Groupie (Juked Book 2)

by ME Carter

  “I doubt it. I was with Daniel with the news broke. He had to talk me down from beating anyone in the gym who saw it. He knows how volatile the situation is right now.”

  “Where are we going to stay, though? I thought she only had a two-bedroom. We can’t stay in the baby’s room.”

  “They’re going to Daniel’s.”

  “With the baby?”

  “Yeah, he said he has some sort of portable playpen thing Chance can sleep in.”

  “Okay,” she finally says. “We really need to swing by my place first, though. I don’t have anything with me.”

  “Already been there, babe,” I say as I change lanes. “I packed a few things for you.”

  “Did people knock on my door, too?”

  I take a moment to think. I don’t want to tell her the truth but don’t see any way around it. “Just one.”

  “Rowen. What aren’t you telling me?”

  I sigh. I can’t keep it from her, but I don’t know how much more she can take. “Your front door was vandalized.”

  “What?” she yells. “What do you mean, it’s been vandalized?”

  I squirm uncomfortably. “Someone spray-painted words on it.”

  “How? What did they spray paint on it?”

  “Words. Look babe,” I say, quickly trying to distract her from the harshness of the situation. “I already took pictures and got in touch with the apartment manager. They’re going to repaint it in the morning so it’ll all be done next time you’re there.”

  “What did it say?”

  I squirm again. “Please don’t make me tell you.”

  “I deserve to know.”

  I blow out a deep breath, trying to calm my nerves. Just thinking about it makes my blood boil. “It said ‘Tiffany Wendel is a groupie whore who deserves to be gang-raped.’”

  She sucks in a breath and stiffens but doesn’t say anything. I squeeze her hand tighter and rub my thumb over her knuckles.

  Ten minutes later, we’re standing on Quincy’s doorstep, bags in hand. The door swings open, and she ushers us in.

  There are suitcases by the door. Daniel is on the floor in the living room, blowing raspberries on baby Chance’s stomach.

  “Hey, guys,” he says. “How’s it going?” Snarling, I toss our bags on the couch. He chuckles. “That was probably the wrong question. I’ll change my greeting. Hey, guys. Glad you’re here.”

  “I’m so glad we could help you out,” Quincy says. “Tiffany, do you want me to show you around?”

  Tiffany follows her out of the room. I drop on the couch and lay my head back, looking at the ceiling.

  “Rough day?” Daniel asks facetiously.

  I puff out a laugh. “I wanna kill that fucker, man. I don’t even know how I’m supposed to feel about all this.”

  “I think pissed off is a good place to start.” Chance pats my leg, and I give him a small smile and rub his head.

  Daniel hands Chance a plastic book, and he immediately plops down on his butt and starts turning the pages.

  I rub my face. “I want Karma to bite him in the ass so bad. I don’t like using my dad for anything, but I really want to call in some favors right now.”

  “Nothing wrong with that,” Daniel says. “What’s the use in having connections if you don’t use them? But I really don’t think you’ll need them.”

  “How come?”

  “I’ve gotten a few phone calls myself today.”

  I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “Really.”

  He smirks. “It seems upper management of the Seagulls doesn’t look too kindly on stunts like this. Shivel may have gotten a good talking to today, and being that he just got there and is already known for being a hothead….”

  “There may be repercussions.”

  He nods. “Word is, it’s not pretty.”

  “How bad?” I ask, smiling for the first time since this shit storm started.

  Daniel wears a shit-eating grin. “Possible six-game suspension and $10,000 fine.”

  “Holy shit. There’s no way he can come back from that at the caliber he needs to be a starter.”

  “Yep.”

  “His career is basically over.”

  “Yep.”

  A chuckle escapes me. “I can’t believe that asshole finally stepped on a landmine, and better yet, one he planted.”

  “That’s not all,” Daniel adds, picking up a yawning Chance, who immediately puts his head on Daniel’s shoulder. “Guess who gets to be the team spokesperson tomorrow when we let reporters into the locker room?”

