Hyde thought he knew her half an hour ago. Now he wasn’t so sure, but he liked that she’d fired up at his suggestion. Maybe she was as innocent and refreshing as he’d assumed, but still maybe not. He was going to hang out at the gym all day Monday, if necessary, and see exactly what type of “training” Ike had planned.
If only Ike wasn’t in the picture. Hyde would just hand her a chunk of money and tell her not to worry, but the Lily he thought he knew wouldn’t like him “throwing his money around”.
“I’m sorry for offering,” he said stiffly. “Is it wrong to want to help you?”
“I can’t take help like that, Hyde.” She looked so sad and young all of the sudden. “Maybe we should just focus on your training for now.”
“So, is this you trying to tell me to slow down?” Aha. She did want an excuse. His perfect day was crashing quickly around him.
She swallowed and whispered, “Maybe.”
“What does that mean?” His voice was harsh and he knew it.
“I don’t know. Can we just keep going the way we have been and see where it leads?”
He wanted to tell her no. He needed to know what Ike meant to her before he could proceed with anything. Dealing with his mom’s illness was hard enough, he couldn’t deal with a deceitful girlfriend or trainer or whatever Lily was to him, too.
She took a quick breath and said, “And can you promise that you’ll train with me until the two months are up?”
“Um, sure.” She was an exceptional trainer and he would have had no issue sticking with her, if the Ike doubts hadn’t appeared today. Was that bonus really that big of a deal to her? Ten thousand dollars was nothing to him, but he couldn’t tell her that.
Her lips curved up in a smile. “Thank you.”
Hyde nodded jerkily and leaned back in his seat. He pretended he was tired from the long day and closed his eyes. Stewing over Lily’s intentions for the next hour would be miserable, but easier than looking at her beautiful smile and wishing he knew if he could trust her or not.
Chapter 11
Usually Sunday was Hyde’s favorite day during the off-season. Mom would make a huge breakfast and after they enjoyed the feast, they went with Allie and her husband, Lon, to church. Then they’d lounge around in the yard, nap or read, and have a relaxed Sunday dinner together. Hyde ate whatever he wanted to eat on Sunday and though he sometimes gave himself a stomach ache, it was worth it. Today he felt empty as things were unsettled with Lily and he still didn’t know how to resolve his concerns over the text from Ike.
His phone rang as he was knotting his tie. He smiled. Cameron Cruz. His quarterback and one of his closest friends on the team. “Hey, man. How’s Jackson Hole?”
“Perfect this time of year. How’s your mom?”
“I don’t know. Some days I think worse, some better. I’ll have a mess on my hands come the start of the season.”
“Sorry, man.” Cam paused then asked, “What about you? Back up to par?”
“Getting there.” Lily would make sure he was up to par, if he kept training with her.
“So this thing about you retiring, being engaged to some gold digger who’s got a boyfriend on the side, and taking care of your mom. That’s not serious.”
“Excuse me.” Hyde didn’t know which part to freak out about first. The news media had proof Lily had a boyfriend? His heart thumped faster.
“Um, you didn’t know?”
“No.” Hyde strode to his dresser and grabbed his phone.
“Sorry to be the bearer of bad press. It’s all over the Internet and not just from one source—magazines, bloggers, newspapers. Kat pointed it out to me this morning. There are pages of articles. They all came out today.”
Hyde Googled himself, read a few different headlines, and groaned.
“It’s all over that you can’t recuperate and you’re going to take the offer for early retirement.”
“Early retirement? I’m in my third year.” Hyde scanned the top article from a reputable national newspaper and sank into an armchair. “I haven’t even had an offer. Do you know who their source was?”
“Sources. I think it was your mom, bro, but the woman’s family—a Lily Udy? A few of them had commented as well. Josh Udy telling the media that you buy him all kinds of stuff and you’re going to marry his sister. Probably innocent, but it looks bad like she’s letting you buy her off. Are you looking at the news feed now?”
