“You know,” he said, looking at me from the bed the next morning, sheets gathered around his waist, hands behind his head. “I always thought the girls-in-a-jersey thing was kind of a cheesy move. But I gotta say, seeing you in my number is the hottest fucking thing ever.”

I had gotten out of bed, pulled on his jersey and my black lace panties and nothing more. And it was that sight that had woken Nathan from a sleep deeper than the dead real quick.

“Oh really?” I blushed, but tried to play it cool. “Why’d you send it if you thought it was so cheesy?”

Nathan reached out, but I dodged his hand.

“Chris suggested it. And I think I’m going to have to send him a fruit basket or something because damn.”

“You’re incorrigible,” I told him, pulling my hair into a messy bun, knowing that the gesture would pull the jersey up, revealing the lace panties Nathan had barely had a chance to see last night before they were pulled away with my jeans. He moaned.

“Come here,” he growled.

“You have to meet your family,” I reminded him, but came over to the side of the bed anyways. I was tempting fate but I didn’t much care at that moment.

“They’ll understand if I’m late,” he said, stretching his hand towards me, but I was just a little too far for him to reach.

“I don’t want them to think I’m a bad influence on you,” I teased, shrieking as he leapt up and grabbed me around the waist, pulling back into bed. He rolled us across the sheets until he was on top, his magnificent body pressing down on mine.

“You are a bad influence,” he whispered, dropping kisses along my neck. I leaned my head back so he could have better access. “And I love it.”

I was reaching back to kiss him when my phone rang.

“I’m going to buy you a new phone,” he teased, handing it over, “that puts everyone on vibrate but me.”

I stuck my tongue out at him and answered without looking at the caller ID. Big mistake.

“Where the fuck are you?” Tim thundered on the other line.

Shit. I scrambled out of Nathan’s arms and grabbed for my jeans.

“Uh—”

“I’ve been banging on your door for, like, an hour,” he whined. “You on the can or something?”

“I, uh.” How was I going to explain this one?

“Just get downstairs, OK?” Tim said and then hung up. A multitude of expletives paraded through my head. The last thing I needed was for Tim to find out that Nathan and I had spent the night together. He was desperate enough for a story, and he would be more than happy to throw me under the bus in the process. In fact, getting the dirt on Nathan and getting me fired at the same time would pretty much be Tim’s perfect afternoon.

“Who was that?” Nathan asked, looking entirely too cute and entirely too naked. Too distracting. I shoved my jeans on, knowing that I had to get to the lobby as soon as possible to see what Tim wanted.

“Tim,” I told him, wishing that it had been anyone else but him.

A frown crossed Nathan’s face. “What did he want?”

“I don’t know,” I grabbed my bra from the floor. “But he was knocking on my door downstairs. I need to get to the lobby.” I leaned over the bed to give Nathan a kiss. But the frown didn’t go away. My stomach did an unpleasant drop. “You’re late to meet your family anyways,” I pointed out.

He looked over at the clock and swore. “Shit, you’re right.” We both yanked on the remainder of our clothes, looking exactly like two people who had spent the night and then the morning together. Unless I could go to my room and change quickly, I wasn’t going to be fooling anyone.

“I have to go,” I told him, wanting nothing more than to stay in this suite with him for as long as either of us could stand it. Forever, maybe. The realization that I meant it, that I was already thinking about forever with a guy I had literally just met, scared the shit out of me. It also made my heart sing.

“I know,” he said, the frown on his face now gone completely. It had been replaced by the tender smile I was growing very used to. “Come here.” He held open his arms and I stepped eagerly into them. We were in this together, weren’t we? Last night had been special. It had meant something. He kissed me on the forehead. “I’ll call you later, OK?”

“OK,” I said, reluctantly pulling away from his embrace and moving towards the door. But before I could slip into the hallway, he called out.

“Hey.” He had a big smile on his face. “Last night was amazing.”

I smiled back, feeling like I was glowing. “It was.”

He winked at me. “Then let’s plan on making tonight more of the same.”

* * *

I practically floated down the stairs to my room. Even though I knew that Tim was waiting for me, I took the time to wash my face and change my clothes. When I brushed my hair, I could smell Nathan, that faint scent of grass tickling at my senses with each swipe of the brush. I never wanted that smell to go away.