  “No way.” He nods, and all I can do is stare at him. Reporters never come into the locker room after practice, mostly because no one ever requests interviews unless it’s after a game.

  “Don’t worry, Rookie. We’ll take care of your girl.” He stands and sways back and forth. “I don’t care how she met the players. You don’t mess with a WAG and expect to get away with it.”

  None of this takes away the humiliation Tiffany is feeling, and it doesn’t prevent millions of people from finding that degrading picture, but the pain in my chest eases, knowing we have friends supporting us. Even Mack Shivel can’t take that away.

  I should turn my phone on in case Rowen calls, but I can’t. I just can’t. The one time I looked at it last night, I had eighty-seven missed calls, a hundred and four text messages, and I don’t even know how many voice messages. After the eighth or ninth text saying something derogatory about my breasts, Rowen took the phone away and wouldn’t give it back.

  The only reason he left it with me this morning is in case of an emergency while he’s at practice.

  An emergency. That’s a laugh. What kind of an emergency could happen when I’ve been curled up in this bed all day? I only got up once to use the bathroom, and I felt too vulnerable without the comfort of the covers, so I went right back to bed.

  I want desperately to fall asleep so I can have a few hours of reprieve from this nightmare, but it doesn’t help. Instead, it’s a never-ending cycle of dreams, and in them I am naked and touching myself. I’m really into it, into making Rowen hot for me. But when I look up, I’m on a stage, and there are thousands upon thousands of people looking at me. They’re laughing and leering, and I try to stop touching myself, but I can’t. I keep masturbating in front of these strangers, who are taking pictures of me. I’m crying and feel violated, and there’s nothing I can do to stop until I wake up.

  Needless to say, sleep isn’t really a good option. Instead, I lay on my side, knees pulled up to my chest, and stare at the wall.

  The irony of it all is you would think I wouldn’t care about a naked picture of me getting splashed all over the internet. I’ve never been shy about my body. It’s beautiful, and there is something empowering about sex, but this feels different. Any time I stripped for the guys, or someone watched me have sex, it was with my permission. It was with people I trusted. It was done for mutual pleasure. It wasn’t done with malicious intent.

  This was most definitely done with malicious intent.

  Maybe the worst part of it all is that it was done by a man I called my friend. I feel stupid and duped. Rowen told me over and over that he was a bad guy, that he couldn’t be trusted but I didn’t believe him. I thought it was just a personality conflict or normal alpha male competition. I never in a million years would have thought Mack could stoop this low. And that makes me question all my friendships with the guys. How many of them have pictures I don’t know about? How many of them will post them online or even try to make money off of them?

  The thoughts are overwhelming and make me want to curl into a ball and hide away forever. I want to just climb out of my skin.

  Instead, I pull a pillow over my head and wrap the covers around me in a completely irrational attempt to protect myself from further humiliation, and I cry.

  Someone rubs my back, and I peek out from my hiding spot. “Rowen?”

  “No, sorry. They’re still at practice.�
� I uncover further to see Quincy sitting next to me. “I came to check on you. Have you eaten anything yet today?”

  I shake my head and sit up. “My stomach is tied in knots. If I tried to eat, I think I’d throw it right back up.”

  She sits against the headboard and stretches out her legs. “I totally understand that. I’m the same way. When I had to go to court over Chance, I didn’t eat for, like, a month. Food was revolting.”

  “Where is the baby, anyway?”

  “He’s with Geni. I didn’t want to have to chase him around while I was checking on you.”

  A fresh wave of humiliation hits me, and I groan. “Ohgod. Geni saw the picture, didn’t she?” Quincy doesn’t say anything, just scrunches her nose. I pull the blankets back over my head. “I don’t think I can take it. I can’t even imagine some of the things she’s going to say to me.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” Quincy says, pulling the covers off my face. “She was pretty pissed off by the whole thing.”