“Yeah.” Pictures of him and Lily were plentiful—running together by Clear Creek, kissing at her apartment door, climbing into his Lexus, walking down Golden’s Main Street hand in hand.
Hyde sighed. “I’m not retiring. That’s ridiculous. I’ve got a kick butt trainer and she’s going to have me ready to go. We’ll take that Super Bowl ring back and won’t let it go until both of us retire.” Yet if Lily was involved in all of this, maybe he wouldn’t have a kick butt trainer much longer. His heart wrenched at the thought.
Cam whooped. “Now that’s what I like to hear.”
“Guess I’ll start with cussing my mom out and go from there.”
“Go easy on her.”
“You know I will.”
Hyde hung up and turned around. His mom was in the entry of his suite, watching him with fearful eyes. “I’m sorry, honey. What did I do wrong?”
Hyde bit his tongue and opened his arms to her. She walked right into them and he knew he couldn’t really cuss her. “Nothing, Mom.” There was no benefit to telling her what she’d done. She wouldn’t remember tomorrow. He just needed to find a way to keep her away from the press. He knew why she’d told the press he was going to retire. She wanted nothing more than for him to be home and not travel and not train, but he couldn’t retire. Not yet. The guilt swept in. If he didn’t retire, who would take care of his mom during the season? Her condition seemed to just be getting worse.
He needed to read more of these articles and see what was being portrayed about him and Lily. Usually, he didn’t give the press much notice, but to have dozens of articles released on the same day and Cam worrying about him retiring? He’d have to make a statement or something. And how was Lily involved?
“Are we going to church?” his mom asked.
“Can you go without me? Allie and Lon will be with you. I’ve got to deal with some press issues.”
She nodded quickly. “Okay. Love you.”
“Love you too.” She slowly walked out his door and down the steps.
Hyde pushed a hand through his hair and grabbed his laptop. It would be easier to read and cross-reference. He skimmed through and after the first couple of articles was clenching his computer tightly. It looked really, really bad. Quotes from his mom about how irate she was that Lily would cheat on him and how the gold digger didn’t deserve her boy. Then she claimed that Hyde was such a good boy he was going to dump the girl soon, take an early retirement offer, and stay with his mom. Of course the article made him look like a loser for living with his mom, but he didn’t care about that. What he did care about was the quotes from Lily’s family that revealed how desperate their situation was and did make her look like a gold digger. One reporter had quotes from Josh about Hyde buying them all kinds of stuff and how lucky they were that his sister had snagged the best football player in the world.
Then he scrolled down and saw a picture of Lily hugging Ike. It was the gut punch that almost doubled him over. Beautiful Lily in that muscle-head’s arms. Her dark hair trailing over Ike’s thick shoulder. Hyde’s stomach churned. Quickly looking away from the picture, he read the article. Ike told the reporter how desperately Lily needed Hyde’s money so Ike had let her have the training job, even though he didn’t like his girlfriend being around the football star.
Could that be true? He’d seen the text from Ike just yesterday. Here was his proof. Lily was really dating that muscle head and was only with Hyde because she needed the money. He scrubbed at his forehead. Just last night she’d told him how badly she needed the money and a
sked him to promise that he wouldn’t stop training with her. If she thought to play on his sympathies when she was blatantly cheating on him, she had another thing coming. His blood began to boil. He slammed the laptop closed, grabbed his keys and his phone and stomped toward the garage. Instead of church today, he was going to be calling someone to repentance.
Lily slumped on the couch in her apartment, relieved that Wynette was with her family today and couldn’t be here to witness her come apart. She’d turned on the entertainment news this morning as she got ready, really just for some noise in the background, but when she’d heard her and Hyde’s names she’d done a double-take. They were spewing all kinds of crap about Hyde Metcalf’s trainer using him to get to his money, claiming she was really dating Ike. Yikes. Where would they get that? Then they interviewed his mom and Lily just wanted to cry. Obviously Hyde’s mom hated her. She said horrible things about how Hyde had been misled and how dare Lily cheat on her boy with Ike. She even went so far as to call Lily a gold-digging tramp and she didn’t backtrack like she had when she’d said similar things about Hyde’s past girlfriends. Suddenly, Lily commiserated far too much.
