by Nana Malone
Echo’s confidence in their relationship, whatever form it might be taking, took the edge off Sasha’s fears. “Okay. I’ll call him now,” she said, pulling her phone out. “Unless you were ready to get started…” She trailed off, looking to the racks of clothes and the smattering of mannequins in the studio’s lofty space.
“Call him,” Echo insisted. “We just got here and need to settle in. You’ll have plenty of time to sort things out with Fox.”
Before Sasha could even start dialing her phone rang, and according to the caller ID, it was Fox.
“Speak of the devil,” she muttered, before taking a deep breath and answering.
Thirteen
Fox spent much of the next day at morning practice reliving every moment of that party. He’d been tempted to follow her into her bedroom, or invite her into his own when they’d gone home. But he didn’t want her to think he only wanted sex from her, and he wanted to give her time to adjust to what he’d said. This wasn’t temporary for him.
Each time he heard the smack of a stick on a puck and the resultant thunk as he deflected it off his stick or pads, he heard the cheesy sound her phone had made as he’d snapped those sexy pictures of her. Those pics would remain forever emblazoned in his mind. Particularly the last little video he’d shot before his hand had started shaking with the need to grab hold of her while he pushed his cock deeper.
He hadn’t brought himself to flip through them yet. They were still prominent enough in his mind’s eye that he didn’t require the potent reality of the images themselves to get off. And he hadn’t had the time or privacy necessary for when he did start looking through them.
It took Fox a few moments to realize that the shots had stopped coming at him. The ice around him was littered with pucks. But when he noticed the awe with which his teammates were standing around watching him, he grew self-conscious and looked for Coach Tremblay. He found the man grinning and clutching his clipboard to his chest. With a brief motion, Tremblay signaled to an assistant to start gathering up the discarded pucks while he started making notations.
Fox grew uncomfortable as he skated slightly out of the crease, corralling the loose pucks into a group to make it easier for the assistant to collect them.
“Great job, man,” the guy said with a clap to Fox’s well-padded shoulder. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Fox shrugged in response, unsure what was so impressive about his performance. He turned to retrieve the pucks that had made it into the net only to see there weren’t any. He’d stopped every shot that came his way without even realizing it. No wonder everyone was quiet. He was floored, and he tried to think back to figure out how he’d managed to do it. But all thoughts of Sasha were all that were in his head.
He knew she wasn’t looking for a relationship, and he wasn’t entirely convinced that what had passed between them wasn’t just her rebounding from Ryan. He knew that he wanted something more with her, but what exactly that something was, he wasn’t sure. He knew he wanted her. And he also knew he didn’t want anyone else with their hands on her, either.
Things were just so easy with Sasha. He didn’t second-guess himself with her the way he did with everything else in his life. At the same time, he didn’t feel like they had to make any decisions right away. There was no pressure. He wasn’t seeing anyone, and to the best of his knowledge, she wasn’t seeing anyone else either.
“Hold on, Coulter,” Coach Tremblay said before Fox could follow his teammates down to the locker room to wash up and head out for the day.
“Yeah, Coach?” Fox asked, tucking his helmet tighter under his arm.
“Listen, Coulter, Henri’s been fighting off a cold the last week. You going in net the other day gave him a good rest, but he still hasn’t been able to shake it. He’s willing to play through it as best he can, but after how you did today, I’m thinking I might bench him tomorrow and see if we can’t get him a bit more rest to get rid of this thing once and for all.”
“You want me to start? Tomorrow?” Fox wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly.
“You’ve been doing well in the practices, and you held your own the other night,” Coach Tremblay nodded. “We’re not going up against the Rajun Cajuns, so it won’t be as high-pressured as some of the other games coming up on our schedule. I think you’re ready. What do you say? How do you think you’ve been doing?”
Fox fought to control his expression, but could tell from the amusement evident in Coach Tremblay’s that he was failing miserably. “I guess, I don’t know. I was just…in the zone earlier, but… Yeah, sure. I have to have my first home game sometime, right? Why not do it while things seem to clicking for me. Henri will be suited up and on the bench if I screw it up,” Fox said with a forced shrug.
Fox could see Tremblay’s lips pressed together, and he knew Coach wasn’t buying his bravado bullshit, but at least the man wasn’t calling him out on it.
“Then I’ll let Henri and the others know, and you’ll be on the roster for tomorrow afternoon,” Coach Tremblay told him. “You don’t have to go announcing it to the world, but if there are people you’d like to have there, I’d give them a call and then talk to the folks in the front office. They should be able to get you tickets for one of the boxes.”
“Okay,” Fox said, letting a grin sneak through. “Thanks, Coach.” He turned to head to the locker room. A few guys in the room remarked on his accomplishment during practice, which was a nice change from the sympathetic looks and murmurs of condolence following the announcement of his father’s illness. Even Martin, Gerry, and Dougie had made attempts at apologies following that revelation.
