I didn’t realize I’d been backing away from him until he cocked his brow at me. I was not going to be intimidated by someone like Shepherd. I was not going to let him think he could fire off some random threats and I’d lose all manner of composure and decorum.
“The wires in your head? Uncross them. Or exorcise the demon you’ve been possessed by. Or have your meds adjusted. And don’t talk to me again unless it’s about something work related.” I didn’t blink as I spoke, moving closer with every word and making sure he saw the seriousness on my face. I turned to leave once that slapping urge took me over again.
“Has he told you about the little boy yet?” Shepherd’s voice carried after me. “The one Incentive Girl Number One got knocked up with his first season?”
My feet froze in the middle of my next step. My heart froze with it.
AFTER THE BALL, I went home and got drunk like I’d never gotten drunk before. I shut off my phone, turned off the lights, and drank my way through the neck and shoulders of a nice bottle of bourbon.
It seemed like a good idea at the time. The next morning made me question if it wasn’t the worst idea instead.
My phone I kept off, knowing what would happen when I powered it back on and found all of his missed calls and texts. I’d call him back. I’d let him explain what Shepherd had said. I’d let his explanation cloud my reason. I’d let myself become the very person I was afraid of becoming again—the girl who exchanged what she wanted to be true for the actual truth.
The team was scheduled to fly out later that afternoon, and I was dreading the flight. Not just because I’d have to see Archer, but I’d have to face Shepherd again too. Have to face the whole team. How many of them thought the same thing Shepherd did—that I was just number eleven’s new fuck girl?
After downing a few aspirins and a few liters of water to rehydrate myself, I slid in front of my laptop and got to work. My apartment got good light early in the day, but I had to close the blinds to keep my head from splitting open. Plus, the dark fit my mood, given the content of my research.
Type Luke Archer’s name into a search engine and thousands of pages of baseball related pictures and stats would pop up. That wasn’t what I was searching for. Type “Luke Archer’s love interests” into the same search engine, and the whole tone of the pictures and articles changed.
From high school dance photos to candid snapshots taken at college parties with some girl he was caught talking with, the photos made him seem like some playboy who had had a different girl for every night of his existence since puberty. The propaganda wasn’t what I was interested in either though.
Adjusting my search, I found what I was looking for—the guest reporter who’d followed the Shock three seasons ago. Her name was Callie Monahan, and at the time, she’d been a reporter for a big national station. She was about my age, had gone to a good school, and had seemed to be rising in her career, but for the past few years, there wasn’t much of anything about her. She didn’t work for the same national station—or any station for that matter.
I couldn’t find any direct links between her and Luke—at least, not at first. It wasn’t until I was scrolling through some of the images of Callie that I found one that made my body go numb. It was a photo some fan had taken at a team dinner. Everyone from Coach to the players to the support staff to the guest reporter was in it.
Luke and Callie weren’t sitting by each other. They weren’t even sitting on the same side of the table. It wasn’t their proximity to one another that told me what I needed to know—it was how clearly aware they both were of where the other one was. While everyone else was looking at the camera, Luke and Callie were looking at each other. It had probably only been a fraction of a moment, but it had been frozen in time and made public for anyone to see.
The wheels of my computer chair rolled closer as I leaned in to study the photo. My ears were ringing like I’d just been knocked over the head with a brick. It wasn’t just that the two of them were looking at each other; it was the way he was looking at her. It was familiar. Achingly familiar. The set of his brow, the tip of his smile, the intensity in his eyes—it was the way Luke looked at me.
It was the same way he’d looked at her.
Jealousy was taking root, but I didn’t let it grow. Luke had a right to a past. He had a right to look at some other woman with care and concern. He had history with this woman, but that wasn’t why I was taped to my laptop when I could have used the extra hour of sleep. The women in his past weren’t what concerned me—it was how they’d become a part of his life.
I needed to see if Shepherd’s story had any credibility, because if it did, what did that say about why I’d been hired, why Luke had come into my life, and what the future of my career looked like?