Page 28 of Gossip Game

Bridgett rubbed her hands together. “I’ve got eight minutes. Spill.”

Charlotte wasn’t spilling anything. “Yeah, but you might want to get yourself ready. You know how catty those carpool moms can be if you’re not looking your best.”

She was being ridiculous. Bridgett was just as beautiful in sweatpants as she was in a power suit. And this morning she boasted the added rosy glow of a woman well-loved the night before.

Damn her.

She also wasn’t falling for Charlotte’s ploy. “There’s more to this story, Charlie. If you don’t want to talk about it with your family, that’s fine. Just say so. Don’t play us for fools.”

It was no wonder Bridgett was a winning trial attorney. She played dirty.

“That’s not what I’m trying to do,” Charlotte told her. “Really, I’m simply helping him divert the negative press. He doesn’t deserve it.”

“Well, it’s working. No one would dare say a disparaging thing about him now. Your Trulies would cancel them in a hot second.” Bridgett leaned forward. “But the question is, why did you feel the need to jump in and lead the charge to avenge Noah? There’s an entire department in the Blaze front office dedicated to handling that type of thing. Not to mention Noah’s agent and his team.”

As if they were all doing a bang-up job.

She couldn’t very well tell her sister-in-law it was her fault Noah was being besieged by Bucky Kincaid and his band of muckrakers. That would require an explanation she didn’t want to divulge. Mostly because her feelings for Noah were complicated.

And unrequited.

Charlotte was saved from the continued interrogation by Grayson’s shriek.

“Momm-eee! I can’t find my other shoe!”

Bridgett snapped her eyes shut. She looked like she was counting to ten.

“I’ll let you go so you can deal with your domestic crisis.” Charlotte reached for her mouse to end the call. “Don’t forget to send me those resumés. I’ll look over them tomorrow.”

“This discussion isn’t ov?—”

She suppressed the twinge of guilt at cutting her sister-in-law off like that. What was over was this thing with Noah. There was no point in dissecting it. Not without alcohol involved, anyway.

Charlotte glided the cursor over to her email box, already dreading the urgent messages she knew had piled up during her thirty-minute phone call. Of course, there were twelve new ones. Her attention was drawn to one containing a Google alert about Noah. The fires would still be burning in the few minutes it took her to read whatever new article had been written about the Blaze quarterback. She clicked the link, smiling at the photo of him passing for a touchdown in Sunday’s game.

The revelation he’d shared about his sister explained a lot about his personality. His stoic demeanor and soft-spoken character made a lot more sense knowing what she now did. Her heart ached for the little boy he’d been. He hadn’t been the sick one, but he’d lost five years of a happy, normal life, nonetheless. Yet she was proud of the man he’d become. A man who didn’t hesitate to rescue a stranger, asking nothing in return for his good deed.

The article was about the Blaze’s upcoming game. It would be played in Pittsburgh, against their division rivals. Baltimore was predicted to win. The pundits were basing their analysis on Noah’s much improved ability to read the playing field. Charlotte snorted.

“He could read the field last season,” she said to her empty office. “It was the rest of the team that let him down.”

Not anymore, though.

“Noah will be player of the week again this week and the Blaze will be two and O.”

With that happy thought, she tackled the rest of her emails.

“Does that blowhard ever shut up?” Blaze tight end, Brody Janik, murmured to no one in particular. “I can’t believe that asshole Kincaid has the balls to spew the lie that our loss was on you.”

Sitting beside him at the bar in Devlin’s, Noah assumed his teammate’s question was rhetorical and didn’t bother answering. As if Devlin’s cantankerous opinions weren’t enough, Brody, the senior member of the team’s receiving corps had crashed tonight’s dinner. Noah wasn’t sure if the tight end’s presence added anything to the painful postmortem of Sunday’s game. Still, he appreciated the support.

It had been four days since they’d lost to their division rivals, thanks to multiple dropped passes and the three interceptions Noah had thrown. It was as if he was living last season’s nightmare all over again. Except this year, there was a horde of young girls and women wearing his jersey and screaming his name. Even though it was an away game.

Of course, the Pittsburgh players and fans didn’t appreciate that fact one bit. And they’d let him know with their taunts and boos. The entire game had been a shitshow.

“None of those picks were his fault,” Brody yelled at the television mounted above the bar. “I would have had one of those balls had I not been mauled by the cornerback. But did the zebras call it? Hell, no!”

Devlin slid a bowl of pretzels to the tight end. “Here, eat these. Your erratic blood sugar is making you cranky.”

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