Page 70 of Look What You Made Me Do

“Couldn’t get hold of him. He hasn’t been in to work either.”

“At least we’ve got another two weeks before the game,” she murmured.

Last week the thought of waiting three weeks for the playoffs to start had been pure torture. Today Ella was prepared to get on her knees and praise the football gods.

Her life had officially gone to hell.

“What’s his problem, Pete?” she asked as she watched the team go about their drills. “Why’s he so damn media shy? His face was on practically every tabloid and magazine in the known universe during his career. He picked a really bad time to go all reclusive on me.”

Pete looked at her like she’d been dropped on her head. “You should ask Jake.”

“Yeah.” Ella nodded. “I will.”

But not before she’d google-fu’d the crap out of it first.

When Ella arrived home an hour later, her head and heart were heavy with the information she’d gleaned about Jake with just a few easy clicks. She was cranky that she hadn’t done even a cursory internet stalk of him before now. She might not be on any social media, but she knew how to fire up a search engine.

She understood why the furor surrounding his sacking from the Founders had escaped her notice. Apart from the fact that no one in their household followed football, it’d all happened around the same time Rachel had died and she’d gone to Trently to deal with all that. Which was obviously why he’d been there too, not anything to do with an old groin injury that he’d clearly recovered from just fine.

And then Cam had entered their lives and had consumed everyone’s time and attention.

Still, she should have been more curious a few months ago when they’d roped him in to coaching the team. Wasn’t that what everyone did these days with people coming into their lives?

But it wasn’t like he was new entity. And really, their reconnection had felt a little too woo woo to look at too closely. Like this unspoken… bond that had been forged in Trently had always been leading them to this point in time.

Him and her in Inverboro, saving her school.

Yeah, the less she thought about that and all its potential ramifications, the better.

She found the three Forsythe women sitting at the table on the back porch drinking. Daisy took one look at Ella’s face and poured a decent slug of bourbon from the half-empty bottle near the overflowing ashtray.

The sisters had stopped smoking in the house when Rosie and Ella had arrived and had never smoked in front of them but had resisted all attempts over the years to get them to quit.

“You look like you could do with this,” Daisy said, passing it over.

Ella gave a wobbly smile as she accepted the glass and had never been more grateful to be part of the Forsythe family. They may not be her blood but they’d opened their door and their hearts to her unconditionally, and Ella had felt loved and accepted from the second she and Rosie had walked through the front gate.

“Are you okay?” Rosie asked, her brow furrowed in concern.

God… where did she even start? “No.” Ella took her seat at the table and downed half the glass. “Jake’s quit and it’s all my fault.”

Daisy glanced at Iris then topped up everyone’s drinks as Rosie reached out and squeezed Ella’s hand. “Jake wasn’t impressed with the media coverage?”

Ella gave a half-laugh, half-snort. “That’s putting it mildly.” Rosie had spent the previous night at Simon’s and Ella hadn’t wanted to bother her bestie with the unfolding drama. “I couldn’t figure out why someone who’s had his picture out there more often than the Kardashians would be so rabidly media shy. Then I googled him.”

“Oh.” Rose grimaced. “Not good?”

Ella gave her friend a grim look. “There was this sexual assault scandal a couple of years back.”

Rosie gasped. “Jake raped someone?”

“No.” Ella shook her head quickly. “God, no!” She shuddered at the thought. “Apparently it was some guy called Tony Winchester?”

“Okay. So… who’s he?” Rosie asked.

“An ex-teammate of Jake’s. They did their rookie year here with the Sentries. A few years back, Tony was accused of rape. He protested his innocence and his club at the time backed him but then Jake made a statement in support of the woman claiming he knew Tony had almost raped someone else eighteen years prior when they were both playing for the Sentries.”

“Wow.” Rosie whistled. “Gutsy.”

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