Still, she was a fox. I grinned at her figure on the screen.
After my shower, I toweled off and slipped into my white shorts and red jersey. I felt almost as good as new. The lovely Kate had disappeared from the TV now, and I switched it over to the local news before rolling my eyes. There I was, or at least, there was my drunken doppelganger in a photo, his arms around a cheap blonde at a pub.
Frowning, I turned up the volume. “Jay Walsh, perennial playboy and star of Manchester United is up to his old tricks again,” said a wily female voice. “According to gossip blogger Hannah Joyce, he was seen with not one but two women late last night. We’ve brought Hannah on site today for an interview. Nice to see you, Hannah!”
My stomach churned as I watched the lithe figure of my ex-girlfriend parade across the screen. She was a petite platinum blonde, dressed to kill in a white slip dress and heels that were much too high for morning telly.
“Hi there,” Hannah said, fluttering her heavy black false eyelashes. She settled down in a chair and crossed her legs at the ankle. “So, are we here to dish about Jay?”
She turned to the camera and winked, and a laugh-track played. I knew that I should turn the TV off and leave, but there was something hypnotic about watching others discuss you onscreen, like you were right there in the room.
“So, Hannah,” the voiceover continued. “Is it true? You really saw Jay with two women last night?”
Hannah let out a studied giggle. Then she winked at the camera again, and I felt faintly nauseated. “Well, actually, it was more like three women,” she said. She pouted and the announcer cooed sympathetically. “Can you believe I used to date that playboy?”
“He certainly keeps busy,” the announcer commented. “You think he was celebrating, or this is just typical behavior from Jay?”
“Just another Monday night, really,” Hannah replied breezily.
I felt anger rise in my throat, and I finally clicked the TV off. I didn’t want to hear anything else she had to say. Even though we’d been broken up for almost a year, she still went out of her way to make my life miserable. I’d dated her when I first moved to Manchester from Belfast, and at first, it had been great. But then she started getting jealous and possessive, and we started fighting all the time. She couldn’t handle me going out with my mates. Ever. It was like she thought I’d take the first possible chance to cheat on her, even though I wasn’t that kind of guy. Sure, whenever I was single, I was a total player, but if I was in a relationship, I deeply respected the need for commitment.
I didn’t cheat at my sport, and I definitely didn’t cheat on girlfriends.
The jealousy had been bad enough, but the lying was even worse. Hannah had started using any excuse possible to make up shit about me to my mates and my family, trying to claim that I was a verbally abusive, cheating asshole. For a while, even my best friend Connor hadn’t talked to me. When I realized what she was doing, we broke up, but she’d obviously refused to accept the end of the relationship.
Nowadays, she worked as a sports reporter, but I most often saw her on gossip shows. She had no shame in stalking me professionally, and I knew she was waiting for the right moment to pounce and try to ruin my career for good out of revenge for me dumping her and moving on.
All I could say to that was ‘good luck’. I hadn’t worked my ass off to get where I was only to be taken down by a nutty ex.
After heading downstairs, I checked out of the hotel, and thankfully, the valet didn’t recognize me when I handed over my ticket. By the time I was in my car and cruising to the stadium, Hannah’s pernicious lies were starting to fade from my head. Now that I was famous, I couldn’t believe the amount of attention celebrities received. While I loved meeting girls who knew my name, it often felt like a double-edged sword, and I cursed myself for getting involved with someone like Hannah and falling for her lies for so long.
My mobile phone buzzed, and I picked it up and held it to my ear. “Hey, mate,” I said. I knew it was Connor without even checking the caller ID; he often called right before a big match to wish me luck.
“Hey,” Connor replied. I frowned; he sounded more distant than usual.
“Hey, how’s things? New job any good?” I asked.
He’d just started a new job with a new construction firm after being unemployed for a while, and I was glad he’d managed to find something. We’d been best mates for years, and I hated seeing him struggle to survive, but he was too proud to take handouts, so I could never convince him to take anything from me.
We’d grown up together in the worst part of Belfast, rife with IRA violence and bombings, and despite the odds, we’d stayed mates. Connor had always supported me. He was a great friend, and I missed having him around all the time.