Past girlfriends. Was that what she was now? She sank onto the couch, scrolling through all the posts about her and Hyde on her phone. More crap about her deception. They even had quotes from Josh and Caleb to back up her poor and desperate status. Her brothers would never deliberately hurt her or Hyde. It was a mess. It felt orchestrated. Why did it all explode in one day and who had gotten all this information together then spread it to every news outlet that would run it?
What a liar Ike was. It made her fume to think he’d claimed they were dating and tricking Hyde together. She tried to remember where they would’ve gotten a picture of her and Ike hugging. Then it clicked. A few days ago she’d been rushing out the front door of the gym after work to go meet Hyde. She’d banged into Ike. He’d caught her to keep her from falling and held her close until she’d squirmed free with a quick thank you. This pic made it look like they were in a full-blown make-out session. She sighed. Oh, Hyde. Would he believe any of it? This was a nightmare.
Her doorbell rang. She sniffed and wiped underneath her eyes, hoping it wasn’t a reporter. She struggled to her feet and slowly opened the door. Hyde stood there in a navy blue suit with a white shirt and striped blue and white tie. His hair was styled and he looked good. Her mouth went dry at the sight of him, until he opened his mouth.
“Who’s this Ike guy?”
Her spine stiffened. “He’s just another trainer. You’ve seen him at the gym.”
“What are you doing hugging him?”
“Really, Hyde, really?” Her breath burst from her lungs and she jabbed a finger at him. “All this crap explodes that makes me look like a pathetic tramp, and a picture of me and Ike is what you choose to worry about? I didn’t hug him, I fell into him when I came out of the front door, rushing to see you!”
His eyes narrowed. “That’s not what the picture looks like and I saw a text come in from him yesterday. Ike the Incredible Hottee?”
“What?” She thought about the text from Ike about some training that he was doing Monday at the gym for the staff. Then she remembered why she had that nickname for him in her phone. He rarely texted her and the last time he had she’d been busy with a client so she hadn’t thought to change it. “Wynette thinks he’s hot so she programmed that into my phone when he texted me once.”
“You think I believe that?” Hyde asked, laughing incredulously. “You and Ike put this all together to scam me. How long have you been dating him?”
“I’m not!” Her throat was dry and achy. “I would never do that, Hyde. I don’t even like Ike.”
“It sure looks like you like him in those pictures.”
“Well, forget those pictures. They make me look like a conniving witch who only wants you for your money, at least that’s obviously what your mom thinks.”
Hyde straightened up, looking suddenly threatening. Lily had always admired how big and tough he was. Right now, it bothered her, a lot. “Leave my mom out of this. She’s sick and she doesn’t need you picking on her.”
“I’m picking on her?” Lily wasn’t backing down to him, no matter how intimidating he looked. She knew Hyde would never hurt her. Well, the Hyde she thought she knew would never hurt anyone. “Yeah, she’s the one who’s got her picture splashed all over the internet, the television, magazines, and who knows where else, saying how I tricked you into dating me and I just want your money. Oh, yeah, your poor Mom.” Some part of her felt immensely guilty for saying anything about Hyde’s mom. The woman had Alzheimer’s and he was right that Lily shouldn’t be picking on her. Yet she’d seen a lot of intelligence in Teresa’s eyes and it made her wonder if the woman wasn’t more calculating than Hyde could understand.
Hyde’s muscles bunched in his neck. “I should’ve known. This always happens when I start liking somebody.”
“Yeah, because your mom bus rolls them. Maybe you should be talking to her not me.”
Hyde stared at her for far too long. “I thought it was too good to be true that you were this cool, fun, beautiful girl who also got football and got me, but it was all a ploy, wasn’t it? You get me to believe you don’t want my money. That was your game, right? You were probably going to keep it up until I forced the money on you, but Ike ruined it before you could capitalize.”