  I look at her in disbelief. “Geni was?”

  “Yup. She told me to tell you to… hold on. Let me make sure I get it right.” She closes her eyes to think for a second. “She says to ‘Suck it up, Buttercup. If that douchebag motherfucker ever shows his face in town again, she will rip his sac off with her teeth. No one calls you a whore except her’.”

  I snort a laugh. “That may be the nicest thing she’s ever said to me.”

  “That’s about as good as it gets with her. She must really like you.”

  “She’s the only one right now.”

  Quincy pats my leg. “I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but there are a lot of people in your corner.”

  I give her a weak smile. “I appreciate hearing that, Quincy. But except for Rowen, I think you might be the only one.”

  I roll away from her and pull the covers back over my head, hiding again.

  “Thanks for waiting for me.”

  “No problem,” Daniel says as he checks his blind spot and changes lanes. “I wasn’t sure how many cameras would try to follow you out of practice, and I figured this would be better.”

  “I don’t think they’re going to follow us anymore. They’ve got what they wanted—a sensational picture and some emotional video of us walking to my car. I just wish they’d stop calling for interviews.”

  “You gonna do one?”

  “Hell, no. We’re gonna lay low, let it die down, and wait for everyone to forget.”

  “I’m surprised you aren’t taking legal action. If it was Quincy… damn, man.” He shakes his head. “I would be all over getting an attorney involved.”

  I sigh. “We talked about it last night. There’s not a lot we can do.”

  “Really? It seems like this should be illegal somehow, ya know?”

  “We looked into some voyeurism law that’s supposed to protect people.”

  “And?”

  “And we could spend thousands of dollars in attorney fees to try and prove she didn’t give consent for that picture to be taken and didn’t give permission for it to be shared.”

  “Uh-huh,” he says with a questioning tone.

  I look at him, one eyebrow cocked. “You’ve known her for a long time. You telling me there’s irrefutable evidence in our favor?”

  “Oh. Gotcha.”

  “There’s no reason to put her reputation on trial. She’s not that person anymore. I know it. She knows it. It’s better to let the whole thing die down. Pisses me off, but the sooner that picture is buried under other celebrity gossip, the better.”

  We exit off the freeway. “What did Coach say when you asked him for family leave?”

  I chuckle. “First thing he said is I deserve to be stuck doing conditioning with my dad for a few days, because it’ll be a hell of a lot harder than what I’d do here.” Daniel laughs. “And then he told me to get my ass out of town until my suspension is over. I’m not benefiting the team by being here anyway. I might as well get her out of the shit storm.”

  “What time do you fly out tonight?”

  “We got a red-eye. I hate those trips, but people are so tired that late at night, they usually don’t interact with each other.”

  He pulls into the parking lot, and we get out of the car, walking quickly to the door. He lets us in, and Quincy greets Daniel with a kiss as soon as we throw our gym bags down.

  “How was practice?” she asks Daniel.

  He shrugs. “Same ol’, same ol’. There were a few extra reporters, but nothing we weren’t expecting.”

  “How’s she doing?” I ask.

  She looks at me and sighs. “Not very well.” I drop my head. “She still thinks she deserves this.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I grumble and scratch my jaw.

  “I agree. But it’ll take her a little time to believe it for herself. She’s right smack in the middle of an online mob scene, complete with figurative pitchforks and torches. You’re just going to need to keep reassuring her for a while.”

  “Did she at least eat something?”

  “She had some of the broth Daniel’s mom brought over last night,” she says. “It’s not much, but at least she got some calories in her.”

  “Thanks for checking on her,” I say. “I can take it from here. I know you have a kiddo to get back to.”

  “What time do you need a ride to the airport?” Daniel asks as he fist bumps me on his way out.

  “Eleven. We board at twelve thirty.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  I close the door behind them and immediately go to Tiffany. I didn’t like leaving her this morning, but I had to go to work and get everything sorted so we could leave. I make a mental note to get her a new phone number as soon as we get to Detroit. I wanted to do it today, but I ran out of time.

