#Awestruck (A #Lovestruck Novel)

by Sariah Wilson

  “Maybe we can take a different tactic with this story. Honestly, it isn’t that big of a deal if Dawson is a virgin. Lots of people hold off. I mean, there are so many famous celebrities who are waiting or did wait until marriage. Like Lolo Jones, Adriana Lima, Maisy Harrison of Yesterday, or Zoe Covington, Chase’s wife. All that aside, just in the NFL alone you have Tim Tebow, Russell Wilson, Philip Rivers, Manti Te’o, Prince Amukamara—”

  Brenda held up her hand, cutting Talia off. She’d done the opposite of what Brenda had asked for. Brenda hadn’t come to praise Evan Dawson but to bury him.

  “That isn’t quite what I wanted, but I suppose I can consider it.” My boss’s tone indicated that no consideration whatsoever would be taking place. “Next!”

  I avoided making eye contact with Talia as she left the office, not wanting her to see how sorry I felt for her. I went in and sat down in the chair next to Brenda’s desk. She was typing something on her computer and staring at her screen.

  Brenda was intimidating not only because of her attitude, her confidence, and the power she held over all of our lives but also because I’d never seen her as anything less than immaculate. Like today—her pale-blonde hair was done up in a tight French twist, her business suit looked custom, and she wore high heels that made me think of stilts. I was always impressed with her ability to balance on her impossibly high shoes. I wondered if she did yoga.

  “Wow me, Ashton.”

  Her command stopped my bizarre brain tangent. “While I don’t know for sure one way or the other if Evan Dawson is still a virgin, what I can tell you is that he used to be quite the rebel back in high school.”

  That made her look away from the computer. “How do you know that?”

  “Because I went to high school with him. I know him.” Knew him, to be more accurate. I hadn’t spoken to him in ten years. “He got busted for drinking, partying, shoplifting. If I remember right, he was even part of a group of kids who stole a police car and went for a joyride.”

  I had her complete and total attention. “How come I’ve never heard any of this?”

  Because my father was an entertainment and sports attorney who the head football coach had retained to keep Evan out of trouble and to keep his records sealed. “Juvenile offenses. But I remember it. So I know that he’s not what he seems. That there’s more going on with this story than what he tells the world.”

  She leaned back in her chair. “Very interesting. Almost impressive.”

  I had managed to almost impress her! Part of me wanted to keep the streak going and tell her I was the one who had given him the nickname “Awesome” during my freshman year of high school, but people never believed me. They always assumed it was something that had started when he went off to college. I decided to leave that fact out, as it might have made me seem a little desperate.

  Which I totally was. “And because I grew up with him, I can get access to him now.” Whether or not that was true didn’t matter, only that I was promising Brenda something no one else would even consider.

  Because Evan was notorious for being tight-lipped with the press. He did his NFL-mandated interviews but gave away very little, keeping to one- or two-word answers. He didn’t go on sports shows and generally stayed quiet at press conferences. “I can talk to the people around him, too. Find out the real scoop. Maybe even find some women who will come on the show and say they’ve hooked up with him. And I’m helping my older sister with her ten-year reunion, which is also Evan Dawson’s ten-year reunion. Lots of potential people to interview there, too.”

  She nodded, considering my pitch. I needed to seal the deal. “He broke my heart. Publicly humiliated me at school. I’ve been waiting ten years to pay him back. If anyone wants to see Evan Dawson brought down a peg or two, it’s me.”

  Brenda smiled at me like I was her new best friend, and it was honestly a little unsettling. Like the way a great white shark might smile at a sea lion she was about to devour whole. “Excellent pitch, Ashton. I’ll let you know.”

  It wasn’t quite the response I’d been anticipating. I’d thought for sure she’d tell me right then and there that I had the story. I stood up and walked out of the room, hoping she’d call me back.

  She didn’t.

  If I didn’t get this assignment, I was going to be super pissed. Mostly because I had promised to become Aubrey’s reunion beck-and-call girl, and that would not be fun.