“You came to me! If Ike wanted your money he wouldn’t have told our sneaky plan to the world, now would he?”
“It’s all out there, Lily. He wanted the money, but he wants you more. He decided he needed to tell the truth so he didn’t lose his girlfriend.”
“That’s the lamest story I’ve ever heard and you believe it!” She shook her head and waited for him to say he didn’t believe it. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at her.
“Of course I believe it. I saw the text from him. ‘Love your body’. Pretty strong evidence, Lily.”
“Why didn’t you say something yesterday?”
“Because I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
“But that’s all over now. I’m the scummy cheater, huh? And your mom spreads around the world how this impoverished girl is trying to snag her son to help her dirt poor family? Well, that’s bull. I don’t need you and my family doesn’t need you.”
Hyde flinched but still didn’t respond.
Lily should stop, but she was ticked at him. Believing Ike was her boyfriend and they’d tried to trick Hyde? That was pure stupidity only the rag tags would print. “And you might think your mom is sick, but I think she knows exactly what she’s saying.”
“Don’t act like your family’s innocent.” Hyde took a step closer. “Obviously you didn’t see the quotes from Josh.”
She had, but they were nothing compared to the mean things his mom had said. Josh had been bragging about how rocking cool Hyde had been to him and his big brother, giving them team gear and taking them to the stadium.
“Your brother took advantage of me so he could get a little fame,” Hyde said.
“He’s an eight-year-old boy who idolizes you!” How dare he say anything against sweet, innocent Josh. “You acted like you cared about him, about all of us. You never told him not to say anything to his friends. You don’t care about anybody but yourself and your stupid reputation.” Was he really placing all this blame on her and her family and believing she would be with Ike? Yuck. He couldn’t see past his mother’s scheming. Early-onset Alzheimer’s or not, Teresa had been perfectly lucid to tell all these media people how horrible Lily was.
“I thought you were something special,” he said, gritting it out from between his teeth, “Apparently, I was wrong.”
“I know the feeling. I was way off assuming that you were a decent guy.”
Hyde’s expression was grim, but there was no compassion for Lily there. He was a superstar and she was the one who looked like a gold-digging tramp, but did he care? No.
“I guess we should consider our training agreement and your ten thousand dollar bonus off.”
“I wouldn’t take your money if I was starving to death.”
Hyde stepped back and a muscle worked furiously in his jaw. Lily thought it was the perfect moment to slam the door in his face. So she did, then twisted the deadbolt and ran for her room. Crying was the only solution at a time like this.
Chapter 12
It rained Monday and Lily was convinced it was just to torture her even more, as if she wasn’t miserable enough. She’d lost her bonus, but now that it had happened, losing Hyde was worse. She missed the way he’d tease her about cheating at lunges, the way he’d toss her a cocky grin as she forced him to do ten more burpees. She couldn’t even let herself think about being in his arms, kissing him or the tears would just spill over.
Yet it was impossible not to ache for him. She could still save up and help Sariah through school, but she could never get Hyde back. It had been awful of her to say those things about his mother, but it had been horrid of his mother to say those things about her and him to assume she was with Ike. She felt justified and angry and miserable.
She hadn’t responded to any texts, emails, or phone calls from friends, family, or anyone else Sunday. When Wynette stormed into their apartment Sunday night Lily begged her to not ask. Wynette, of course, couldn’t handle not being there for her. Lily finally had to claim a headache, which wasn’t a lie, and lock herself in her room.
Monday she had to go to work because she had training appointments, minus her usual seven to nine a.m. slots with Hyde. Those hours dragged by. The other trainers and patrons at the gym got the message pretty quickly that she didn’t want to talk to anyone. Except for Ike. When she saw him strut in, she hurried to him and poked him in the chest. “Why don’t we talk in the training office?”
Pass Interference Page 11