Martin cleared his throat. “I was going to head to the restaurant to apologize to your friend. I was an asshole.”
“She actually quit,” Fox said.
Martin frowned. “Shit, I hope it wasn’t over what I said to her that night.” He groaned. “I swear, I don’t remember. But I know I was mouthing off.”
“You weren’t the reason, Martin, but she told me what you said. And yes, it was that bad,” Fox assured him. “She’s working with Echo on her new line so she could stop waitressing. Dealing with guys like you is only one of the reasons she left.”
“Well, next time you see her, let her know I take back whatever horrible thing I said,” Martin said. “Unless she’s willing.”
Fox glared at his teammate. “Excuse me?”
“Sorry. Bad joke.”
“Why don’t you tell her yourself next time you see her,” Fox suggested. “I’ll see if I can get her to come one of the nights during the homestead.” Ideally it would be perfect if Fox could get her to agree to come the following day for his start in net. Nervous as he already was, knowing she’d be there was far more comforting than the thought of his parents being in the crowd. Of course if they were in the seats so soon after his father’s medical announcement, Fox knew the pressure he would wind up putting on himself would be difficult to manage.
Most of the other guys had already finished showering, so by the time Fox was finished, he had the locker room almost entirely to himself. He was pretty sure Sasha would either be between classes or at Echo’s design studio for a fitting or something, so he figured he should go ahead and take the risk of asking her if she’d be interested in coming to see him play.
He could invite her to dinner afterwards. His parents would probably want to do something like that, but they’d be okay with him bringing Sasha along. It could be a way of showing her that he was interested in making things between them more official. That he was comfortable with her in a situation where his parents would undoubtedly ask questions.
Fox switched on his phone and started looking through his messages and emails. Would it be better to call his parents or Sasha first? He knew he’d rather talk to Sasha, but talking with her could be like a reward for dealing with his parents.
He smiled at the thought of Sasha as a treat for his own good behavior, and absentmindedly flicked through h
is email messages, looking for the pictures he’d sent himself from her phone at the party the night before.
His heart beat faster with panic when he couldn’t find them. He couldn’t find them. They weren’t in his inbox. He tried a few searches but nothing came back.
Setting the phone on the bench beside him, he leaned his elbows on his thighs and rested his head in his hands, gripping his hair tightly in an effort to remember exactly what he’d done to her phone the night before. His memory of taking the pictures was crystal clear, as was every detail of what happened immediately after.
Instead of the familiar arousal usually inspired by the memory of Sasha lying naked with her legs splayed, ready and eager for him, Fox broke out into a cold sweat. His stomach felt like it couldn’t decide whether to drop like a stone or climb its way out through his esophagus.
There were two possibilities he could think of for what had happened. He prayed that what he’d done was delete the email with the photos when he’d intended to send it. He’d prefer to have accidentally deleted the photos altogether than the second and more likely mistake. But the sinking feeling in his gut told him that on some level he knew that he’d accidentally committed an error that was far worse. It was something he’d done before, though never with something so sensitive.
He’d sent the photos to the wrong person.
His big fingers and the small touchscreens of smartphones didn’t mix, and he was constantly hitting the wrong letters. He usually made a point of double-checking things before hitting the send button or confirming anything, but he still tended to receive emails in response from unintended recipients, alerting him to his error.
What made it all worse was that he’d sent the photos from Sasha’s phone. On his own phone, he had the addresses and phone numbers programmed in so the chances of him hitting the wrong thing were significantly smaller. But sending them from her phone… He couldn’t even go into the history to see who he’d accidentally sent them to.
The urge to vomit was strong. He dropped his head between his knees. What if she received one of those emails from some stranger wondering who she was, and why she’d sent them a bunch of nude pictures? Fuck. One of those pictures was…
He made a mad dash to the bathroom stall and got there just in time.
He’d fucking lost the intimate photos he’d taken of her—of them. While his face wasn’t in any of them, there was one part of himself that most certainly was…and her face was certainly visible in several of them.
Fuck. So much for his relationship with Sasha being uncomplicated. Now it was like everything else in his life that he’d managed to sabotage. Even if she could forgive him for this level of stupidity, he knew he’d never be able to live it down. Forget having any kind of romantic relationship with her. She’d never trust him again. He was suddenly making that prick Ryan look like a damn genius. Fox couldn’t even think of the guy as a prick anymore in good conscience, not when what he’d done was so dumb.
He picked himself off the floor and flushed the toilet, then moved to the sink to clean himself up. He couldn’t call her from the locker room. And calling her from Mars was out. He could wait at home for her to return and break the news to her in person. But still that felt like the coward’s way out, putting it off. Not to mention, the longer he waited to warn her and start looking into where the pictures might be, the greater the chances of the images being posted to some shady website.
He would head home and call her from the apartment. He just prayed there was some way he could undo the mistake.
