Chapter 5
Jalen
“Seriously, man.”
Cal didn’t yell it. He didn’t have to. The quiet, deadly seriousness in his voice was enough to freeze the air in the room.
I stood by the kitchen island, staring at the article on my phone. My jaw was clenched so tightly a dull ache bloomed along my temple. My thumb hovered over the glass like I could somehow erase the image if I just pressed hard enough, but the photo was too clean to dismiss.
There Mars was, walking down my driveway with her hair falling over her shoulders, sunglasses shielding her eyes as she made her way toward the waiting sedan.
The headline underneath was written with the smug confidence gossip blogs thrived on:
MYSTERY WOMAN SPOTTED LEAVING JALEN CARTER'S RIVER OAKS ESTATE.
A low, dangerous heat built in my chest.
“I’ve never had someone take photos at my house,” I said, my voice terrifyingly even. “Never. Privacy was the entire reason I bought this place.”
Cal crossed his arms, leaning back against the counter with a grim expression.
“Then somebody trailed you guys from Gutters. That's the only explanation.”
I ran a tense hand over the back of my neck.
He was right.
I didn’t have paparazzi camped outside my gates. Neighborhood security was ironclad.
But someone had slipped through.
This wasn't a coincidence.
It was calculated.
“They waited until she was isolated,” Cal said, every protective older-brother instinct taking over. “They didn’t snap pictures of the two of you at the restaurant. They waited until she was walking out of your house alone because they knew it would look more scandalous.”
A heavy wave of guilt mixed with the anger already burning in my chest.
Mars hadn’t asked for any of this.
She had been completely removed from the circus of my public life, and in less than an hour, the internet had dragged her straight into the center of it.
“I need to call her,” I said, locking my phone. “She deserves to hear from me before she reads the rest of this.”
“The comments are already multiplying by the second,” Cal muttered, staring at his own screen. “People are dissecting photos, creating timelines, and inventing narratives.”
“I would never disrespect her like that,” I said, the frustration finally cracking through my composure. “I didn't leak anything. I didn't stage a damn thing.”
“I know you didn't,” Cal replied quietly. “But the internet doesn't care about your intent, Jalen. It only cares about perception, and the perception is already spiraling.”
“Who is she? Secret girlfriend? Side piece? Homewrecker? Attention seeker?”
The comments got worse the farther I scrolled.
I tossed the phone onto the table, the anger in my chest hardening into something cold.
“She didn't sign up for this.”
Cal nodded grimly.
“Exactly.”
Silence settled between us.
For the first time since entering the league, I wasn't thinking about football, reporters, or sponsors.
I was thinking about Mars opening her phone and seeing strangers dissecting her life.
I thought about her walking into high-stakes corporate meetings, knowing people were looking at her differently because of a circus she never asked for.
The thought made my stomach turn.
“You need to fix it,” Cal broke the silence, his eyes lifting to meet mine.
“I will.”
He studied me for a moment.
“And if you want it done right, you need her.”
I leaned back, rubbing a heavy hand across my jaw.
He was right.
Mars handled situations like this for a living.
She had built an entire career out of protecting public figures, controlling narratives, and burying messes before they became disasters.
If anyone could make this story disappear, it was her.
The problem wasn't her capability; it was that asking for her help meant forcing her to carry a burden she hadn't created.
Once Mars Sinclair got involved professionally, there was no keeping things simple.
“She's not going to want to touch this,” I said.
“Probably not,” Cal shrugged, grabbing his keys from the counter.
He walked toward the front door, pausing with his hand on the frame to look back at me.
“But this is already touching her.
Don't give her a reason not to trust you, bro.”
“I won't.”
He gave me one last nod and walked out.
The front door clicked shut, leaving the house painfully quiet.
I stared at Mars's name on my screen.
I’d stood in front of seventy thousand screaming fans and carried the weight of an entire franchise, but the idea of her looking at me with disappointment—thinking I’d allowed her to become collateral damage—actually terrified me.
Protecting her mattered a hell of a lot more than protecting my image ever would.
I hit dial.
The phone rang three times, each ring tightening the knot in my chest.
Then the line clicked.
“You're trending,” she said before I could even get a word out.
A small breath escaped me.
“Good morning to you, too.”
“This isn't funny, Jalen.”
“I know.
Mars... I swear to you, I didn't call anyone.
I didn't stage this.”
“I believe you.”
The absolute certainty in her voice caught me completely off guard, releasing a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.
“They must've followed us from Gutters.
I didn't see anyone, I swear.
I looked around before I got into the car.”
“I know you did.
They weren't interested in a standard photo of me,” I explained quietly.
“They were waiting for you.
They knew a picture of us leaving dinner together just looks like a casual night out.