  And because no one else was as personally invested as I was. No one else wanted to see Evan Dawson pushed off his pedestal as much as I did.

  “Didn’t go as well as you thought?” Rand asked as I flopped down into my office chair.

  “It went just fine,” I told him through clenched teeth. Now was not the time to poke the bear. There might be teeth, claws, and blood in response.

  He didn’t get the message. “Too bad. The Winnowing is coming, and I bet this would have helped you get hired on to an actual paying position.”

  As Rand kept talking about how he was sure his own job was secure, I realized I’d been so focused on what I could do to ruin Evan that I hadn’t even thought about the Winnowing. Brenda talked about the Winnowing often—she hired a lot of interns and a year later gave only about a quarter of them a job. It was an effective scare tactic to keep us all in line and doing whatever she asked.

  Our year was nearly up. We’d been hired in January, and it was November.

  I had to stay here. I had to become an announcer for ISEN. It had been my dream my entire life.

  “May I have your attention?” Brenda stood on a low coffee table just outside her office. “I wanted to thank everyone for their pitches, but I’ve selected the intern who will break this story wide open for us.”

  The interns from the outer cubicles came forward, all eager to hear her announcement. I’d been so cocky about getting the assignment, it just occurred to me that despite my history with Evan, I realistically had a one-in-thirty chance.

  My heart leaped up in my throat, making it impossible to breathe.

  Rand waggled his eyebrows at me, as if to say the story was his, and I couldn’t even give him a good sarcastic retort since my nerves and displaced heart were threatening to suffocate me.

  “The intern I’ve selected is . . . Ashton Bailey!”

  Relief washed over me, and there were some mumblings and halfhearted claps in response to Brenda’s announcement.

  I’d done it. I’d won.

  It was the first step to making all my dreams come true.

  “Ashton, can I see you in my office?”

  I nodded and hurried forward. I sat back down in the seat I’d recently vacated.

  “I want this to be your first priority. Spend your days getting this story. You don’t need to physically be here every day while you’re working on this. Come into the office once a week to check in with me, and send me an email every time you get new information. All of your other responsibilities are suspended. I’ll have the other interns pick up your slack.” Oh, they would love that. “You probably won’t be keeping normal business hours while you investigate, but anything you need to do in order to uncover the truth about Evan Dawson, I want you to do it. Got it?” Brenda’s voice was strong and determined. And strangely invested in getting the result she wanted.

  “Got it,” I said. She was offering me a lot of freedom. Which I planned on taking full advantage of.

  When I got to my cubicle, I should have been a good sport about winning, but I couldn’t keep the grin off my face.

  “Huh. Maybe I was wrong about Brenda’s preferences,” Rand remarked.

  “Stereotypical man. A woman turns you down, she must be gay. I already told you, I’m better at this than you. When are you going to learn that I’m always right?”

  He smiled at me, showing that despite our teasing, he didn’t hold a grudge. He’d still take every advantage, but that was just how things worked on this floor.

  Despite my bragging to Rand that I was always right, the
re was something I’d been wrong about.

  Apparently Brenda wanted Evan Dawson off that pedestal every bit as much as I did.

  It made me wonder why.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Aubrey had arranged a lunch date for me with Nia Owens on Monday. I spent the entire weekend either freaking out that this wouldn’t work or worrying that Nia would be as protective of Evan as her husband would be.

  I got to the restaurant early and told the hostess I was expecting a guest. She seated me next to one of the windows facing the street. Another rainstorm started, raindrops lightly drumming against the panes as they fell. I tapped my fork against the table while I waited, my leg restlessly bouncing in time to my tapping.

  “Hey, are you Ashton?”

  I looked up to see a petite, well-put-together woman smiling at me. She had dark-brown eyes and black hair that hung to her shoulders. I stood. “I am. You must be Nia.”

  We shook hands, and she sat down across from me, taking off her coat and placing her umbrella on the floor. “Did you watch the game?” she asked.

