Page 24 of Spite Crush

“Okay,” he said through a yawn.

His phone went off again and a moment later mine began ringing as well, followed by someone pounding on the door.

“Just a minute!” Kellen yelled, silencing his phone as we both jumped out of bed and scrambled to get dressed. “Bathroom,” he whispered, pointing toward it.

I grabbed my phone and my clothes and ran into the bathroom, shutting the door gently behind myself as I answered my phone.

“What?” I said softly.

“Coach is looking for you,” Josh said. “Did you go home with Kellen Fox last night?”

My stomach dropped and suddenly I couldn’t speak anymore, my breath coming in short, quick bursts.

“Fuck, calm down,” Josh snapped. “I can almost feel you panicking. No one else knows. Butthere are pictures of the two of you together at the bar last night all over the internet. We think one of the bunnies posted them.” He paused then added, “It wasn’t Naomi.”

I could hear raised voices on the other side of the door, but they were too muffled for me to understand what they were saying. Though, from the timing of his guest’s arrival, I could make a pretty good guess what they were arguing about.

“I wouldn’t have thought it was,” I told him, exhaling slowly. “What are people saying?”

“Just that it looks like you’re actually friends,” he said. “No one is even hinting at anything else. But coach went looking for you this morning and couldn’t find you bunking with any of the guys, so I just assumed you’d made your own sleeping arrangements.”

The volume of the argument outside was growing and I wondered how long I was going to be stuck in the bathroom. I honestly wasn’t sure if Kellen had suggested I hide to protect myself or because he didn’t want anyone to know what hadhappened either, so I wasn’t going to leave until he told me to.

“I’ll find Sutherland,” I assured Josh. “Thanks for the heads up.”

The minute I disconnected my phone rang again and the voices outside stopped.

Shit.

“Dempsey,” I answered quietly.

“Where the fuck are you?” Sutherland barked in my ear.

“I’m headed back to the hotel,” I lied. There was a loud slam followed by a soft knock on the bathroom door.I opened it to find Kellen standing there with a grim look on his face. “I’ll meet you in my room in twenty minutes.”

“Bullshit. I know where you are. Meet me in the bar in ten.” And then he hung up on me.

“So, how’s your morning?” Kellen asked.

I barked out a laugh as I followed him out of the bathroom. “It started out really great, actually.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” I reached out and grabbed his hips, pulling him into me before kissing him softly. “Unfortunately I have to go meet my coach.”

“I know,” Kellen said. “I’ve been invited to join you both along with my manager.”

The way he said invited led me to believe that he’d also been dictated to.

“Do they know?” I hated how pathetic my voice sounded.

“Not exactly,” he answered hesitantly. “But your phone ringing inthe bathroom kind of confirmed what I’d refused to. I guess someone at the bar last night posted a picture of us talking, and now the world thinks we were pretending to fight for publicity. But it sounds like everyone just assumes we’re friends. So hopefully it won’t affect you too badly.”

“I can take care of myself,” I told him, my tone more clipped than I’d intended. “I’m sorry. This isn’t your fault.”

“It’s no one’s fault,” he insisted. “And I’ll follow your lead. Howeveryou want to do damage control is fine with me.”

What I wanted was for him to not refer to our situation as damage. I wanted to have time to go back to my room and change so I didn’t show up to this meeting in the same clothes I’d worn the night before. I wanted the fact that I’d spent the night with Kellen Fox to be a secret. And I wanted to do it again.

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