AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I started listening to the first voicemail, congratulations from a former teammate and friend. Then the next, another well-wisher. And as I listened, I started scrolling through texts. Liam had tried to get in touch with me a bunch of times, sending all caps CALL ME, and CALL ME NOW.
Teammates had called, a coach had called, and a bunch of our team PR reps had tried to get in touch with me. That was how I knew. It had to be some kind of news, some breaking story.
But I still wasn’t prepared for what I saw once I clicked on the link I finally found in an email. Someone had sent it to me late last night, then a bunch more this morning. Apparently, Emma and I had let the cat out of the bag after the final awards ceremony. After a long eight days of studiously avoiding any PDA, we’d embraced and kissed right in front of the cameras. The world had watched and wanted to know. Who was the woman in Chase Carter’s arms?
You know who Emma Nelson was? She was a blogger. She wrote for a blog named Scoop’d, a tell-all gossip blog sharing dirt on all the Olympic athletes. And you know who that blog kept bragging they were about to run a big story on? Which athlete they claimed to have an inside scoop on, about to break the secret backstory everyone wanted to know? Me. Chase Carter, sucker of the first order.
I had lots of practice controlling my emotions and managing stress, and I did it, breathing deeply, steadying my thoughts and hands as I found my laptop and opened it up. I didn’t have to search around. I simply entered my first name and the article popped up, all about me and my girlfriend, the secret blogger.
The headline? Chase Got Scoop’d! The article took delight in its tongue-in-cheek reporting, cautioning readers, “Shh, don’t tell. Chase doesn’t know.” How rich, the famous athlete who hated the press, falling for a reporter! They’d plastered photos of us all over their website, the same shot but from all different angles. How happy we’d been in that moment. My stomach lurched with a wave of nausea.
The article claimed that Emma had been anonymously writing for the blog for years now. Then, to get her big break, she’d posed as a physical therapist. That was how she’d secured her chance to get in good with the elusive Chase Carter. It described how I’d become famous for swatting reporters out of my way like an angry bear. But a physical therapist? Apparently I’d let her in and given her access. That was how she’d worked it, using that excuse to get close to me. All to get the story.
Chase doesn’t know. The words leapt out at me from the article, catching me around the neck in a tight chokehold. I didn’t want to believe it. The website that broke the story was none other than The Rio Rapsheet, the exact same blog had published a fake story on me only a few days ago. What was to stop them from doing the same with Emma?
But it had the ring of truth to it. A sickening, nagging, persistent ring of truth. Unable to stop myself, needing to see, I clicked on the link to the blog, the one that was apparently Emma’s.
It popped right up. Scoop’d, all hot pink font and photos of celebrities and athletes. It was swarming with hot pics, plus gossipy dirt. Who was hooking up with who? Who’d gone out hard the night before?
Some of it looked harmless. There was a whole, active discussion critiquing team uniforms. Our Speedo swimsuits got four out of five stars. Jamaica won runner up, for being most colorful and fun, but the UK got first prize because Stella McCartney!!! It seemed she was a famous clothing designer. There was a section of the blog devoted to the best souvenirs from the games, including lots of photos devoted to commemorative shot glasses with images like the Olympic rings and Christ the Redeemer.
But the bulk of the content was devoted to gossip. I scrolled through and found so many pictures, some of which were re-published from other sources but many looked candid and shot in person in Rio. In clubs, in bedrooms, in various states of undress.
Polls ranked the hotness of the male athletes participating in the games, and the top-rated ones had their own pages with countless photos and facts. “Top ten things you didn’t know about—” fill-in-the-blank. I saw a bunch of my teammates. And then, there I was. My own page, with photo upon photo, but no text. Yet.
Across the top there was a big “COMING SOON” announcement, in all caps. “Stay tuned for the scoop on Chase Carter,” it advertised. “Everything you’ve always wanted to know. What you’ve been waiting for. Want to know the mystery behind this hunk? All his deepest secrets?”