  “We’re a Jacks family. I always watch the game.” I’d missed the first twenty minutes of it but watched the rest. The Jacks had defeated the Cleveland Browns last night, which had put everyone in Portland in a good mood. I mean, not that it was that great of a victory. My two sisters and I could have played against the Browns and won, too.

  We looked over the menu quietly and placed our order when the waitress returned. After she left, Nia folded her hands together and gave me a level look. “So what did Aubrey tell you? About Malik and me?”

  “My sister is serious about confidentiality. She said in passing that you owed her a favor, and she was nice enough to let me cash it in.”

  Nia twisted her mouth to one side. “Good to know. I am planning on helping you, even if I don’t buy that you want to do some ‘day in the life’ thing. I know how ISEN operates. But I want you to appreciate what this favor means, so I’m going to tell you why I owe your sister.”

  She paused when the waitress returned with our drinks: a water with lemon for me, an iced tea for Nia.

  Nia added some Splenda to her drink before stirring it. “Last year, during Malik’s contract negotiations, a woman came forward claiming that she had given birth to Malik’s daughter. She was trying to extort half a million dollars from us to buy her silence. And you know how Chester Walton is about things like that.”

  Chester Walton was the very conservative owner of the Portland Jacks. A retired Texan oil tycoon, he took his players’ reputations seriously. There had been more than one Jacks player let go because of things like this—committing adultery or fathering a child with a woman who was not his wife.

  He was the reason I knew that if I could expose Evan Dawson as a liar and a fraud, he’d be fired. Chester Walton would never tolerate his golden boy’s halo being dimmed.

  “Your sister managed to keep that gold-digging ho at bay until a paternity test came back, proving Malik wasn’t the father. Which I could have told her to begin with, because my man does not cheat on me. Then your sister went above and beyond and got the woman to sign a confession, legally stopping her from trying to come after us again, promising financial damages if she in any way tried to speak out against Malik or me. Anyway, Aubrey saved our future, Malik got his renewal and salary increase, and I promised to owe her a big one. Now tell me what you’re really doing.”

  Some small part of me immediately considered that I could take this story to Brenda if I needed to. It wasn’t Evan Dawson’s not a virgin level good, but it was still something.

  Even if it’s a betrayal of your sister and the very nice woman who just agreed to help you?

  I couldn’t be that evil. Nia had trusted me, and I could, at the very least, do the same in return. “I don’t think Evan Dawson’s a virgin, and I want to prove it. Because it can’t be true. Just look at him.”

  “That man is fine,” Nia agreed. “I’ve never seen him sneak off with any groupies. I don’t think I’ve even heard any gossip about him. I know lots of women have tried, but no one’s succeeded. I think it is true, and you’re not going to find anything that says otherwise. But that’s not my problem. And since it’s not going to hurt the team or my husband’s career, I’d be happy to introduce you and get things rolling.”

  “No,” I quickly retorted, cursing my quick tongue when I saw her reaction. Although I was willing to share some of my story, she didn’t need the whole thing. “I mean, he’d just lie about it, right? I need to get close to the other women like you. The WAGs. Someone there has to know something.”

  “Before we move forward, I need you to promise me one thing. You won’t lie just for ratings.”

  It wasn’t hard to agree. “I promise.” It was one thing to scheme my way into a job; it was another to be a reporter or an announcer and deliberately lie to sports fans. I could be cutthroat and truthful. “I would never do that.”

  “Good.” She nodded. “You remind me of Aubrey. She’s trustworthy, too.”

  “Ugh, don’t compare me to my ultra-perfect sister who can do no wrong.”

  Nia laughed.

  “Do you have one of those?” I asked.

  “Girl, I am one of those. My poor sister is constantly hearing it from our mama: ‘Why can’t you be more like Nia?’”

  The waitress put down a tray of sourdough bread as our laughter faded away. Nia cut herself a piece and chewed slowly, thoughtfully.

