Chapter 16
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
WREN
Wren’s phone alarm went off with a painfully sharp trill. She sat straight up, her eyes darting around the room. Shit. Rebecca’s room. She needed to be ready at her team’s hotel to leave for the airport in an hour. Holy shit, she was fucked. They were fucked.
Rebecca’s eyes flashed open, clearly struggling to focus. “What time is it?” she mumbled, the sleep coating her accent with an extra degree of adorableness.
Wren shook the thought away. She couldn’t think Rebecca was adorable.
This was awful. The absolute worst idea she could have had.
She had come over to yell at Rebecca, not have sex with her.
And now… oh, holy shit. No one could ever find out.
Their contracts had been quite clear. As had Coach Jameson in their last little group chat.
She had to get out of there without being seen.
Any whiff of this to the media, and all the outlets would have a field day: Wren Eames’s Cheating Scandal Continues.
It didn’t matter anymore that it wouldn’t be true.
What matters would be that they had directly and repeatedly violated their contracts last night.
“It’s six. I have to get back to the hotel,” Wren said, all but bolting out of Rebecca’s bed. She started gathering her clothes, tugging them all back on as she went. She didn’t have time to overthink it or bother with being grossed out as she pulled her boxers back on.
She hissed as the elastic dragged up her thigh. Her whole burn was stiff this morning. Another reason her activities from the night before had absolutely been ill-advised.
“I’ll drive you,” Rebecca said, not hiding the fact that she was watching as Wren hopped around her room, trying to put her socks on without sitting down.
“Are you insane?” Wren shook her head. “You can’t drive me.” She let out a laugh. “That’s all we need is for someone to recognize us together the morning after we played against each other.”
Rebecca pulled her blankets up tighter around her chest. Wren noticed. She also noticed the frown that was forming between Rebecca’s eyebrows. “What’s happening right now?”
“Where’s my shirt?” Wren was frantically digging through the pile of clothes they had thrown off of each other.
“The hallway,” Rebecca said, pulling the covers up even higher.
Wren sighed, everything in her hurting at the way Rebecca was clearly breaking in front of her.
“I’m sorry, Rebecca. I shouldn’t have let this happen.
I was supposed to come yell at you for how you played yesterday not…
” Wren froze, clenching her jaw. “Not,” she sighed. Aggressively. “Not, do this.”
“Right,” Rebecca said, her voice sounding painfully small.
“Fuck,” Wren said, pulling her hair back into a ponytail.
“I’m not trying to hurt your feelings, Rebecca.
This was an awful idea, and we both know it.
We signed legally binding contracts. And I’m about to go get on a plane with our National Team captain, and I’m going to have to sneak back into my hotel room like I didn’t spend all night with you.
” Wren shook her head. “I can’t get kicked off the National Team. I won’t.”
Rebecca nodded, her movements shaky and unsure. “I understand.”
“Good. Then um, have a good week. I’ll see you in a few days.” Wren tugged open Rebecca’s bedroom door and hustled down the hall. She slowed down just to scoop up her shirt and kept walking. She was in the middle of pulling it on when another voice called out to her.
“Yo, Becky, what the hell happened to the hallway last night?”
Wren’s head finally made it through the collar. “Not Becky. Sorry,” she murmured as she stuffed her feet into her shoes and slipped out the front door.
Wren slid into the backseat of her Uber with hardly a greeting for the driver.
She had trouble even confirming the address.
She had selected the building next door to Riptide’s hotel.
The last thing she needed was for one of her teammates to see her get back.
She was lucky enough Riptide players rarely had to share rooms. It wasn’t something their coaches believed in for team bonding, and their whole organization was on the forefront of pushing for better accommodations and pay for women athletes.
So, while sometimes they had to, those trips were few and far between.
That was where her luck ended though. How had she let this happen? No, not happen. She had caused it. How had she let herself do this? How could she have possibly let herself get so caught up in Rebecca-fucking-Rothschild that she had done something so foolish as to have sex with her. Again.
She was doing her best to not do something dramatic like curl up into the fetal position or cry.
It wasn’t that she was sad—though Rebecca looking so small that morning wrapped up in her blankets had been absolutely tragic—she was anxious.
Like her entire nervous system was hyperaware that she’d already been burned here before.
Like Rebecca had been her first—and worst—heartbreak.
And, more importantly, her career now literally hung on the line this time.
Maybe she should put her head between her knees.
In movies they always said that helped with nausea.
She didn’t want the Uber driver to think she was hungover though, so she did her best to pretend to just be tired and exhausted instead of freaking the hell out.