Page 94 of Pucking Wild

“My phone?”

“In my pocket.”

She digs in the pocket of my discarded jeans and takes out her little prepaid cellphone. Glancing up at me, she puts a finger to her lips, her meaning obvious.

I’m not here.

She puts the phone to her ear. “Hey, Rach, what’s up?” she says, her tone falsely bright. “Kinda late for a phone call. I—” She goes still, her gaze shooting up to me as her eyes go wide.

I sit forward, immediately on alert. Something’s wrong. I watch as her blissed-out smile falls, replaced with confusion, then horror.

She scrambles naked to her feet. “Ohmygod,what?”

35

“It’s just so degrading and humiliating and so patently false,” I cry, marching down the sand in my bare feet.

“I know,” Rachel says at my side.

The team got back super late last night from their away game, and I showed up at the Price house bright and early with coffees, dragging Rachel out for our morning beach walk. The guys were already all out to the gym.

“How are you so calm about this?” I say, turning to face her. “Rach, they posted photos of me with Jake, and they’re saying he’s cheating on you!”

“Because it doesn’t matter when we all know it’s not true,” she replies with an indifferent shrug.

When she called me the other night, I could hardly believe it. Then she sent the links. The headlines were like something out of a bad teen drama. “Trouble in Paradise?” “The Price of Betrayal.” “The Price of a Lie.”

The pictures linked to all the stories are just as ridiculous. Apparently, paparazzi have been watching their house since the wedding. Someone actually managed to get pictures of my late-night arrival. They snapped photos of me on the porch in the rain. My back is turned, but Jake is standing there shirtless, letting me in so it looks like I’m his new sneaky link.

The articles also include a few shots snapped from the morning we all went for coffee and a walk on the beach. And byallof us, I mean me, Rachel, herguys, even the damn dog. But they only posted the photos of Jake and me together—walking, laughing, throwing a stick for Sy.

“They literally cropped you out,” I huff. “You were right behind us the whole time. I mean, where is the journalistic integrity?”

“I know,” she says again.

“And Jake and I were only waiting outside the café because of the dog. You were inside getting the coffees—”

“Tess, youhaveto let this go. This happens, okay? I’m fine. Jake is fine. We all know it’s bullshit. We all know it’s a pack of lies. But this is the life,” she adds. “This is what they do. Frankly, this is tame. Did I ever tell you about the time some paps took pictures of me in a hot yoga class, and they said I was in a Wiccan cult?”

I laugh. “No.”

“Yeah, it was like the Witch Trials all over again. Someone actually approached me in a Whole Foods and asked if I wanted to hire their services to exorcise my demons. Honestly, I almost said yes just so I could say I’ve been exorcised.”

I reluctantly laugh, which I know is what she’s going for. Then I sigh. “It’s just so embarrassing. I’m sorry. You know I would never hurt you like that, right? I would never touch any of your men inappropriately…except for maybe a pinch on the butt on St. Patty’s Day,”

“I know,” she says solemnly.

I see her smirk, though, and I breathe a sigh of relief. I would never do anything to jeopardize our friendship. At this point, she’s the only thing like family I have left.

She glances my way. “Our only worry in all this has been you. Tess, this is the absolute last thing you needed right now—”

“I’m fine,” I say quickly, not wanting to make this about me.

But she’s not buying it. “What are the chances he just doesn’t see it?”

“Zero,” I reply, watching as a pair of pelicans take flight out of the surf and cross our path.

It was inevitable that my location would leak back to Troy. I just didn’t expect it to leak on the front page ofThe Sun, implicating yet another Ray as my not-so-secret lover. If he was livid over pictures of me dancing with a Ray, what will he do with news articles that paint me as their new favorite booty call girl?

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