Catching Cameron: A Love and Football Novel (10 page)

She would know Zach’s voice anywhere. She couldn’t imagine why she’d been stupid enough to open the door to him in the first place. She’d like to spend the evening dwelling on her stupidity (again) and having a glass of wine or two, but the only alcohol currently available to her was a beer vending machine at the end of the hall. She didn’t need the calories or the bloat. Then again, if the Junk Food Fairy dropped off a shopping cart full of chips, cookies, and ice cream, she’d eat her way through it right now.

There had to be another guy on the face of the earth she wanted more than she still wanted Zach. She hadn’t met him. She’d tried. He was still the only one who cared enough to listen to her when she’d confided her dreams for the future during their three-day marriage, the only one who made her feel like the things she wanted to do in life were important and would make her happy. Maybe she should get over her hopes of a man who found her ambitions and goals in life were as important as his own.

Maybe he wasn’t what he’d seemed after all. Maybe she was wrong, and she’d made another colossal mistake.

“Kacee? Kacee, is that you?” She could hear a tremendous amount of racket in the background. The guys in the production room must be arguing about something.

“Yeah. Cam, the production group wants to talk to you. Will you come down here?” Kacee shouted into the phone.

“The interview’s done.”

“Uh, they don’t think so,” she said. “They want a meeting. Right now.”

“Can’t it wait till tomorrow? I’d like to get some sleep.”

“If you don’t get down here, they’ll come up there after you,” Kacee said. “We’re in the studio. Ben is flipping out.”

Cameron could hear him in the background, too. She stifled what she’d like to say and grabbed a pair of jeans and a shirt out of her suitcase. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

She hit the button to end the call, pulled her clothes on, and jammed her feet into running shoes. She stuck her phone and room key into a side pocket. She swiped at her face with her fingertips one more time, but it wasn’t going to do any good. She wished she had time to scrub her face with the washcloth again. Maybe her glasses would hide the tell-tale redness of recent tears in her eyes and on her cheeks.

She pulled the dorm room open, walked through it, and came to a dead stop. Zach was leaning against the wall a few feet from her doorway. The nervous, jittery feelings she had whenever he was nearby returned with a vengeance.

“I heard there’s a meeting,” he said. “Why don’t we walk downstairs together?”

“I’ll be fine.”

She wasn’t going to wait for him or ask how he knew she was wanted downstairs. He was still trying to talk with her as she hurried down the stairs to the first floor of the facility.

“So, the big boss is unhappy about something.”

“I don’t know what’s going on. He doesn’t usually call a meeting at ten pm, especially when it’s been a long day already.” She faced a hallway full of even more doors, and she had no idea which was the correct door to the PSN temporary studio. She was upset, frustrated, lost, and wished she didn’t have to ask for his help again. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be any way around it at the moment. “I also don’t know where I’m going,” she said.

“Good thing I’m here,” he said. She saw a grin spread over his face. “Follow me.” He managed to find the correct door and get them through it. She broke into a sprint as she saw the studio door open.

Ben walked into the hallway and folded his arms over his chest.

“When were you planning on telling me that we’re missing the whole story here?”

Z
ACH WATCHED THE
color drain out of Cameron’s face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. She folded her arms across her chest, too. Ben nodded at Zach. Zach didn’t nod in return.

“You were married to each other. You have kept this a secret for how many years? You didn’t tell us before the initial interview, and you didn’t tell us before you got here. Why not? Didn’t you think we might want to know and explore this as part of
Third and Long
?”

“Ben, my private life won’t be used as the plot of a TV program. I’m not interested in having people I’ve never met speculate on things that aren’t their business in the first place. I don’t give my consent to have any details about our former marriage aired, either.” Zach saw color surging into Cameron’s face as she spoke. “Please expect a call from my agent on this subject.”

Ben interrupted her. “Come on now. Everyone’s doing it. Plus, it will generate huge ratings. Do you know how many women from eighteen to forty-eight will tune in to see another female dealing with her ex-husband in close quarters for a month?” He rubbed his hands together. “This is a prime viewer demographic, too. We’ll get huge ratings and a ton of advertising dollars. It’s genius, and I can’t wait.” His excitement was tangible. He practically bounced up and down as he spoke. “I’ll get the writers to work on this right now.”

