water, and her phone, and everything else in life but the information those two assholes were leaking out to the world.
She leaned over, reaching for her phone, thinking of who she should call first, but the chest-beating teenage-boy antics on the radio gave her pause.
“Exclusive sources who were on the team with both Glenn and Noble his last year at Duke told me that they were smashing all through his last semester and then there was some bullshit about his dead sister and him leaving. Something real bad went down, and they hadn’t spoken until her first tryout.”
“Wow,” Bud said, sounding genuinely surprised. “That has to be why he was reported as not being too happy about her signing with the Steamers.”
“Gotta be it, but you know, Bud, I gotta say, this will definitely make the season more interesting, especially if the hot feminazi hooks up with Lennox Murry. Would be cool to see if Glenn and Murry go at it over the Steamers’ crazy bitch kicker.”
The laugh tracks went on, aided by whistles and snorts of noises that had Reese’s stomach turning. She killed her engine, making the cab silent as she sat there. Gia would know by now and all the bullshit Reese had fed her was about to surface. She’d lied to her general manager. Gia had asked Reese point blank after the argument at Decadence, after her meeting with Reese and Ryder and the kicker had stared at the woman, expression blank, sincere, and lied.
“Is there something going on with you and Glenn?”
“No,” Reese said, voice low, eyes steady.
“Well, has there ever been?” Gia seemed to hold her breath, worry pinching the corners of her eyes.
She was better than this. She had more integrity than to lie about something that could impact her placement on the team. But then, that was the issue. Her place on the team. The spot she’d spent half her life working toward. She’d come too far. She’d gambled too much, and Reese couldn’t let that go just because once she’d loved America’s favorite QB.
She kept that blank, faux sincerity on her face, fighting the small twitch that moved her left cheek. “No, Gia. Nothing happened.”
“Good,” the woman said, relaxing in her chair. “Because that would be a complication we damn well don’t need.”
Now she’d know. Everyone would. These jackasses had aired it all, let loose all they knew about the past.
“Ryder.”
Shit.
He had to know, too. Reese leaned back, hands over her face as the realization crashed on top of her. They’d mentioned Rhiannon. They’d been cruel about her death, and now Ryder would be put into the forefront of NFL gossip. The media would twist this. They’d make it seem like he’d had something to do with Reese getting a spot on his team.
Nepotism. That’s what they call this.
Thank God, no one had seen what happened in the elevator.
She sunk down deeper when a crowd of tourists moved by her car, and Reese reared back the seat, aggressively pushing the incline button near the door.
The elevator.
She’d spent that entire night replaying every expression on Ryder’s face. He’d been drunk, but passionate. He’d touched and kissed her like doing anything else was out of his control. He wanted her. She felt that, deep down. She’d seen it in his eyes, in the greedy, desperate way he went at her, wanting to claim and take and keep doing both until they were exhausted and spent and a puddle of sanctified goo on the elevator floor.
But unlike Lennox, who might be a bit of a ho, but still utterly free from commitment, Ryder Glenn had no business touching Reese the way he had. He wasn’t hers. He belonged to someone else.
She hadn’t spoken to him since that night. She got to her special-teams practices early. She avoided the locker room and the stadium gym, and when the pictures of her date leaked, she got a few raised eyes, some impressed grins from her teammates. Most had laughed it off. Some had been awe-struck that she had gotten Murry to be seen with her in public. He liked to be low-key with his dates and never allowed pictures of anyone with him but his crew. Her teammates nodded at her proudly, surprised by the pictures, but still impressed. Even Wilson and Pérez had complimented her, compared her leaked pictures to their professional calendar shots.
“Lennox looked good,” Wilson said. “So did you, that dress was banging, but I’m still way prettier.”