But if they waited until you walked out of my house alone the next morning, they could invent whatever narrative they wanted.”
The line stayed quiet for several seconds.
“I'm sorry,” I said.
“For dragging you into the center of the circus.”
“You didn't drag me anywhere.
Somebody decided to violate both of our privacy.”
I leaned against the counter, closing my eyes.
“I still hate that you're dealing with this.”
“So do I.”
Her voice softened just enough to make my chest ache.
“But this blows over if we ignore it,” she continued, her tone tightening as she tried to force her usual corporate logic onto a messy reality.
“Mystery women come and go in sports media, Jalen.
By Tuesday, the blogs will be obsessing over someone else.”
“I’m not letting you be categorized as a temporary headline,” I said, my voice dropping into a low, immovable finality.
I could hear the sharp, defensive shift in her posture even through the phone line.
“That’s not your call,” she said carefully, picking her words like she was stepping through a minefield.
“You didn’t ask for this, but neither did I.”
I softened my tone, leaning forward.
“Cal thinks you should handle the damage control.”
She let out a dry, breathy sound that was almost a laugh.
“Of course he does.
He thinks I can wave a magic wand and erase the internet.”
“He trusts you,” I said.
“He’s biased.”
“He’s right,” she countered softly.
She fell quiet again, the gears clearly turning as she looked for an escape from the corner I was backing her into.
Then, a firm, unyielding:
“No.”
I blinked.
“No?”
“I don’t manage stories I’m actually in,” she said, her professional armor firmly back in place.
“It violates every rule of crisis PR.
You lose your objectivity the second your own face is on the screen.”
I leaned back against the counter, running a hand over my jaw and feeling the slight scrape of stubble against my palm.
If she wouldn't manage it from the wings, then we had to step onto the stage together.
“Then let’s do this differently,” I suggested.
“How?”
“We get ahead of it.
Not a denial, and not an official confirmation, either.
Something clean and intentional.
We give them just enough to look at so they stop digging for secrets.”
“You’re suggesting we lean into it,” she said slowly, the sheer weight of what that meant hanging heavily between us.
“I’m suggesting we don’t run from it.”
Her breath caught slightly, a tiny, fractured sound that sent a sudden spike of adrenaline straight through my chest.
“That’s dangerous,” she whispered.
“For who?”
“For me.”
The words hung in the quiet space between our phones, heavy and unexpected.
My heart rolled dangerously in my chest.
There was a raw vulnerability in her voice that told me this leak wasn't just a threat to her privacy.
It was a threat to her walls.
“I don’t want headlines,” she said, her voice growing smaller than I had ever heard it.
“I don’t want think pieces.
I don’t want strangers deciding who I am based on a blurry photo and a comment section.”
“And I don’t want you dragged through the mud,” I answered immediately, a protective instinct rising so fast it caught me off guard.
“The media turns people into entertainment, Mars.
They'll pick apart everything about you just to feed a twenty-four-hour news cycle, and I won't let them do that to you.”
A long, exhausted sigh drifted through the speaker.
I could hear the distant hum of traffic outside her apartment as she weighed the risks.
When the sharp edge of her usual pragmatism finally returned, her voice sounded steadier.
“You're asking me to attach myself publicly to you.
You're asking me to play along.”
“I'm asking you to help me protect both of us,” I corrected gently.
“If we dictate the terms, we take away everyone else's ability to invent a story.
We give them exactly what they want to see, but we do it our way until all of this dies down.”
“And what happens if it gets bigger?”
“It will,” I admitted honestly.
“The second we're seen together intentionally, every camera in the city is going to find us.”
She let out a quiet, humorless laugh.
“At least you're honest.”
“I'll always be honest with you.”
She went quiet one last time.
I could practically picture the crease between her eyebrows as she analyzed every possible outcome and searched for the safest path through a mess neither of us had asked for.
“If I even consider this, we do it strategically,” she said firmly.
Relief washed over me so quickly it almost made me dizzy, though it was followed by a strange, sharp ache in my chest.
“That's exactly why I called you.”
“You don't confirm anything,” she ordered.
“You don't deny anything.
You don't encourage gossip pages, and you don't make cryptic comments in interviews that give people something else to speculate about.”
“Agreed.”
“And Jalen?”
“Yeah?”
“This is business.”
Her words landed harder than I expected.
Maybe she was trying to convince me.
Maybe she was trying to convince herself.
“Understood,” I said quietly.
When the call finally ended, I lowered the phone and stared through the floor-to-ceiling windows for a long moment.
We could call it a strategy.
We could call it crisis management.
We could even convince everyone around us that it was nothing more than a carefully engineered publicity arrangement.
Deep down, neither of us believed that was the whole truth.