Page 80 of Rumor Has It

TWENTY-NINE

WREN

Thursday morning started the same as all of their game days had since they’d become travel buddies. Rebecca woke up obnoxiously early, and Wren grumbled about it. And then Wren woke up not long after to start her own pre-game routine. The fact that they were playing against each other that evening had surprisingly not been brought up.

Rebecca looked right at home in Wren’s kitchen, blending herself a smoothie, and Wren couldn’t help but smile about it as she slid into a chair to watch. Rebecca slid a smoothie over to her with a wink. Wren narrowed her eyes at her over the rim of the glass.

“This isn’t poisoned, is it?” Wren asked, suspiciously.

Rebecca rolled her eyes. “Oh my god. You’re so dramatic.” She leaned over and took a big gulp out of Wren’s smoothie. “Your smoothie is safe, see?”

Wren snorted out a laugh. “Well, you know, I can never be too careful.”

“It’s too early for y’all to be this chipper,” Barbara groaned from the couch.

“I actually completely agree,” Wren said. “I’m going to go get in the shower.” She stood up from her seat and chugged the smoothie Rebecca made her. “This was really good, Babe, thanks,” she kissed Rebecca on the cheek and rinsed her cup before she even processed what she had said.

Rebecca on the other hand was staring at her, fully waiting for her to catch up.

Wren blinked a few times, trying to hard restart her brain. “Sorry,” she said finally, blushing. “Thank you, Rebecca, for the smoothie.”

“I didn’t mind it,” Rebecca said, softly. “But you might want to be careful with how comfortable you get saying that.”

Wren nodded. It was a good point. She hadn’t meant to say it, even. It had just slipped out. Which was fine and dandy in the safety of her apartment, but it absolutely could not happen on a soccer field or around the National Team.

When she got out of the shower, Rebecca was stretching and Barbara was watching cartoons on the TV, enjoying their morning. Wren couldn’t help but smile about it. Two of her favorite people in the whole world, comfortable in her space. Barbs had never openly not liked Andy—well, not until Andy had posted that photo of Wren and then refused to take it down—but this just proved how much more Barbs clearly liked Rebecca.

Their whole day yesterday had been amazing. Wren had taken them all over Los Angeles, doing her best to give them all the highlights in one day. Her phone was now filled with pictures of the three of them on their big LA adventure. Her lock screen was now a picture of three ice cream cones held in a triangle. None of their faces were in the photo, but it meant the world to Wren.

Wren was just about to interrupt Rebecca’s stretching with a few jokes about trying to sabotage her routine, when there was a loud knock at her front door. She frowned. Her dad had just texted thirty minutes ago, so there was no way the knock belonged to him. He, Linda, and Molly were just going straight to the stadium.

Barbara even took the effort to point at herself and then at Rebecca and then say. “Who else do you even know?”

“I don’t know anyone else,” Wren muttered as she walked to the front door. She pulled it open until the chain caught and regretted opening it entirely.

Andrea Santorini stood on her front porch with an obnoxious fake smile plastered on her face. “Hey, Wren,” she said.

Wren did not move to open the door any farther. “What are you doing?” She asked, trying to keep her voice down. She absolutely did not want to deal with this right now. She’d been having such a lovely morning, and she had a game later in the day. She didn’t have the bandwidth for whatever this was about to be.

“Well, I know you have a game later, and I just wanted to swing by and wish you luck. Can I come in?” Andy asked.

Wren shook her head. “No. Now’s not a good time.”

She heard movement from behind her, coming from vaguely her kitchen. Without turning around, she surmised that Rebecca and Barbara had moved close enough that they could probably whisper about Andy arriving unannounced.

“Is someone here?” Andy asked, doing her best to get a look in the apartment.

Wren moved intentionally more in front of the small opening. “Yeah,” she said, offering nothing else.

Andy let out an obnoxious fake laugh. “Holy shit. It’s her, isn’t it?” Her voice lifted in both octave and decibel. “You were having an affair. Here I am, trying to fix this between us again, like a fool, and you had been cheating on me.” Andy shook her head. “I felt guilty, you asshole. I saw your stupid press conference in Sweden where your little girlfriend tried to act like the victim saying this caused both of you pain, and it was a complete lie.”

Wren sighed. She did not want to be dealing with this on any level. “For the last time,” she said, rather forcefully. “I didn’t cheat on you. What I do now is my business. Whoever is here right now is my business. You posted a photo of me—which you have yet to take down—that was inappropriate. Then you accused me of cheating on you. Then you dumped me.” Wren was close to yelling now. “I’ve moved on. I’m happy. Leave me the fuck alone. You’re lucky I haven’t contacted a lawyer about getting that photo pulled off your page.”

“I could post a lot more where that came from,” Andy threatened.

“If you ever post another photo of me, I will sue you for every single penny you’ve ever earned and ever will earn,” Wren said through gritted teeth. “Stay the fuck away from me.”

“Fine,” Andy said with a huff. “I don’t need to post any more photos. I’ll just call some friends and let them know to swing by here in a few minutes to get photos of you and your new little girlfriend before your game today. You are playing against each other, aren’t you?” Andy lifted an eyebrow. “Aren’t you glad you called me out for never showing any interest in your boring-ass sport? Am I paying enough attention, yet?”