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Googling the Whitewood brothers had been only partially productive, and I spent over an hour on the phone with Lynn, crawling through our findings.
Cormac Whitewood was basically a unicorn. The guy had no digital footprint at all—no humiliating Facebook or Insta selfies, no Twitter rants I could find, and nothing written about him publicly besides a very nice piece in the local paper about the accounting firm he opened with a local he'd gone to college with, and a very sad short piece about the death of his wife. Nothing I could really use, though I did write down the address of the firm's main office and its phone number.
Callan Whitewood, on the other hand—not a unicorn. Not even a donkey painted white with a toilet paper roll taped to his head. The guy was an open book—a very famous, very social, painfully handsome—open book.
His face was everywhere. He'd done sponsorships for water, beer, underwear, some kind of Japanese foot powder, and shower gel, his smoldering gaze (and his almost impossibly toned abs) staring out from photo after photo of him holding (or wearing) the products.
There were action shots of him playing for the South Bay Sharks, his shorts stretching to contain the powerful muscles of his thighs as he ran, kicked, and celebrated in the game shots. There were other photos too, along with tabloid stories about women and illegitimate children, marriage rumors and celebrity hookups. I knew most of that stuff probably wasn't true, and while it was interesting to see him on a red carpet in a tux (oh Lordie, he looked good in a tux), the photos I kept coming back to were the shots of Callan Whitewood in action, because in the soccer shots he was actually smiling. Not a sexy little smirk designed to make girls like me clench my thighs together, and not a cultivated lift of one side of his mouth meant to show off his dimple as he stood next to Katy Perry at some event. The soccer shots caught him full-on grinning with glee like a ten year old getting to do his favorite thing in the world. And while Callan Whitewood wearing a practiced smirk was sexy, Callan Whitewood actually smiling lit up parts of me I didn't think could be activated by a photo alone. The guy was gorgeous.
Ogling a sports star was not my usual MO, but I told myself this particular brand of online stalking served a specific purpose—saving my own ass. I needed to get this guy on my side, even if my side was the somewhat unfamiliar side where all things Christmasy grew and bloomed in glittery red-and-white striped craziness. So when I came across more than one photo with the same woman, a tall blonde I didn't think fell into the category of model or movie star, I stared a little longer. And when I found stories about Callan Whitewood's ongoing relationship with a San Diego nurse, I read every line. The relationship was real, it seemed, and had lasted for several years. I wondered what had happened to the nurse, or if maybe she was still in the picture, so to speak. She wasn't in any of the photos I had found of Callan since his injury, however. And those were hard to look at.
Callan had broken all three bones in his ankle when another player had crashed into him, sending them both tumbling in a championship game. The other guy had gotten up, but Callan had stayed down, and his career had ended there on the pitch that day. The description of the injury turned my stomach, and the few photos I found of Callan afterwards showed none of the joy I’d seen on his face in the game shots. His eyes were hooded and his jaw was tight in all of them, a look of intense hostility and pain replacing the open grin that had drawn me in.
"Gah, poor guy," I said, shutting the laptop and turning my attention to the phone I’d been holding to my ear as I surfed for something I could use.
"Did you read the article about the breakup inPeople?" Lynn was an excellent partner when there was online stalking to be done.
"I saw it, but I'm starting to feel like I'm invading the guy's privacy," I said, standing to walk to the window in my suite. I had a view of the open square where the huge tree now stood decorated but unlit. The tree-lighting ceremony was scheduled for sometime at the end of the week, according to the flyer that had been placed under my door that morning, which I had immediately scrunched up and thrown away. "I feel a little bit bad for him."
"Well, he's feeling bad while rolling around on a bed made of money. The guy did well, Apes. But this girlfriend sounds like a B."
"Money isn't everything," I said, though I wouldn't really know. I’d never had enough of it to feel secure, and even offering standard platitudes about it made me feel like a phony. "He doesn't seem happy, you know?"
Lynn sighed. "Most people aren't happy. Speaking of which, how are you holding up in Sparkle Tree?"
"You know that's not the name of the town."
"It will be when you're done with it."
"I don't know. Uncle Rob is putting on the pressure, and the grumpy soccer star is making my life harder than it needs to be. It's a flipping decorating show, for crap's sake. It shouldn't be this hard."
"You've seen my apartment. Decorating is no small task." Lynn had moved into her apartment at least three years earlier, and still hadn't managed to decide where to hang any of her framed pictures, which all leaned against the wall in the bedroom gathering dust.
"This is true," I said.
"Well, what's your plan? How will you get the grump on your side?"
"Not sure. I mean, the guy signed a contract," I said. "But given that he has more money than most small countries, I think he's probably got a team of hot shot lawyers who can get him out of that, or at least tie it up long enough that I'll miss my deadline and lose my job."
"You'll have to win him with charm."
I blew out a harsh breath and slid onto the small couch, remembering too late that I’d ended up covered with glitter the last time I sat on it. And I was wearing black pants. I stood back up, moving to the mirror over the table to get a look at my backside, which was now subtly sparkly. "Perfect," I sighed. "Yeah, charm is not my strong suit these days. The closer we get to Christmas, the less charming I feel. And it's officially December tomorrow."
"So…?"
"I'm going to go talk to his brother tomorrow morning. He's an accountant. Contracts must mean something to him."
"Sure, because…are you getting accountants confused with lawyers?"
"Grasping at straws either way."
"Okay then. Good luck!"
"Thanks. Talk to you later."
When I’d ended the call, I punched the address of Cormac Whitewood's firm into my phone. It was across the square, down a little side street. I could walk.
* * *
