Chapter 11 #4
It did feel better that he was home. My heart had stopped pounding hard with what must have been anxiety.
Victoria would show Beau, and he was my boss.
People on the Woodsmen followed us, and they would see.
All of them would see. And I couldn’t stop wondering what else was out there.
I remembered some terrible stuff, and if Sage wanted to post that, too? How could I stop her?
“Hey.” His voice interrupted my thoughts. “Do you want to tell me now? I know that something’s wrong and it doesn’t seem minor.”
I stopped rubbing and put my face on his back, closing my eyes. “Sage posted a picture of me. She tagged our account and even though I got that removed, it was attached to you.”
“So?”
“So, I look high and my boobs are hanging out. And if she had one picture, then she has more.”
He started to turn over and I sat up. “So?” he repeated.
“All the people who follow us can see it,” I said.
“They’re mostly strangers.”
“The ones who aren’t strangers are people from the team, your coworkers and their families. Your bosses. I have a boss, too, and clients who could see it.”
“Everybody has dumb stuff in their past. How bad is it?”
I showed him and he sat up, scrutinizing the image. The screen glowed in the dark room. “Hell,” he said.
“I know. Millie didn’t use this because of how ugly I looked.”
“No, you’re not ugly. But you’re so skinny and pale,” Callum said.
I nodded. “I’m like a hag. I never used to care, though. I never bothered with how I looked unless Damian got mad about it.” I hadn’t cared about myself at all.
“You look like you were sick. It reminds me of when I first saw you.”
I nodded again, more miserable. “I’m sorry. Sage has been threatening me—”
“What?”
I explained how it hadn’t been explicit, like she hadn’t come out and said that she was going to do something awful. “It’s all anonymous. At first, she was telling me to get back in touch, that she wanted to be friends.”
“And you don’t.”
“No, I don’t want to have any connection to any of them,” I said firmly. “But when I didn’t answer, she got more forceful. Like, ‘You better answer me. You have to talk to me. You can’t ignore me.’” I sighed. “I did ignore her and now she did this.”
“But you don’t know for sure who’s writing.” He looked at me. “She didn’t put her name.”
“No, but the only other person it could be is Millie. She would have had the pictures on her laptop because that was where she edited before she posted everything.”
“Why not her?”
“I don’t think she would care enough about me to bother.
She didn’t care about any of us, even Matheus and they were kind of a couple.
” They were regularly hooking up, but there was no commitment or exclusivity.
“It wouldn’t be Damian. He couldn’t have waited for me to respond after the first message because he doesn’t have patience and he can’t plan.
” If he had wanted to get back at me for some reason, he would just come and hit me somewhere that it didn’t show, or maybe somewhere that the marks would have been more visible.
He wasn’t always careful, which was why Sage and I had used a lot of body makeup.
It hadn’t always worked well but his friends had just pretended not to see.
“Don’t be upset. This doesn’t matter.”
But he sounded angry so I wanted to reassure him. “I don’t even care,” I said.
“What?”
“I don’t care that I look like a hag and that my boobs are falling out of the bustier.
I don’t even really care that Beau Gowan may see and he could fire me.
But if this hurts you somehow, after everything you overcame—if you lose your endorsements, or you don’t get new ones, or the coaches question you—they’re always talking about the Woodsmen family and I know they’re all about values and morals—”
“Rainey, listen to me.” He put his hands on my shoulders and made me stop squirming.
“I also don’t care. I also did stupid shit that I don’t want people to discuss.
I told you some of it, but I could get into a lot more details of what an asshole I was and how I probably don’t deserve to be here at all. ”
“That’s not true!”
“What I’m saying is that we got to this point anyway, and some stupid post on some stupid app doesn’t mean jack. I wouldn’t care if you danced naked on the fifty-yard line.” He hesitated. “No, I wouldn’t like that.”
“I won’t be dancing naked anywhere. I really don’t enjoy it.”
Callum nodded. “Good. You don’t need to worry about the team and you don’t need to worry about them taking back the money they gave me to wear the cleats or do the ad for the restaurant.”
“It was a lot of money,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but I’m happy with what I have. I’m more than happy,” he told me. “I don’t need anything else.”
This could all disappear, and then what? He could get traded or cut tomorrow. “I’m thinking about your future,” I said.
“No, don’t think about me. I’m not important here.”
But what was more important than him? As he hugged me, I decided on the answer: nothing.