Chapter Nineteen Kelly
Chapter Nineteen
Kelly
I find out from Nicole.
It's Saturday morning, and I'm in bed with my laptop, trying to squeeze out a few hundred words before Travis comes over for breakfast. My phone buzzes with a text, and I glance at it without thinking.
Don't google yourself.
I frown at the screen. That's not how Nicole usually starts a conversation.
What are you talking about?
Just don't. I'm calling you in five minutes.
My stomach drops. I know I should wait, should let Nicole explain, but my fingers are already typing my name into the search bar before I can stop them.
The results load. And my whole world tilts sideways.
HOCKEY STAR TRAVIS HOWE'S NEW GIRLFRIEND: WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT KELLY DAWSON
SOURCES SAY HOWE'S FAMILY "CONCERNED" ABOUT CONTROLLING NEW RELATIONSHIP
EXCLUSIVE: INSIDE TRAVIS HOWE'S SECRET ROMANCE WITH RECLUSIVE VIRGINIA WOMAN
I click on the first article with shaking hands.
Disgraced NHL enforcer Travis Howe has been laying low since his indefinite suspension last spring, but sources close to the family say he hasn't been alone.
According to multiple people familiar with the situation, Howe has been living in a cottage on property owned by Kelly Dawson, 28, a former marketing professional who recently moved to rural Virginia.
"She's isolated him completely," one source told us. "His family has tried to reach out, but she won't let them near him. They're worried she's taking advantage of his vulnerable state."
Another source described Dawson as "calculating" and suggested she may have pursued Howe for his money. "She quit her job right before they got together. Now she's living off his generosity while pretending to be a writer."
I stop reading. I can't breathe.
My name. My age. My job. All of it laid out for strangers to pick apart. The narrative already written: I'm the villain. I'm the gold digger. I'm the one who found a broken man and decided to take advantage.
My phone rings. Nicole.
"Did you google yourself?"
"Yes."
"I told you not to."
"I know." My voice comes out thin, strange. "Nicole, they're saying I'm—that I'm controlling him. That I'm after his money. They called me calculating."
"They're lying. It's obvious where this came from."
"His family."
"'Sources close to the family.' That's Savannah. Or his mom. Or both." Nicole's voice is steady, furious on my behalf. "This is retaliation for cutting them off. They're trying to destroy you because they can't get to him."
"But it's everywhere. My name is everywhere." I scroll through the results, watching them multiply. Entertainment sites, sports blogs, gossip columns. Everyone picking up the same story, the same narrative, the same lies. "People are going to think—"
"People who matter will know it's not true."
"But people who don't know me—my old coworkers, my family—" My voice breaks. "My mother is going to see this. She's going to google my name and see articles calling me a gold digger."
"Then call her first. Get ahead of it. Tell her what's actually happening."
I close my laptop because I can't look at it anymore. My hands are trembling. I feel sick, actually physically sick, like something poisonous has gotten inside me and is spreading through my veins.
"Kelly." Nicole's voice softens. "This is awful. I'm not going to pretend it's not. But you haven't done anything wrong. You fell for someone, and his toxic family is trying to punish you for it. That's not your fault."
"I know. But knowing doesn't make it feel any better."
"Have you told Travis?"
"Not yet. I just found out."
"You should tell him. Before he sees it himself."
She's right. Of course she's right. But I don't know how to have that conversation. How to show him the articles, watch his face as he reads what they're saying about me. About us.
"I'll call you later," I say.
"Okay. I love you. Remember that."
"I love you too."
I hang up and sit there in the silence, staring at my closed laptop like it might bite me.
My whole body feels wrong—too hot, too cold, shaky and numb at the same time.
I've never been the subject of public scrutiny before.
I've never had strangers dissecting my life, making judgments about who I am based on information fed to them by people who hate me.
This is what Travis has been living with for months. This is what the scandal did to him—turned his worst moment into content, into commentary, into a story that followed him everywhere he went.
And now I'm part of it.
I hear footsteps on the porch, then a knock. Travis's knock—two quick raps, then a pause, then one more. He's been doing it for weeks, like a code, and normally it makes me smile.
Today I can barely make myself get up to answer the door.
He knows something's wrong the second he sees my face.
"What happened?"
I step back to let him in. "Have you checked the news this morning? The sports sites?"
"No, I came straight here. Why?" He's already pulling out his phone. "Kelly, you're scaring me. What's going on?"
"Google my name."
He frowns but does it, his eyes scanning the screen as the results load. I watch his expression change—confusion, then disbelief, then something darker. Something that looks like rage.
"What the fuck," he says quietly.
"It's everywhere. All the major outlets picked it up."
"Sources close to the family." He's still reading, scrolling through article after article. "This is Savannah. This is her, I know it is."
"Probably. But it doesn't matter who it is. The story's out there. People are going to believe it."
"People who don't know you."
"People who don't know me make up most of the world, Travis." I sink onto the couch, pulling my knees up to my chest. "I'm not famous. I'm not used to this. I don't know how to—"
I stop because my voice is shaking too much to continue.
Travis sets down his phone and sits beside me, pulling me into his arms. I bury my face in his chest and let myself fall apart—just for a minute, just long enough to feel the full weight of it before I have to figure out what to do.
"I'm sorry," he murmurs into my hair. "I'm so sorry. This is my fault."
