Page 54 of Dirty As Puck
Rochelle exhales slowly and sets the phone facedown this time. “It’s complicated.”
“Yeah,” I murmur. “I’m starting to see that.”
The silence that follows isn’t comfortable anymore. It’s heavy, thick with all the words that we aren’t saying. The connection wehad a moment ago that felt fragile and came unexpected, now feels like it’s retreating back behind her ribcage, brick by brick.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and start looking for my shirt. “You should answer him,” I say finally. “Wouldn’t want to miss your deadline.”
She doesn’t move. Just watches me, lips parted like she wants to argue but knows I’m right.
“Is that what you think?” she asks quietly.
I meet her eyes over my shoulder. “I think I forgot what you do for a living, for a minute. That’s on me.”
Neither of us says anything after that. The phone lights up again, with a quiet vibration against the wood, and now the room feels colder than it did an hour ago.
19
The hotel room is dark except for the faint glow of my laptop screen, and the city lights flickering just beyond the window. It’s well past midnight, and the world outside is winding down, but I’m still wide awake, my fingers flying over keys, with tabs on my browser multiplying like rabbits.
Kai Morrison’s name is everywhere as usual. Headlines, old articles, gossip blurbs. Half of it is just noise––women linked to him, speculation about his temper, and photos taken out of context. But buried under all that glitter and smoke is something far uglier.
A coroner’s detailed report on his mother’s overdose.
I stare at the words for too long, my stomach turning. She died in his apartment. No charges were filed, but the photos, God, the photos were leaked to the press not long after. I remember the media storm vaguely, from years ago. They made it look like a scandal, not the tragedy that it is.
I dig deeper, tracing payment histories tied to those leaks. It starts to form a pattern. Small, steady payouts over several years, each one coinciding with a conveniently timed tabloid story. Anonymous tipsters, always routed through the same shell accounts.
Someone close to him has been feeding stories the wolves that are out to get him.
I rub my temple, trying to quiet the noise in my head. This isn’t what Marcus wants. He wants scandal, something flashy and mildly damaging. But this? This is a wound. A raw, festering wound someone keeps tearing open for money.
My chest tightens, not with triumph, but with anger. I feel anger for him.
And that’s the part that scares me, because I shouldn’t care this much. I’m supposed to be the observer, the reporter. I’m supposed to disassociate and be detached. But somewhere between the ice and the hotel walls and the feel of his hands on me, I’ve crossed that invisible line.
I close one of the tabs, and then another, but the damage is already done. I know too much now. And the worst part, I want to protect him from it.
The cursor blinks at me, like it’s waiting. My coffee’s gone cold, my shoulders ache, but I keep digging. I can’t stop now.
The payments I flagged earlier weren’t just random tips. The same account keeps surfacing, feeding multiple gossip sites over the years, and the timeline is always around key moments in Kai’s career. Big wins, injuries, personal losses. Every time he’s vulnerable, something ugly gets leaked.
I pull phone records next, the ones tied to a handful of names I’ve seen in the old press releases and team announcements. And there it is. A string of calls, always from the same unlisted number, always connecting to the same two tabloid editors.
My breath catches as I realize that this isn’t some opportunistic stranger. This is someone with access. Someone who knows when and exactly where to strike.
The realization hits with the force of a body slamming a wall. Kai’s been stalked from the inside. Every scandal, every photo, every humiliating headline was fed by a ghost hiding in plain sight.
I scroll through the timeline again, piecing together the pieces of the betrayal. It started small, and seemingly harmless. A blurry photo of him leaving a club, then a story about a heated argument at practice. But then the leaks sharpened. There’s the bar fight. His mother’s overdose. Details no outsider could possibly know unless they were close. I’d say too close.
A sour taste fills my mouth. Because while I’m here, unraveling the threads of his private life, I’m part of the same machine. I may not have sold his secrets, but I’ve circled his walls, pressed against his defenses, taken information that wasn’t freely offered.
I lean back in the chair, rubbing the bridge of my nose. My editor would salivate over this. Marcus would package it, spin it, weaponize it. I can already hear his voice saying, “This is gold, Winters. Don’t overthink it.”
But it’s not gold. It’s blood and destruction of a career.
I think of Kai, his guarded looks, the sharp edges he wears like armor, the rare flashes of something real beneath it. I think of how he makes love, that look in his eyes when I make him come.
And now I know why he has those walls up, why he doesn’t trust anyone so easily. Someone has been profiting off his pain for years.