Then it promised, “We’ve got it covered. We’ve gone undercover, behind the scenes to bring you the story everyone wants. Only on Scoop’d.”
My phone rang. It was Liam. This time I picked up.
“Hey, man, how you doing?”
“Not great.” My eyes traveled over the page in front of me, seeing but still not fully able to believe.
“Did you know she was a blogger?”
His words that hit me like a lead pipe over the head. Liam had decided it was true. Emma was a blogger. “No.” My word sounded wooden.
“I’m sorry, Chase. She really seemed cool.” You knew the topic of conversation was serious when Liam actually used my real name. No Chevy or man or dude, just Chase.
“Listen, I’m supposed to catch a plane in a couple hours. I was trying to reach you this morning, but you didn’t pick up.”
“Yeah.” I didn’t offer any explanation. I felt too sick.
“But I can change my flight. We can hang out, hit some clubs in Rio. Plenty of distractions are waiting for you, big man. You could even wear one of your many gold medals. It would be like a golden magnet.”
Liam almost always knew what to say to lift my spirits, but not this time. This time I felt a heavy, oppressive blanket over my chest and no amount of joking around was going to take it away. Nor would a night out on the town with hot Brazilian women, so you knew I was feeling bad.
Plus, I knew he was just being nice. He had to get back to the firehouse. Getting this many days off in the middle of their busiest season of the year had been hard enough.
“No, you head out. I’m fine,” I assured him as we said our good-byes.
I was not fine, but I was fine enough for Liam to get on a plane. I might feel like I was drowning, but I wasn’t. I was on dry land, legs underneath me. I might feel like I was choking and suffocating, but I’d manage to carry on, put one foot in front of the other. Even if I felt like I couldn’t.
What I most wanted was to bail and get on the next plane I possibly could to head out of there. Where I ended up, I didn’t particularly care. I knew some of the guys on my team were headed on vacation. I couldn’t remember where at the moment, but it didn’t matter. It would be somewhere I could sit in a chair, drink, and not have to talk much to anyone about anything important. They’d already invited me along. All I had to do was tell them I was in.
But before I did that, before I ducked out, I had to talk with Emma. I dreaded it. I’d rather head into dental surgery for the next 15 hours, or have lunch with my mom which, shit, I realized I was supposed to be doing. Which meant leaving the rental house, where there were sure to be reporters with cameras. Fuck.
>
My phone rang again. It was Emma. I clicked over to talk, but words didn’t come out of my mouth. Words tumbled and streamed out of hers, though.
“Chase! Chase, are you there? I have to talk to you.”
“I’m here.” But even as I said it, I felt disembodied, like all of this was happening to someone else. How had I not seen any of it? She’d seemed too good to be true, like a gift coming into my life at exactly the right moment. I guess I’d fooled myself into believing it. Maybe there’d been a bunch of signs along the way and I’d been too busy lusting after her, even falling in love with her to see them.
“Don’t go online!” she pleaded, a guilty request if ever I’d heard one.
“I’ve already seen it.”
I could hear her crying on the other end of the phone, swearing. She sounded nearly hysterical.
“Is it true?” My words hung out there and I could almost picture them, drifting overhead in a cartoon speech bubble. I did not like feeling like I was a character in a melodramatic book.
She paused. It was a deadly, incriminating silence. And then she offered, lamely, “I can explain. Let me come over and talk to you. I can be there in 20 minutes.”
Let me explain. So there was something she needed to explain. And she hadn’t denied that she was a blogger. There it was, the truth.
My voice sounded flat and dull. “See you soon.”
I’d have to ask my mom if we could meet up later. I had to take care of something first. Because it turned out that the woman I’d fallen for was actually a blogger after my story. I felt cold and sick with shock. I’d kept quiet about the accident for 12 years. Then who did I tell the whole story to? Someone intending to publish every word.
Emma and I would have it out. We had to. I’d listen to whatever she had to say. I’d hear out to her excuses, because I’d always wonder if I didn’t. But there was no going back from this. I could never trust her again.
CHAPTER 19
Emma