"It's not your fault."
"It's my family. My mess. And now it's touching you." He holds me tighter. "I should have—I don't know. Done something. Stopped them somehow."
"You couldn't have known they'd do this."
"I should have. This is how they operate. When they can't control someone, they destroy them." He pulls back to look at me. "I'm going to fix this. I'll call my agent, get a lawyer involved, issue a statement—"
"And say what? That your family is lying? That I'm not a gold digger?" I shake my head. "People believe what they want to believe. A statement isn't going to change that."
"Then what do we do?"
"I don't know." I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. "I don't know what to do. I've never dealt with anything like this before."
We sit in silence for a moment. The morning light is soft through the windows, and from outside I can hear birds singing, oblivious to the fact that my life just imploded.
"What did the articles say exactly?" Travis asks. "I skimmed but I want to know what we're dealing with."
"That I'm controlling. That I've isolated you from your family. That I quit my job right before we got together, which makes it look like I planned this." I laugh, but there's no humor in it. "The irony is I didn't even know who you were. I thought you were a handyman."
"I know."
"But no one else knows that. To them, I'm just some woman who moved to Virginia and somehow landed a professional athlete. It looks bad, Travis. It looks exactly like what they're saying."
"Because that's how they spun it. They took the facts and twisted them into a story that makes you the villain.
" He runs a hand through his hair. "This is what they do.
This is what the media always does. They take a few pieces of information and build a narrative, and it doesn't matter if it's true. It only matters if it sells."
"Have you dealt with this before? Stories about your personal life?"
"A few times. Nothing this bad." He pauses. "There was a girl, a few years ago. We dated for six months. When we broke up, some outlet ran a story about how I was difficult, emotionally unavailable. Her friends were the 'sources.' It was humiliating."
"What happened?"
"It blew over. Eventually. But for a few weeks, everyone had an opinion about my relationship, about who I was as a partner.
People I'd never met, making judgments about my character.
" He looks at me. "It's one of the reasons I stopped dating.
It wasn't worth the risk of having my private life turned into content. "
"But you risked it with me."
"You were worth the risk." He says it simply, like it's obvious. "You still are."
I want to believe him. I want to believe that what we have is stronger than whatever his family can throw at us.
But I keep thinking about those articles.
About my mother, who I still haven't called.
About my old coworkers, who are probably passing the links around right now, laughing about how quiet Kelly from marketing snagged a hockey player.
"I could walk away," I say quietly.
Travis goes still. "What?"
"From you. From us." The words hurt to say, but I make myself say them. "If I'm not in the picture, the story dies. Your family gets what they want, and I go back to being nobody. Maybe that's the easiest solution."
"Is that what you want?"
I look at him—this man who showed up at my grandmother's house with a secret and stayed because he couldn't make himself leave. This man who fixed my sink and helped with my book and kissed me at midnight on Valentine's Day. This man who chose me over his family, over his career, over everything.
"No," I say. "That's not what I want."
"Good. Because I'm not letting you go." He takes my hands in his. "Kelly, I know this is hard. I know it's unfair. But we're not going to let them win. We're not going to let a bunch of tabloid lies tear us apart."
"Easy for you to say. Your name isn't in the headline."
"My name's been in plenty of headlines. I know how much it sucks. But you survive it. You keep living your life, and eventually people move on to the next story."
“I hope you’re right.”
“That's how this works."
I want to believe him. I want to believe we can weather this, that the story will die down, that my name will eventually fade from the search results and I can go back to being anonymous. But right now, in this moment, it feels impossible.
"I need to call my mom," I say. "Before she sees it herself."
"Okay. Do you want me to stay while you do it?"
"No, I—" I take a breath. "I should do this alone. But can you come back later? I don't want to be by myself tonight."
"I'll come back whenever you want me. Just say the word."
He kisses me—soft, gentle, a promise more than a kiss—and then he's gone, the door closing quietly behind him.
I sit on the couch for a long time, staring at my phone. My mother's name is right there in my contacts. One tap and I'll be explaining to her why strangers on the internet are calling her daughter a gold digger.
This is not how I imagined my life going. When I quit my job and moved to Longshore, I thought I was choosing peace. Simplicity. A chance to write a book and figure out who I wanted to be.
Instead I got Travis. And with Travis came his family, his scandal, his complicated past. All the things that are now exploding across the internet with my name attached.
But I also got him. The quiet mornings. The easy conversations. The way he looks at me like I'm the only thing in the room that matters.
Is it worth it? All this pain, all this exposure, all this chaos—is it worth it for him?
I think about walking away. Really think about it. Going back to New York, getting a job, pretending the past few months never happened. It would be easy. Safe. No one would blame me for choosing self-preservation over a relationship that's barely two months old.
But I'd know. I'd know I ran when things got hard. I'd know I let his family win.
And I'd lose him. The best thing that's happened to me in years.
I pick up my phone and call my mother.
"Hey, Mom. I need to tell you something before you hear it somewhere else."
The conversation is long and painful and ends with my mother crying, which makes me cry, which accomplishes nothing but at least we're crying together. When I hang up, I feel wrung out, exhausted in a way that goes deeper than sleep can fix.
But I also feel something else. Something harder, fiercer.
I'm not running. I'm not giving up. I'm not letting his family define who I am or destroy what we're building.
They want a fight? Fine.
Let's fight.