20. The Internet Detectives
20
THE INTERNET DETECTIVES
Nate
I dig around in my pocket for the band, then slide it back on.
Hunter does the same. He doesn’t even ask a question. He knows exactly why we’re in trouble.
I hate being the last to know. “What the fuck is going on, Vance?”
As the car swings away from the airport, he picks up the tablet on the seat next to him, then hands it to me. Hunter scoots closer and together we peer at a terrific shot of us laughing at the San Francisco airport, clearly together.
But my skin prickles. I get that we were in public, but this feels like an invasion of privacy.
“That’s a shot of us waiting for our flight,” Hunter says calmly, checking out the pic. “Who took it?”
Vance shrugs. “Some rando. Doesn’t matter.” He tells me where to find the next shot.
I click it open. It’s me kissing Hunter at the concert. Fine, there were tons of people, but this feels personal too.
“Then check out this lovely video,” Vance says.
I squint at the thumbnail of Bryan and me, then groan, annoyed. Seriously? “Do people have nothing to do but take videos of others?”
I hit play. “Buddy, maybe go to a twenty-four-hour drive-through instead. More private,” Bryan is saying.
My skin crawls.
Someone followed us.
The next pic is Hunter and me in the sunroof, kissing after we said I do .
I close my eyes, trying to let this sink in. But all this evidence feels unreal, like I’m watching our accidental marriage unfold from a distance. Like it’s happening to someone else.
“There’s one more pic,” Vance says, his tone less annoyed, more gentle.
I brace myself as I open my eyes. The photo is us on the plane, his head on my shoulder.
My breath hitches.
And my dumb heart squeezes.
I steal a glance at Hunter, but he’s unreadable, just studying the tablet like he’s coming up with a plan. Like he’s producing the coverage of this docu-reality series for Webflix. My Drunken Marriage Bet .
But I’m still shell-shocked. “Who did this?”
Vance huffs. “It doesn’t matter. Someone took a shot of you guys going to the chapel, posted that online. And once that was posted, the Internet detectives went out and found the others. That’s what happens when you play pro ball for a living and get hitched in a very public place. There were five or ten thousand people at the concert last night. The bloodhounds have been having a blast looking through their camera rolls and finding shots. Including this one of you two cuties from an hour ago.” He stops to take a breath, and to tell us, “ Cuties is not my word, by the way. It’s theirs.”
But I don’t want to play Sherlock Holmes games. “Who are they ?” I bite out.
“The world,” he answers crisply. “Just look at the captions. Or I can read them to you. So sweet, congrats, OMG you look so much happier than before .”
I blow out the deepest breath, trying to let this all go. “Okay, so now what?”
Vance stares sharply at me. “Well, do you want to look like the Liz Taylor of the NFL, known more for your marriages than your receiving yards?”
I wince. I’m already too known as Oliver’s ex. And I’ve kept my mouth shut as he’s spewed lies. “No,” I mutter. “But what does?—”
“And I doubt your sneaker sponsor is going to like it if you’re the guy who got drunk married and then instantly divorced? How about Less is More? They market their energy bars to kids and teens. Kids and teens love you.”
“There’s nothing wrong with two dudes getting married,” I shout, exploding for no fucking reason and every reason.
He rolls his eyes. “I fucking know that. I don’t care who you marry. Nor does Less is More. Their CEO is a lesbian. The issue is you were shit-faced drunk. Do you want to go tell the world you made a dumbass decision when you partied hard in Vegas and married the first guy you’d dated since Oliver?”
I burn inside. When he puts it like that…
“Or do you want to, say, stay happily married for thirty days to the guy you’ve been privately dating for the last few months?” He takes a breath and plasters on an exaggerated smile. “I imagine in the last week of conversations with the cutie you even planned to elope after the concert in Vegas. You intended to marry him. And now, you’ll spend a delightful week together in London as newlyweds. After that, you’ll return to San Francisco, he’ll stay in London, and you’ll publicly miss each other. Then down the road, you can quietly let this blow over, and once no one is talking about you two anymore, you can move the fuck on. How does that sound?”
It’s not really a question.
Vance already scripted out the whole story. I have to hand it to him—privately dating is not a bad explanation.
I slump back in the seat again, weighing my limited options now that a quick and easy annulment is off the table. A drunk-marriage-turned-instant-divorce after my very painful divorce earlier this year would look bad. Especially since my first ex-husband blathers on about me like I’m a rich prick.
If the world thinks I’m a jackass playboy who gets wasted and then hitched, I’ll lose sponsors and fans.
If the world thinks I’m happily married to a guy I’ve been secretly seeing and am now in love with, I’ll maintain my good guy rep.
I drag a hand down my face, weighing the choice. But it’s not up to me alone.
I turn to Hunter. As bad as I feel about my own situation, I feel a million times worse to have dragged him into this storm of my love life.
“What do you want to do?” I sound as defeated as I feel. I’m sure he’ll say no. He doesn’t need this shit in his life.
I expect an argument. A scoff. A you’ve got to be kidding me.
But he solemnly nods. “I think that makes perfect sense. A fake marriage for appearance’s sake.”
What? He agreed? Like that?
Vance sighs contentedly. “I thought you might, Hunter.”
I cock my head. Hold the fuck on. “Why would you think he’d want that?” I ask Vance.
My agent stares at me like I don’t know jack. Then he speaks slowly. “His father’s been married five times. You might have heard of him. Ian Granger is his dad. The creator of your favorite show— Sweet Nothings . And Hunter worked on the show for a few years. I figured Hunter wouldn’t want to get married and divorced in one weekend. Am I right, Hunter?”
“Yes,” my husband says, tight and crisp. “And I just got a new position at work. I don’t want to cast any bad publicity on the network.”
I jump out of my skin.
What was I thinking? I barely asked any personal questions about Hunter.
Now I have no clue who the hell my fake husband is. And it feels like I’m making the same mistakes all over again.