Chapter 36
~Deacon~
Daley and I are making brunch together after my workout, laughing, talking, stealing kisses and moving around my kitchen like we’ve done this a hundred times before, when my phone dings from its charging spot on the counter.
“Do you need to check that?” Daley asks when I don’t make a move towards the device.
Truthfully, I don’t want to. She has to leave soon to drive home, and I have an intense week of practice ahead of me leading up to our first game of the year on Friday night. I’d love nothing more than to stay in the little bubble we’ve created for just an hour or two longer.
But when the phone dings again, and again, ignoring it becomes impossible.
“It’s the team’s PR manager,” I tell her as I pick up the phone and see Matt’s name on the latest message.
Call me.
With a frown, I scroll back to see the earlier ones.
This was posted on a few social media sites this morning.
Gaining a bit of traction. Anthea from channel 11 is already calling.
I don’t even need to see the content of the post to know this can’t be good.
Anthea worked with Megan back during her weather-girl TV days.
Anthea worked the entertainment desk and the two hated each other for reasons I’ve never fully understood.
When news of Megan’s affair broke, Anthea covered it online with a thoroughness that felt very personal.
If she’s involved in whatever news broke, it has to be related to my personal life but as I click the link Matt sent, I hold onto a little hope that it has something to do with Megan and not with me and Daley.
That hope evaporates instantly when I see the pictures posted. There we are in my car arriving home yesterday, which I expected, but the picture next to it leaves me breathless with disbelief.
Me holding Daley in my arms, kissing her, right outside my front door.
What the actual fuck?
I dial Matt before I can even process it and he picks up immediately. He must have still had his phone in his hand.
“That’s from my security system,” I spit out, gripping the phone tightly to stop myself from hurling it across the room in frustration. The angle of the black-and-white photo is one I recognize very well.
As if subconsciously needing to get as far away from the front door as possible, I move to the back windows and look out over the deceptively peaceful-looking backyard.
“How the hell did they get it?”
“That’s what I was going to ask you,” Matt replies. “Who else has access to that feed?”
I’m about to say that no one does until I realize that might not be true. Dread spreads through my body like ice crawling through my veins. “I don’t know if I ever took Megan off the account.”
I have a vague memory of sitting in the living room with my lawyer, compiling a list of all the things we shared and making arrangements to have them put into either her name or mine.
My mind wasn’t at its sharpest, and although I know I had her access code for the front gate revoked, did I also remove her login access to the account? Fuck if I know.
Does that mean she’s been watching me and any guests of mine coming and going for months? The privacy I thought I had here suddenly feels like an illusion.
“I wondered if that was the case,” Matt admits and I can hear his pen scratching against paper in the background as he takes notes.
“My next question was going to be who would have something to gain from sharing it, and Megan was my number one suspect there too. She’s still trying to pitch her reality show from what I hear, and getting her name back in the gossip columns will help.
If people are talking about you, they’re talking about her. ”
Unfortunately, none of that sounds implausible to me. “And she’s the one who arranged for the guy to be outside last night?”
“I would think so,” Matt agrees. “You can’t see the woman’s face in the shot where you’re kissing. She must have wanted a clearer picture.”
And Daley’s face is clear as day in the passenger seat of my car. Looks like this is coming out today whether we’re ready for it or not.
“We can leave it as ‘no comment’ if you want,” Matt adds. “Try to bring focus back to the season opener coming up.”
“Yeah. Let’s do that.” Having gone through the intense period of scrutiny that followed my separation this spring, I’m more prepared than before for what the media interest will be like, but I still hate the idea of everyone talking about my personal life behind my back.
Matt’s pen scratches again. “Anything I need to know about the woman? Just in case someone goes digging on her?”
Fuck. Having the press hounding me is one thing but picturing reporters outside Daley’s house in her small town makes my stomach turn. “She’s the mother of one of the new guys on the team. Don’t spread that around, I’m just telling you so you know. She lives up in North Dakota.”
For perhaps the first time since we started working together, Matt doesn’t seem to know what to say. “Okay. That’s… um. Well. Okay. Which… uh, which player?”
His voice raises at the end in a nervous squeak that I would almost find funny if this weren’t such a disaster. “River Adams. Our first-round draft pick.”
“Oh. Right.” He clears his throat in an obvious effort to regain his composure. “She’s the one you went to that thing for last weekend?”
“Yeah. We’ve been spending some time together. Trying to keep it under the radar but obviously, that ship has sailed.”
“Afraid so.” He pauses for a moment before asking one more question. “Is River okay with this? There won’t be any conflict between the two of you?”
He’s probably picturing more tense scenes in the locker room like the ones between me and Brady during the mess with Megan, and as much as I’d love to tell him it won’t be a problem, I don’t know that for sure.
“I’ll take care of it,” I promise him instead. “I have to go. Sorry to put this on your plate.”
“It’ll blow over,” he says, but I can tell he’s only about as certain of that as I am about River. “Try to enjoy the rest of your day. Maybe switch your phone off for a while.”
“Yeah.” I huff out a humourless laugh. “Thanks, Matt.”
After hanging up, I finally turn back to Daley. I made no attempt to lower my voice, so she heard the whole conversation, or at least my end of it, and her pretty face is pale with worry when our eyes meet.
“How bad is it? I tried searching but I couldn’t find anything.”
Wordlessly, I hand her the link I still have loaded. Somehow, even more blood drains from her cheeks as she takes in the photo. She swallows thickly before nodding.
“Okay. I guess saying we’re just friends is definitely off the table now.”
“Afraid so.” She seems calm enough on the outside, but she isn’t the type to throw a tantrum. I stay silent to give her space and time to decide how she wants to handle this before I make any suggestions.
Her teeth tug on her lower lip as she thinks it all over. “Do I have time to get to the lodge where the retreat is before they get their phones back?”
It takes me a second to understand what lodge she’s talking about, but I quickly piece it together. River is her priority; I should have guessed.
Taking my phone back from her, I find the details for the retreat location and plug it into my map app. It’s just over a two-hour drive away and they wrap up for the day around noon. “It’ll be tight, but we can give it a try.”
“You don’t have to come,” she protests. “It’s kind of on my way home. I’ll just carry on from there.”
“I’m not letting you drive two hours by yourself when you’ve just had a shock like this. We’ll take your car and you can carry on home afterwards like you want. I’ll find another way back.”
“But…”
“No buts, Mama. Go get your things, I’ll pack up some food for us, and we’ll be on our way.”