“Writers?” Cameron said.

“Oh,
hell
no,” Zach said. “I’m not interested.”

“You wouldn’t ask Kevin to expose his private life on-camera,” Cameron said. “Why are you asking me?”

“Zach, you’ll cooperate with us,” Ben said. “It would be great for the team, too. I know they’ll be impressed with your initiative.”

“Cooperate with what? I’m not really into this either—” Zach said.

Ben cut him off. “I think the Sharks will feel differently. It’s a great human-interest story.” Ben was rubbing his hands together again. “Maybe you should go get some sleep. We’re going to have quite a day tomorrow.”

Chapter Nine

C
AMERON WATCHED
B
EN
pull the studio door open and vanish through it seconds later.

“Where are you going, Ben?” Zach asked.

The door clicked closed. Zach reached out for the doorknob and tugged. It was locked. He pounded on the door with one fist. Nobody answered it.

“Open the damn door!” he shouted.

Cameron pounded on the door a few times, too. “Why are they ignoring us?”

“I don’t know, but I’m getting to the bottom of this.” He pounded on the door one last time, called out, “This isn’t over!” and reached out to take Cameron’s elbow in his fingertips. “We need to strategize.”

He’d moved closer. She backed up instinctively. He followed her, one step at a time. She stopped. He did, too.

“I can’t believe he just walked away from us. Why is he locking me out of the studio? I
work
for him. Plus, Kacee’s in there. I need to find out what’s going on.” She pulled her smart phone out of the pocket of her jeans and hit Kacee’s cell number.

The call went to voicemail. Cameron tried calling again, and got the same result. “Hey, Kacee, I need to talk with you,” Cameron said. “Call me back ASAP.” She ended the call. Zach still held onto her elbow, which was a little weird, but nice. She thought about yanking her arm out of his grasp, but he was already tugging her away from the studio door.

“Come on,” he said.

“I need to call my agent. Maybe I should go back to my room. I—”

He pulled her through another doorway, cut through the silent weight room, and pushed open a glass door leading onto the practice field.

A sliver of moon illuminated a thousand stars above them. Wispy clouds marked an otherwise clear sky. A slight breeze mussed his hair. He still held her elbow.

“Walk with me,” he said.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” Cameron told him. “I need to go upstairs and make a few calls. I’m pretty sure my contract forbids my private life being used as a plot point for a reality program. Plus, I think I should get some sleep.”

He ignored the fact she was still telling him why this was the worst idea ever, and dropped her elbow long enough to hold out his arm for her to take.

“You’ll sleep a little better if we take a walk.”

“I’m not sure you get why this is such a disaster.” She ignored his arm and took a few steps away from him. He caught up with her.

“Of course I do. I don’t need the few things I can still keep private splashed all over PSN for everyone’s entertainment.” He let out a sigh. “I really don’t care to enthrall sports fans everywhere with the story of our marriage.” His fingertips brushed the small of her back as he guided her onto the grassy practice field. It felt like an electrical charge.

“You’d wonder to yourself why anyone else would care.”

The dew hadn’t fallen yet. Their feet made
swish-swish
sounds as they walked in the carefully manicured grass. She breathed in clean, rain-washed air and the warm smell of recent sunshine.

She heard a snort, and the smile in his voice. “Oh, they’ll care. Imagine what would happen if Erin Andrews announced she was secretly married to JJ Watt.”

“The Internet would explode.”

“There would be a one-hour ESPN special on the subject.”

“He’d be the envy of every guy in America,” Cameron mused.

Zach stopped. She wondered what was wrong, so she stopped, too.

His hand brushed hers. “Kind of like I’ll be when this gets out,” he said.

His eyes were hidden in shadow. She couldn’t see their expression unless she got closer, and right now, getting closer was asking for it. She stifled a sigh of her own. There were a few topics that needed discussing between them, but right now she was too freaking tired—and, too attracted to him, if she was truthful—to even have the conversation.

