Page 48 of Rumor Has It

Wren sighed, everything in her hurting at the way Rebecca was clearly breaking in front of her. “I’m sorry, Rebecca. I shouldn’t have let this happen. I was supposed to come yell at you for how you played yesterday not…” Wren froze, clenching her jaw. “Not,” she sighed. Aggressively. “Not, do this.”

“Right,” Rebecca said, her voice sounding painfully small.

“Fuck,” Wren said, pulling her hair back into a ponytail. “I’m not trying to hurt your feelings, Rebecca. This was an awful idea, and we both know it. We signed legally binding contracts. And I’m about to go get on a plane with our National Team captain, and I’m going to have to sneak back into my hotel room like I didn’t spend all night with you.” Wren shook her head. “I can’t get kicked off the National Team. I won’t.”

Rebecca nodded, her movements shaky and unsure. “I understand.”

“Good. Then um, have a good week. I’ll see you in a few days.” Wren tugged open Rebecca’s bedroom door and hustled down the hall. She slowed down just to scoop up her shirt and kept walking. She was in the middle of pulling it on when another voice called out to her.

“Yo, Becky, what the hell happened to the hallway last night?”

Wren’s head finally made it through the collar. “Not Becky. Sorry,” she murmured as she stuffed her feet into her shoes and slipped out the front door.

Wren slid into the backseat of her Uber with hardly a greeting for the driver. She had trouble even confirming the address. She had selected the building next door to Riptide’s hotel. The last thing she needed was for one of her teammates to see her get back. She was lucky enough Riptide players rarely had to share rooms. It wasn’t something their coaches believed in for team bonding, and their whole organization was on the forefront of pushing for better accommodations and pay for women athletes. So, while sometimes they had to, those trips were few and far between.

That was where her luck ended though. How had she let this happen? No, not happen. She had caused it. How had she let herself do this? How could she have possibly let herself get so caught up in Rebecca-fucking-Rothschild that she had done something so foolish as to have sex with her. Again.

She was doing her best to not do something dramatic like curl up into the fetal position or cry. It wasn’t that she was sad—though Rebecca looking so small that morning wrapped up in her blankets had been absolutely tragic—she was anxious. Like her entire nervous system was hyperaware that she’d already been burned here before. Like Rebecca had been her first—and worst—heartbreak. And, more importantly, her career now literally hung on the line this time. Maybe she should put her head between her knees. In movies they always said that helped with nausea.

She didn’t want the Uber driver to think she was hungover though, so she did her best to pretend to just be tired and exhausted instead of freaking the hell out.

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

BECKY

“Fuck,” Becky all but screamed as she buried herself back under her covers. That was not at all how she wanted this morning to go. She didn’t get much time to wallow though because Wren had left her bedroom door open and she could hear very loud, thudding feet marching down the hall.

There was a surprisingly soft knock at her door.

“What?” Becky asked, not uncovering herself.

“Wanna tell me why Wren Eames just sprinted out of our apartment?” Katie’s voice was muffled through the layers of Becky’s duvet.

“No, thank you,” Becky said, knowing damn well that was not going to be the end of it. That was proven with the fact that no footsteps tromped away from her door.

There was a long pause, however. Becky knew Katie was trying to figure out the best course of action, but really, who knew what to do in a situation like this?

“I brought home ice cream last night,” Katie said. “You can have it for breakfast.”

Becky really carefully lowered her blankets. She didn’t want to flash her roommate, but she was admittedly overheating and desperately trying not to cry. “Really?”

Katie nodded. “Yeah, I might have called that out to you to let you know, but you might have been making too much noise in here to hear me. I think its safe to say you burned enough calories for it, though.” She shot Becky a teasing wink.

“Go away,” Becky said, covering herself back up with her covers. “I’ll just die in here, thanks.”

An easy laugh floated across Becky’s room. “I tell you what, I’ve already made coffee. So, I’ll just go fix you a cup while you put some clothes on. But then I’m getting the whole story, because, I for one, need to know how you go from slide-tackling Wren Eames—arguably from behind—to having sex with her in one night.” Katie paused. “Congrats on that? I think?”

Becky groaned. There was no way she was going to talk her way out of this. She might as well get up and face the music. There was a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that she’d made a massive mistake by sleeping with Wren last night, but she couldn’t really let herself believe it. It hadn’t felt wrong. Not for a single second. Well, not until Whirlwind Wren took over at the first chirp of her alarm.

Worse still, Becky even understood where Wren was coming from this morning. She couldn’t imagine how expensive Los Angeles was, but she did know how hard they had both worked to make it to where they had. Playing for your country was an honor, and it had taken them their whole lives to get there. It wasn’t that Becky wanted to throw it away for really great sex; it's just that Wren always had a way of feeling like more than just really great sex. It didn’t make reality change, though. They had still signed a contract, and they had still violated that. But none of that meant that Rebecca didn’t want to figure out some sort of loophole. How could she not? When Wren was just still, obnoxiously, everything that Becky had ever wanted.

Maybe coffee, Katie, and ice cream could help her figure it out.

“Okay,” Katie said as Becky settled into her favorite spot on their couch.

Becky was wrapped in her favorite fuzzy blanket. She’d put on her comfiest, oversized hoodie, and had the hood pulled down as far as it would go. When she’d been picking out what lounge clothes she’d be wearing until she had to get ready for her team’s cooldown practice that afternoon, she’d been startled to discover just how insanely marked up her neck and chest had gotten. A warmth had spread back through her body as she did her very best to not think about how each mark had gotten there.