Page 32 of Floored By Love

“I’d say that’s a little early, Mrs. Kane, but I’m sure you don’t know what time it is,” Colton teased, throwing her a wink.

“I told you to call me Heather.”

“Well, alright, Mrs. Heather.”

She rolled her eyes at his dumb joke and turned to me. “So, he’s the same, I see. How are you?”

I filled her in on what had been happening, how training was going. I could sense she wanted to ask about more personal things, but refrained, possibly because of Colton’s presence. And as if life could sense what I guessed my mom wanted to ask me about, my phone buzzed. A few seconds later, my mom’s did too.

“Sweetie, it’s one of those alerts when you’re in the news.”

I pulled my phone out and went to search for my name, but Noah’s text came through before I could get to a search engine.

Noah: Already on it. We’re trying to figure out what happened.

Cam: What happened!?!?

It felt like minutes, watching those stupid tiny dots flicker.

Noah: The piece about you and Luke came out. USA Gym never approved it. Bluntly, it frames you and Luke as rivals that don’t like each other.

“It doesn’t seem that bad so far, Cam,” Colton said, watching a video on his phone. I leaned over his shoulder to look.

“You and Luke are fighting?” my mom asked, looking at me as if I hurt a puppy.

Fucking hell.

9

Lucas

“One thing that’s clear from our day with Lucas Rivera and Camden Kane is that they both want to win. Looks like there may be an ‘I’ or two in team after all. From London, I’m Ryder Stevens.”

What a prick. He made me look like a complete asshole, and Cam looked like a cross between a cinnamon roll and a himbo. I got out of bed, threw some shorts on, and headed to find Cassandra. She was sitting at the table, eating lunch.

I held up my phone. “Have you seen the video?”

“It’s not as bad as you think it is.”

“Are you serious? They made me look like a jerk.”

She shrugged. “As long as you stay focused on the competition. Nothing else matters. You’re not supposed to like Cam, anyway. You are competing against him.”

Everything she said was technically correct. “But he’s still my teammate. They didn’t have to be so-” Blunt. Rude. Asshole. “-direct about it.”

She put her phone down and looked at me. “Lucas, all that matters is what you do in that arena. Everything else is just...noise.”

“Well, this certainly won’t help with any sponsorships.”

“Companies want people to buy their products. People like winners, which means companies also like winners. All you have to do is win. At the end of the day, they won’t care what type of person you are.”

Well, that sounded like an oversimplification, and they might not, but I did.

Coach: Team meeting. 9am tomorrow. We’re coming to the village. Olympic Hall, Conference Room A.

Well, that’s about the video.

It would be interesting to see Coach’s take on it. He’d probably pulled the rest of his hair out.