  I find her exactly as I left her—hiding under the covers in Quincy’s bed. I slip off my shoes and socks and climb in behind her. “Hey, baby,” I whisper in her ear. She immediately rolls over and snuggles next to me, tucking her arms between us. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like shit,” she says in a muffled voice. “Is it over yet? Have people stopped talking about me?”

  I kiss her on top of the head. She knows the answer. “Did you get up at all today?”

  “Just to pee.”

  “No wonder you kind of stink,” I chide gently. “Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up. We have a flight to catch.”

  “What flight? Where are we going?”

  “We need to get out of town for a while.” I smooth her hair. “We’re gonna head up to Detroit and hang out. My parents live in a quiet, gated neighborhood. We’ll be less exposed there.”

  I feel her nod. Throwing the covers off of us, I lead her to the bathroom. It’s not big, but it does have a garden tub. I turn on the water, squeeze shampoo in the stream to start the bubbles, and whip my shirt over my head.

  Tiffany has a strange look on her face. “I was gonna get in with you. Not for anything sexual or anything. Is that okay?”

  She nods and drops her pajama pants to the floor. When she reaches for the hem of her shirt, though, she hesitates. I close my eyes and swallow. Because in this moment, I realize how broken she is.

  Tiffany has never been ashamed of her body, and now she’s embarrassed to be naked in front of me. I am pissed off, but it is overshadowed by how sad I am for my girl.

  I take the hem of her shirt out of her hands. “Do not ever be ashamed of who you are.” Her eyes fill with tears. “I am not ashamed of who you are.” The tears overflow and slide down her cheeks. I remove her shirt then cup her face in my hands. “You are the most beautiful thing in the world to me. And no one, no one, can ever take that away.”

  “I just… I—”

  “I get it. It’s gonna take some time for this to blow over and for you feel normal again, but I’m not leaving you. We’re in this together, okay?”

  A sob escapes her throat. I push her panties down and rid myself of my own clothes. Leadi
ng her to the tub, I help her climb in so she doesn’t fall. I situate her in front of me, and wash her from head to toe. I make sure not to miss any part of her—her beautiful arms and legs that I love having wrapped around me; her graceful neck and shoulders; her full breasts and flat stomach; her most private areas that I consider myself lucky to be able to touch. I try to convey how much reverence I have for her in my touch. To show her how precious she is to me.

  “I love you, Rowen,” she says, her voice breaking with emotion.

  “I love you, too, Tiffany. So, so much.”

  And I mean it with everything in me.

  I hide behind a magazine in the airport terminal. Rationally, I know everyone is not looking at me, but it feels like they are. When the security agent looked at my driver’s license and snickered, I thought Rowen was going to come unglued.

  Rowen’s hand rests on my knee. He hasn’t stopped touching me since we took a bath together. He thinks he’s reassuring me, and he is, but I don’t think he realizes he’s also reassuring himself. I know this has been hard on him.

  “Tell me about them.”

  I look up. “What?”

  “That couple, standing by the bathrooms over there.” He inclines his head in their direction. “What’s their story?”

  “Are you trying to distract me from my thoughts?” I ask.

  He smiles like he just got caught. “Tell me their story.”

  I watch them for a while. He can’t stop touching her. Her arm, her back, her shoulder. She gives him shy smiles and bites her lip. She doesn’t look very old. Maybe mid-20s. He looks to be in his early 30s. They aren’t dressed for relaxation, like the rest of us. They’re wearing stylish jeans and cable knit sweaters.

  “They’re eloping,” I whisper. “They’ve only been dating a short time and not even their families know how serious they are about each other. But they are confident they are meant to be together.”

  “Nicely done,” he says. “But you’re wrong.”

  “What do you think their story is?”

  He clears his throat and leans in. “She’s the other woman.”