  When she finished, she said, “You know, initially I thought this was about you wanting to meet one of the players. Which would require setting you up a great Instagram account. A lot of NFL players use that app as a dating tool. I’d make you my friend, which would then have you showing up in their feeds. Easiest way to meet an athlete. But it will also work for getting you in with the women. You need to focus on Tinsley Hale.”

  “Jamie Hale’s wife?” From what I could remember, Tinsley Hale was a former Lumberjill. The Lumberjills were the Jacks’ cheerleading squad. She’d broken the team’s rules by dating offensive lineman Jamie Hale, but all had been forgiven once they got married. “Isn’t she, like, the managing director for the Lumberjills now?” I asked.

  “She is. And she knows everything about everyone. There’s a party tomorrow night to celebrate the win against Cleveland and to do a kickoff for Tinsley’s favorite charity.” Tuesdays were days off for NFL players. “I’ll get you in as Reggie Franklin’s date. The girls don’t fight over him, so you’ll seem unthreatening.”

  Reggie Franklin was one of the practice squad players, which basically made him expendable to the team. There was always a chance he could land a starting position, but not a great possibility. Which meant his earning potential was extremely low and made him not quite as desirable a player as the other Jacks.

  “The thing with Tinsley is she loves doing work for the Jumping Jacks organization. The one that’s for sick kids? Figure out a way to help them, and you’ll have your in.”

  “That’s my family’s charity. I’m on the board,” I told her, excited. This was all working out so well.

  “You’re one of those Baileys?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “Whatever you do, don’t tell her that!” Nia shook her head. “Tinsley has to be the star of every situation. You just want to volunteer and help out. She’s in charge, and you have to suck up to her. Think you can handle that?”

  Oh, I had a black belt in dealing with and sucking up to difficult women. “I think so.”

  “Good. So I have a homework assignment for you. Today or tomorrow take some pictures of yourself for Instagram. Do some inside, some outdoors. Try lots of different looks. Let me see your cell.”

  I put in the password and handed it over. Nia fiddled with it for a few minutes before handing it back. “I added my contact information and put Instagram on your phone. Create an account and email me your username, and I’ll follow you. Tinsley will probably investigate you, and we want her to see t
hat we’re friends. I’ll get a bunch of the other girls to follow you, too.”

  The waitress returned with our food, but for the first time in forever I couldn’t eat. I was giddy that this was all going so well. Hopefully within the next forty-eight hours I’d have everything I’d need to ruin Evan Dawson and land my dream job.

  Nia wasn’t done giving me instructions. “Tomorrow night, be at my house at six o’clock. We’ll all go over to the party together. Sound good?”

  “Sounds good!” I agreed. This was all happening so fast. It hadn’t even been hard.

  I should have known that nothing in life was ever that easy.

  Once the business part was out of the way, I really enjoyed the rest of my lunch with Nia. She was hilariously snarky and loved chocolate and Jacks football, which made her the perfect potential friend.

  When I got home, I did as she asked and took about a bajillion pictures of myself, sending them over to her first for approval. She picked out her favorites, and I posted them to my newly created Instagram account, including the hashtags she told me to use.

  At first Nia was my only follower, but within an hour I had multiple follows from WAGs and Lumberjills. I didn’t know how she’d accomplished it but figured it was better not to ask.

  The next day, as per Nia’s instructions, I went and got my hair done, my toenails and fingernails painted, and my eyebrows waxed. It was pretty far away from my usual casual tomboy style, but I did as I was told. I chose a skirt and blouse that I thought said “hanging with the girls!” It was also the girliest outfit I owned.

  It took me about half an hour to drive from my condo to Malik and Nia’s mansion in Lake Oswego. And their house was practically on top of the lake. I parked my car on the street and ran through the drizzling rain, wishing I could better see the view of the water behind their home.

  When I knocked on the door, I half expected a snooty British butler to answer. But it was Nia in an expensive-looking red minidress. Her gaze traveled from my head to my feet, and before I could even tell her how amazing she looked, she said, “Oh, nuh-uh. You are not getting in my car dressed like that. Come inside. I will find you something else to wear.”