Page 19 of Player Next Door


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“Maybe I should come down there, because you’re not thinking straight.”

She laughed bitterly. “Now you want to come down here? I don’t think so.”

“We really need to talk about this.”

“I’ve been making excuses for you for a long time. I can’t keep lying to myself. I hope you find your person, Jordy. But I’m not her.”

Something seemed to snap in him. “You know what? You’re right. I am so tired of all your whining, especially these last few weeks. I’ve put up with a lot when it’s come to you. Do you want to know why I don’t spend more time with you? Because you’re cold. I can barely connect with you. You’re also a selfish, mean bitch. I don’t think this Jen broad is far off the mark when it comes to you.”

And then he hung up.

Reese set her phone down on the coffee table. She’d never felt so small, but somehow, a substantial weight had also been lifted.

ChapterEight

“Iwasn’t gone that long,” Cam said, biting into his bacon cheeseburger. “You got a lot done. Definitely took out the trash.”

Reese rolled her eyes and tried not to smile. “I thought I’d be sad, but it’s more of a relief,” she said, dipping a French fry into a mound of ketchup on her plate. “He added to my stress, stress I would like to not think about for at least a few hours.”

“You did the right thing. You need people around you who you can depend on. He’s not one of them.”

Despite ridding Jordy from her life, there was still that lingering dread following her around. She knew at any second, what little normalcy she had left would be thrown out the window. As if reading her thoughts, Cam reached across the kitchen island to grab her hand.

“Hey,” he said. “Whatever happens, you’ll bounce back. You’re the strongest woman I know, and Jennifer Brennan isn’t going to change that.”

“Thank you,” she said, forcing a smile.

Her moment of peace ended less than an hour later when her cell phone rang. The call went to voicemail, and then her phone started ringing again. Moments later, Cam’s phone began to ring. They looked at each other, and knowing each other like they did, Cam did a quick check on social media. Reese watched his face, searching it for a reaction, and when he frowned, she knew exactly what was going on.

“She posted it, didn’t she?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Reese swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded. “Now what?”

“I’m going to call John and see what he says. How about you grab a few beers?”

What she really wanted to do was hit the gym to burn off some energy, but she couldn’t risk going to her favorite gym. She wasn’t even sure the condo gym was safe. Instead, she headed for the kitchen and grabbed two beers, handing one to Cam while he spoke to John.

“John, I’m going to put you on speaker.”

Cam hit the speaker button on his phone and set it down on the coffee table between him and Reese.

“Reese, I was just telling Cam that I’ve already issued a statement on your behalf. We’ve also got a call in to your email provider to unlock those emails, and we’ve contacted the shop in Waterloo to see about getting fast shipping for that battery you ordered. We had the owner sign an NDA as a precaution. We’re sending him some autographs at his insistence as well as some other merchandizing material. I’m going to pick the battery up in the morning and come see you. We need to get into that phone of yours and download all the messages. We need to shut this down fast.”

“Should I be doing anything else?”

“Nothing I can think of. If it makes you feel any better, more skaters have agreed to come forward and detail their experiences with Jennifer. It seems she’s got a bit of a checkered past. Turns out the father of her child was when they were together married, so that could get messy.”

That bit of information stopped Reese cold. “Wait, you’re not going to make that public, are you?”

John sighed heavily. “We need to use anything we can get.”

“Not that. The kid is innocent. We don’t need to start ruining families.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have told you that part,” John muttered. “Do you care more about your image or this kid you’ve never met?”

That was an easy call for Reese.

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