Fourteen
“You’re not in the middle of something involving needles and pinning fabric, are you?” Fox asked cautiously.
“No,” Sasha told him. “We just got here and haven’t started yet. What’s up?” She glanced over her shoulder to where Echo and Jen had retreated to the other side of the room to give her privacy. She was relieved, because whatever Fox had called to say about the story, she knew there was a decent chance she was going to be upset in a way she wouldn’t want them to see.
“So, I discovered something today…” he began. Sasha moved to sit down, waiting for him to start accusing her of things and calling her names she probably deserved.
“Okay…”
“When…when I went to look for those pictures of you that I sent to my phone…”
Sasha blinked, confused, before a ripple of terror skittered over her skin. The hairs on her arms stood on end, ready for the coming fight-or-flight impulse. This wasn’t what she’d expected. What was going on?
“What about those pictures?” she asked slowly.
“I don’t have them.”
Sasha forced herself to take a deep breath. “What do you mean, you don’t have them? Who has them?”
He exhaled loudly on the other end. “I don’t know, exactly,” Fox admitted. “They’re on your phone,” he said, speaking quickly. “Unless you deleted them, which you probably should. And after I emailed them to myself last night, I should have checked right then and there to see if they came through. And if I’d thought to check then and there, maybe we could have stopped the message from going through or something—”
The bottom fell out of her world.
“You lost the pictures? What—? How could you do something like that to me?” Sasha exploded as the impact of what he was telling her sunk in.
“It was an accident and, to be fair, you were kind of distracting me at the time. And it was your phone instead of mine, you still don’t have my email address programmed in your phone,” he rambled on the other end of the line. “I’m so, so, so sorry and I’m going to do everything I can to get them back for you—”
“You can’t just get them back,” she shouted, no longer caring that Echo and Jen could hear her. “This is the digital age—once those things are out there, they’re out there forever.”
“It depends on who I accidentally sent them to,” he insisted. “If I can find out and get in touch with them, I might be able to convince them to just delete the photos, and it never goes beyond a few of us.”
“Did you do this on purpose?” A horrible thought shook her to her core.
“What? Of course not. Why would I do it on purpose? Those pictures were supposed to be for me to enjoy, and I promise I won’t ever try to do anything like—”
“To get back at me,” Sasha interrupted. “For the story today. Did you do this to get back at me for not telling you sooner?”
“Story? What story? Sasha, this was an accident, I swear,” he insisted.
“You saw that the station aired my story, and you realized it was about you and you got pissed, so you ‘accidentally’ lost the naked pictures of me,” she said. “You’re pissed at me and I get that, but… Seriously, Fox—those pictures could ruin my career. They’ll undermine everything I try to do as a journalist. It’ll make everything about my sex life for the rest of my life.”
“You did a story about me? And you think I’m mad at you for it?” Fox’s voice sounded hollow. “What exactly did you say about me?” It seemed like he tried to laugh, but it came out as more of a choking sound.
“For the record, it’s not really about you. I told them no, but they went ahead with the angle anyway,” she muttered, still focused on the tarnished image of the career she’d hoped to have. “What was I supposed to do? I was working on it for my final project for my internship, and the station decided to run it today because they had a scheduling problem for a different story. It aired at noon, and it’s up on the website. It’s just about the pressure put on young athletes.”
His voice went icy. “You did a story all about how I choke under pressure?”
Then she heard it. The hurt she’d been expecting from the beginning finally came through and dampened some of Sasha’s fury over the pictures.
“It’s…it’s not about you, Fox. I swear.” Sasha explained. “I just… Seeing you go through so much every time you had one of those tryouts was maybe the inspiration. But you’
re doing it,” she emphasized. “You’re doing great now with the team so…even if I got the idea because of—”
“Just stop, Sasha,” he interrupted. “I’m going to find out where those pictures ended up. If you… If you check your phone…you should be able to see in the sent mail or sent messages thing what I typed instead of my address. That…that will give me a place to start.” His voice was hollow, chilled.
“Fox… I’m… I meant to tell you about the story. I never thought the station would actually air it, and they didn’t give me much warning. I only found out this morning and when I went to your room, you’d already left for the day and—”
“You know what? Just forward it to me, okay? Forward me the typo email address, and I’ll take care of it. I’ve gotta go.” He hung up.
“Fox…” she said to the nothingness on the other end, then sighed and ended the call.
“When I told you that you should talk to him,” Echo said with gentle sarcasm, “that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
“I just…he lost some…”
“Pictures,” Jen finished for her. “We heard.”
“If they get out…and my boss sees them…or anyone at the station…or my professors…” Sasha agonized, each possibility striking her like a punch in the gut. “I’ll never have a career. Not the one I want. And I’ll never live down the…humiliation. The stigma will follow me forever.”
“Well, now, let’s not overreact,” Echo said, trying to calm her down. “How bad are these pictures?”
“Bad. You can’t see them.” Sasha said firmly.