He was even more gorgeous than he’d been ten years ago. He’d added muscle. She could see the laugh lines bracketing his full lips and the crinkles at either side of his eyes. Maybe he’d been with someone that made him happy; he’d learned to laugh since she last saw him up-close.

Maybe she should find someone that made her happy, too.

“So,” he said, “Let’s start with the easy stuff.” His fingertips brushed her lower back again, and she fell into step next to him. “You asked me why I left you.”

Her head shot up. She opened her mouth to speak, and the phone in her pocket rang. His phone rang, too. She looked at her agent’s smiling face on her phone’s screen.

“Excuse me for a moment,” he said. He stabbed at the button to answer his call. “Hey there,” he told his caller.

He listened for a few moments. Her phone was still going off, but she sent the call to voicemail. “Well, thanks for the update. I’m in the middle of something,” he said. “I’ll call you back in a few minutes.” He ended his call.

“What happened?” she said.

“My agent would like us to know that not only is our little secret out, they’re still talking about the story on
SportsCenter
. NFL Network has it on a perma-crawl. We’re also trending nationally on Twitter.”

“What do we do now?”

“Hang on and enjoy the ride,” he said.

Z
ACH’S GRAND PLAN
of an evening walk and a conversation with Cameron was spoiled by two perma-ringing cell phones and her agent’s hysterics. Cameron was currently trying to soothe the agent, who was screeching over speaker phone.

“Did you think this
might
be something you should have told me awhile ago? What exactly is it you’re expecting me to do now?” her agent screeched.

Zach reached out to take the phone out of Cameron’s hand. “Hello, this is Zach Anderson.” Cameron tried to reclaim her phone. He turned away from her while he spoke. “She’s much too polite to tell you what you’re supposed to be doing right now, so I’ll do it for her. You need to do your job. She didn’t keep this to herself to inconvenience you.” He let out a breath. “Call PSN’s ownership and management and tell them Cameron’s personal life isn’t for sale. Tonight.”

“You have no right to tell me what to do,” the agent sputtered.

“No, I don’t, but I will, and I’ll keep doing it until I see some action,” Zach said.

Cameron was still trying to grab the phone out of his hand. “Just a moment, Laurie,” she called out.

“Let’s put it this way,” Zach continued. “If you’d pulled anything like this with me, I would have fired you a long time ago. You work for her, not the other way around.”

Cameron had now resorted to running in little half-circles around him and trying to grab the hand holding her phone. It would be funny if he didn’t see the infuriated look in her eyes.

“You have no idea what I went through to get this job for Cameron, and the clean-up I’ve had to do over the past week after her little outburst. Instead of handling her business off-camera, she brought everyone into it. She—”

Zach hit the button on her phone to disconnect the call. Cameron grabbed the phone out of his hand at last.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing? You just hung up on my agent!”

“She’ll call back,” he told her.

“It doesn’t matter! Why are you screwing around with my career? You can’t do this. Now I’m going to have to call her back and apologize, and I’d rather avoid that.” Cameron’s phone was ringing again. She poked at the screen, and he heard the phone vibrating with calls as she slid it back into her pocket.

His phone was vibrating, too. He knew he was going to have to answer it at some point, but he also knew they probably had only a few minutes before all hell broke loose for both of them. He took a couple of deep breaths and glanced up at the starry sky.

“You’re right. I shouldn’t have gone after her, but she’s not doing you a favor, Cameron. She shouldn’t be treating you badly because you didn’t tell her something that isn’t any of her business in the first place.” Cameron looked at the grass under their feet and wrapped her arms around her midsection again. “If you want me to call her back and apologize, I’ll do it.”

“It’s nice of you to offer.” Her voice was scratchy. She cleared her throat. She glanced up at him again.

“My agent wants to talk to me, too.”

“Maybe they’ll keep us after class and make us clean the erasers,” she said.

“I always hated that when I was a kid.” He let out a sigh. She shuffled her feet, and clasped her hands in front of her. The silence was broken by a male voice shouting from one of the facility’s windows.

“Hey, dickweed. NFL Network just called McCoy looking for a quote. McCoy told them Cameron Online left you because you couldn’t get it up. You might want to get your ass back in here.”