When I reached the lobby, however, all the good feelings I had brought with me disappeared the moment I saw that Tim was seated in the corner with a guest. A guest that looked like a younger, but equally bitter and vindictive Tim. Neither of them bothered to get up when I approached.

“Finally!” Tim’s exasperation was obvious as he waved me towards one of the seats. He then stared at my empty hands with confusion. “Where’s your notepad?” he asked.

“My notepad?”

“To take notes,” he said slowly, like I was an idiot.

I pulled my phone out of my purse and set up the recording app. How did Tim function as a journalist these days if he had been waiting for me to take notes? I had a feeling he was being especially stupid on this trip because he expected me to cover for him. I fought the urge to roll my eyes in front of our guest.

Though I shouldn’t have bothered. Tim pointed his thumb at me and sighed.

“Women,” he said, as if that was some sort of explanation for our exchange. If only I had turned on the recording app to catch that. HR could look the other way if they didn’t have any proof of Tim’s shitty, sexist behavior. They’d have a lot harder time doing it if I caught and recorded it. And to my annoyance, the stranger just nodded as if he completely understood Tim’s frustration.

But I wasn’t going to let either of them overrule my own professionalism. I leaned over the table, reaching out my hand.

“Sophie Hall,” I introduced myself.

But Tim’s new friend just stared at my hand as if I had offered him a live snake. He looked like someone who had not had a lot of experience with women. Pale and slightly oily, he gave the impression that he hadn’t eaten a meal with all four food groups in a very long time. There was a definite gut visible beneath his dirty black T-shirt and his fedora looked as though it had been left in a puddle of grease recently. Everything about this guy set my warning flags off. But it was clear that Tim thought he was fantastic from the excited way he was leaning towards him, obviously eager to get the story started.

I withdrew my un-shaken hand and pressed start on the recording app.

“So, Rob,” Tim began eagerly. “You went to high school with Nathan Ryder, is that correct?”

My stomach clenched. Fuck. Did this guy have some dirt on Nathan?

“That is correct, Tim,” Rob said in a voice that was affected and vaguely robotic. No matter what it was definitely creepy. “I was a year behind Nathan Ryder, the baseball player.”

“You don’t need to say his full name each time,” Tim said. “Just tell me the story like you told it over the phone.”

There came that uneasy feeling again. So Tim already knew the information that Rob claimed to have and wanted to get it on the record with me as a witness. Obviously he thought it was good. I clenched my fingers into a fist and prayed that I was wrong.

Rob cleared his throat and began again. “Nathan Ryder—I’m sorry, Nathan, was the boyfriend of a girl named Becca.” A look of reverence came over Rob’s eyes. Clearly he had been in love with this girl. “She was the most beautiful girl at our school. What she ever saw in Nathan, I’ll never know.”

This guy was clearly a moron that much I could tell. Anyone who looked at Nathan and wondered what women saw in him obviously had no idea what women wanted. But I had a feeling that was exactly Rob’s problem.

“Becca was the kind of girl who was nice to everyone, which is probably why she ended up dating Nathan. She had trouble saying no to people.” Once again I tried not to roll my eyes. “We were lab partners. We spent time together after school.” Rob smiled. It was creepy. So very creepy. “I could tell she liked me. She told me she was thinking of breaking up with him.”

Liar, I thought. You are a filthy, stinking liar. And my gut backed me up.

“I’m a really nice guy, you know.” Rob paused and when I looked up, I realized he had directed that creepy smile at me. “Not like those jerk jocks that just use girls and throw them away. Like Nathan did to Becca.”

“Tell us what happened after prom,” Tim urged, and I clenched my fists tighter, feeling my nails cutting into my skin.

“Well, Becca went with him, of course, because she was too nice to say no. Even though she told me that they were going to break up afterwards.” Rob’s eyes got squinty and intense. Instinctively, I leaned back in my chair, wanting to put as much distance as I could between us. This guy gave me the major creeps.

“So they went to prom,” Tim prompted.

“Yeah. They went to the prom and of course, Nathan was drinking. He’s like, a huge alcoholic.”

