing to go into the office so early this morning, so I have no clothes here.
I’ll need to head back to my apartment to change.
And shower. We never ate last night. I need to eat something.
I guess I could always skip breakfast to buy myself more time. But I still?—
“Isa,” Ryan’s soft voice breaks through my tailspin of thoughts. I peer over my shoulder, meeting his gaze. “Go jump in the shower. I’ll make us something to eat and then I can drop you at your place so you can change since your car is still at the stadium.”
Oh, fuck. My car. I didn’t even think about the fact that I rode home with Ryan and left my car in the stadium’s lot.
“I’ve only got?—”