Once Upon A Half-Time 1(41)

Sebastian took two sips. “I have to go to the bathroom. Can I sleep with you tonight?”

I reminded myself how much I loved the kid.

Elle tucked her hair behind her ear, clearing her throat. “I should get going. My dress is probably dried now.”

“You don’t have to—”

“No, you should take care of your brother.”

Sebastian tugged on my arm. “Please, Lach?”

Not the warm body I expected to fight me for the covers all night. I sighed.

“Sure…” I pointed at him. “As long as you go to the bathroom before getting in the bed. Go. I’ll meet you there.”

He took off running down the hall. Elle split to find her dress in the laundry room.

A cold shower wasn’t going to do shit. I debated tossing an entire tray of ice cubes down my pants.

Elle returned to me, snug in her dress which seemed relatively spaghetti-free. She handed me the borrowed clothes. I let her keep the jersey.

“So…” She hid her smile. “I suppose you’ve earned that second date.”

“I knew you’d see it my way, Red.”

“But there’s no promises. You might have to work awfully hard to make me love you by the end of the third date.”

I tugged her close, leaving a soft, promising kiss on her parted lips.

“That’s my little secret, Elle,” I whispered. “You’ve already fallen for me.”





9





Elle





I needed to stop stealing things from Peter’s office.

I cursed the damned flash drive to copy the computer’s emails quicker. This was Trouble with a capital T. The same emphasis as Theft. And Terminated.

I checked my phone. Peter usually arrived at eight. I had about fifteen minutes before he’d poke his head in to the facility. But the laptop was stuck. It gave me an estimated one minute to copy the files over, but it had displayed the same message for the last three.

This was sick. All of it. The photos. The cheating. For two weeks, I’d laid awake in bed, bombarded by two realizations.

First, I was married.

Second, I was now accessory to a scandal that would destroy the careers and reputations of the men on the team. Players I liked. My friends. Some close enough to be my family.

And husbands, apparently.

Footsteps echoed in the hall. I panicked and minimized the file transfer, covering the screen with the team’s Instagram instead.

Mine was the only job that demanded I photographed ridiculously attractive men. And I loved it. Every second of it.

But it was crashing around me.

If anyone saw me stealing files from the computers, everything would end.

And if anyone outside the organization knew why I was trying to find evidence?

Anarchy.

The league would punish us with lost draft choices. Forfeited championships. Suspended players and coaches.

And men like Lachlan would never get the chance they deserved in the league.

It wasn’t just his family—Fiona and Sebastian—who benefited from his professional play. Leah’s PR firm represented half of the team. Piper’s two clients were Rivets. Scoring their contracts gave her enough respect to open her own agency if she wanted. Players, families, businesses—everyone had a stake in the Rivets’ success.

Including me.

The emails were copied. Step One: Completed. Now, if I had to go to the league or the media, I could search the correspondence and build a case so that the pictures wouldn’t my word against theirs.

I checked the time again. I still had about five minutes before I needed to clear out. I poked a little deeper into Peter’s files.

I found a password-protected drive. Good thing I knew the name of every cat Peter ever owned. Whiskers wasn’t exactly a secure password.

I opened the drive.

I wished I hadn’t. The images turned my stomach.

Every player had a folder—Bryon, Caleb, Orlando.

Pictures of parties. Women. Drugs. Public intoxication. Some images that were a little too dark and questionable for comfort.

My cursor hovered over Jack’s folder, and hated that I looked inside. I knew what I’d find—Jack’s first three seasons in the league rolled one scandal into another. The pictures were old, and Jack had been on his best behavior since marrying Leah, but the media would still publish the images as if they were taken last week. I couldn’t imagine Leah trying to spin her own husband’s past sexual encounters.

I scrolled through the folders. My heart lurched as I read my own name.

“What the hell…”

I shouldn’t have opened it.

I should have walked away.

I should have resigned right then and there.

Instead, I copied every last image onto my flash drive and prepared for war.

I had only three pictures, but they were enough. Someone on the team had managed to snap a picture of me in the locker room from two weeks ago—naked. A good photo. My face and body were completely exposed.