I wanted to shake my head. Nothing about Nathan said that he had any problem drinking. In fact, all the times we had spent together around alcohol, he had been the more responsible one.

“So Nathan was drinking.” Tim leaned closer to my phone on the table. “Underage drinking,” he said in a loud voice.

“That’s right,” Rob said. “He was drinking and instead of taking Becca home at the end of the evening, he drove both of them into a tree. Becca lost her leg.”

My heart stopped.

No.

That was a lie. Everything this little slime bag had said was a lie. Nathan being a jerk—lie. Nathan being a drunk—lie. Nathan injuring his girlfriend in car accident after prom—lie. I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to ignore the fact that they were shaking.

Tim cast a sidelong look at me, an unpleasant smile appearing on his already unpleasant face. “And you said you have proof,” he said to Rob, who nodded.

I leaned further back in my chair, as if I could disappear into it. I didn’t want to look but when Rob pulled out a three-rim notebook from his backpack, I couldn’t help it. In it were laminated sheets of photo collages, mostly comprised of pictures of a pretty brunette in a cheerleading uniform. There were some that seemed to be cut out of yearbooks or newspapers but there were a few blurry shots that appeared to be taken at a distance.

“Were you stalking her?” I asked, taking a closer look.

But Rob pulled the notebook away from me, moving it towards Tim.

“That’s not the issue here,” he said. “The issue is that Nathan Ryder is responsible for his ex-girlfriend’s tragic accident. Because he was big dumb drunk jock. See?” He pointed to a page from his notebook towards the end, where it had the headline: Two injured in drunk driving accident.

I peered closer at the newsprint. Nowhere did it mention any of the victims by name, but there was a picture of a car smashed into a tree. I winced at the sight of it, all that metal and smoke.

“It doesn’t say anything about Nathan,” I pointed out.

“Well, yeah,” Rob sneered. “His family paid to have it covered up. Because he was underage, he did community service and the records were sealed. Neither Nathan nor Becca ever spoke about it. Becca didn’t even stay in town to recover. No one knows where she went,” he said ominously.

Having met the Ryders, I had a hard time imagining them bribing people to keep this hidden. Something about this didn’t seem right. How could Tim have talked to all those people from Nathan’s high school and have no one mention this? It wasn’t that long ago—how could no one know about it? Everything about this smelled off.

“Thank you so much for your time, Rob,” Tim said, standing.

Rob got to his feet, clutching the notebook. “And you’ll tell me if you find her, right?”

“Of course,” Tim answered with a disingenuous smile.

Satisfied with that response, Rob gathered his things, and without a second glance in my direction, scurried out of the lobby like the cockroach he was.

Tim spun back to me, his face bright. “Did you hear that?” he crowed. “That’s the kind of story I’ve been looking for. Star athlete’s dark past. How he ruined lives getting to where he is today.”

I felt sick. But I wasn’t going to let Tim act like this proved anything. As far as I was concerned, Rob was big fucking liar who had been obsessed with Becca and still harbored some weird feelings for her and a deep-seated hatred for Nathan.

“There’s no evidence,” I insisted. “The article doesn’t name Nathan, or Becca, and we just have this random guy’s word against Nathan’s.”

“Who cares?” Tim said, snatching his bag and heading across the lobby. I scrambled to catch up with him, grabbing my phone from the table. “Let Nathan go on the offense. We just need to plant the seed of doubt in the public’s eye. Get people to second-guess the latest golden boy of baseball. If we time it right, we could get the Majors to back off on drafting him.”

Tim truly was a disgusting excuse for a human being. I dashed in front of him, cutting him off before he could reach the elevators.

“You can’t do that,” I said. “It’s unethical. You don’t have any proof.”

“Look,” Tim stared down at me, his words full of venom. “I know you’ve got the hots for the guy and he knows it too. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s been trying to fuck you as a way to keep you distracted. So wake up, Saucy. He played you. He batted his eyes and now you’re ready to pass up your best chance at a nationwide story. For what? You think you have some future with this guy? Please. He’s a huge college athlete and you barely got past high school. He’s out of your league, babe, he fucked you over. Now transcribe that interview and have it to me in an hour.”

And with that, Tim turned and left me alone in the lobby.