7. Olivia

"What is this?" I ask as Tim, my manager, slides a newspaper towards me.

I stare down at it. It's a badly photocopied article on Miles from some British newspaper. It's not new, but the message is clear enough. King of Camden Caught with his Trousers Down Again! reads one headline. There's a picture of Miles and it's distasteful, to say the least. Fortunately, it's also pixelated in all the right places.

The other articles are much the same; pictures of him wrapped around girls, stories of him half-naked. None of them make for easy reading. "Tim, I've seen all this a dozen times. What's your point?"

Tim gives me a stern look, then drops another paper in front of me. It's our local sports magazine, open on a single page spread with a relatively flattering picture of Miles on the pitch. Bad Boy on Break, it announces.

I skim through the words. Most of them are nice enough, and though there"s some mention of his less-than-savory behavior, overall they seem to think that having Miles here will be nothing but a good thing for the Macaws.

"This is the kind of press we're getting now," says Tim.

I'm still struggling to see what exactly he's called me in for. I've been shown all these photocopies again and again, I don't need to see them now. "It could be worse…" I say.

Tim's face hardens from marble to granite. "Yes. It could be. But you will not let it get worse."

"I know. I"m trying," I sigh. "Do you know how hard it is to?—"

"I don"t want to hear any excuses," he interrupts. "I don"t want to hear reasons or apologies. I just want Miles's name kept out of all of the press."

"All press," I repeat slowly.

He nods. "I don't want so much as to read an allusion to him."

"He's allowed a life," I say, unable to stop myself jumping to Miles's defense. "I can't keep watch over him twenty-four seven."

"You can damn well try!" Tim snaps. "Look at this."

He flips around what looks like a printout of some text messages between him and Chase Colcord, a journalist whom anyone in our line of business knows as one of the most notorious and persistent reporters in the area. The messages don't bring me joy either.

Saw your new start out and about the other day. He looks like a hothead.I'll be keeping a close eye on him. I smell a juicy story in that one.

My heart sinks at how much more difficult my job just got.

Tim stares me down, making my stomach flip so hard I think I might be sick. "I do not want Colcord to get even so much as a sniff of trouble out of Miles. I hold your contract in my hands, remember? I can let you go anytime I like. Do you understand me?"

I walk out of the meeting disheartened and more than a little nauseous. If only I could explain this to Miles in a way he would understand or listen to. I know he thinks trying to wind me up is funny. But he doesn't seem to understand what"s at stake for either of us. I doubt more bad press would do him any good either. If he was sensible, he'd just keep it in his pants, keep his head down and play.

But he"s idiotic and boneheaded, so that"s never gonna happen.

I walk slowly out to the parking lot, feeling like I'm dragging weights behind me on my ankles. Not even the spring sun can cheer me up today, even though it"s warm and bright on my skin. I need a vacation.

I slump down miserably into my car and pull out my phone. No messages. Makes a change — Miles usually texts me about a thousand times a day to comment on stuff he sees or to demand things from me. My thumb opens up one of the dating apps I know Miles uses before my brain can really think it through.

It feels almost stalkerish to be doing this. I've set up my own profiles to keep watch over him, and I'm justifying it to myself by telling myself it"s for the good of us both. I probably shouldn't be chatting him up under a false name, but I figure that as long as he's chatting to me, he's less likely to be chatting up some other blonde bombshell who would be stupid enough to lead him into trouble.

Sure enough, he's sent me another six messages on one app, and a couple on another. I guess the stock images of a pretty young blonde I picked were spot-on. I guess he has a type, after all. I don"t know why, but I find it almost disappointing to know exactly how opposite his type is to me.

Hey, sweet thing, he's typed. Wanna meet sometime? I'm ready to make you feel so good.

My heart leaps into my mouth. This is so many levels of wrong and none of my options here are good. The longer I keep putting him off, the more likely he is to drop me and find someone else on the app — someone who is actually willing to hop into bed with him. But setting up a time and date to meet feels a little bit too much like I've led him on.

How would a normal person even reply to that message, anyway?

My palms sweating, I text back, When do you want to invite me over?

It feels like a lame thing to say, but I'm not exactly well-versed in flirting, in text or in person. I"ve never really had time for things like boyfriends before. I've never really felt like I"ve been missing out either, though. It"s one of those things that I always figured I"d get round to later. Later, just hasn"t really occurred yet.

His reply is almost immediate. I'm free tonight if you are. I'd love to get my hands all over that sexy body.

I swallow hard. Give me a time and an address, I type back with a winky face thrown in for good measure. I"ll be there.

He sends me his address, but I don't need it. I already know where he lives. I just have to decide what to do next.

It's only when I'm standing outside his door that I realize I should have sent a decoy over instead of me. This seemed like a great idea on paper, but now I'm actually here in front of his home, I'm starting to think that maybe I've gone just a bit too far.

My fist shakes as I hesitate from knocking. Am I nervous or do I just feel stupid about this whole idea? I think actually the knot in my stomach is guilt. I"ve lied to him. And when he finds out he"s going to be furious, or upset, or both. It"s hard to tell.

Everything is hard to tell with Miles. He makes me feel things that I didn"t even know had names.

Still, he"s expecting someone to show up, even if that someone is a busty young blonde rather than his Mexican-American stalker. I don't feel like ghosting him nor do I trust him not to go out anyway if I don't show. Plus, the pizza I've brought is getting colder by the second and I've got way too much for one person to eat.

I've only got one option, so I lift my fist and bang it against the door.

I hear footsteps approaching from within, and then the metal of the latch clanking as he unlocks it. He's grinning like a Cheshire Cat, but his face falls the second he opens the door and sees me.

"Hey," I say lamely, not sure what else I'm meant to say now.

"Olivia? What are you doing here?" He blinks in confusion, his eyebrows knitting together. A strong hint of cologne fills the air and I realize that he's dressed up for this and everything.

Mock-shyly, I bat my eyelashes. "I think you should call me Marie. Marie Samuels." His eyes fill with horror and that guilty knot twists a little tighter in my stomach.

Slowly, he says, "It was you…" Then he clearly regains the ability to think because he snaps, "What the hell, dude?"

I try a smile. "I"m sorry. I just couldn"t think of another way of stopping you from going out."

"Did you try asking?" He folds his arms and leans against the doorframe.

"Yes," I say, a hard edge slipping into my voice. I can't help it. He's annoying. "Repeatedly, sixteen or seventeen times a day." His mouth opens and closes at that because he has no defense. Neither of us are exactly angels here. "So can I come in?" I ask.

"Why?" he manages, like a single syllable is all he has in him.

"Well," I stammer, realizing I don't exactly have a good reason. "I"ve come all this way; I might as well share this pizza with you or something." I lift the box of pizza up so he can smell it.

His stomach growls and he scowls as he steps back from the doorway. "Fine. But only because you brought food and I'm hungry."

I slide into his apartment and hate how familiar it all is to me. It looks more like a home now than it did before, more lived-in than showroom. He's stuck some posters up on the wall and taken most of his stuff out of the boxes. There's a lot of it, and the decor isn"t what I would have thought it would be. I was expecting him to be a minimalistic man, the kind of decoration with absolutely no style or substance. Maybe one or two soccer mementos.

But there's stuff everywhere — little toys and ornaments, posters and kitchenware. Even though it's scattered and disorganized, there is a theme to most of it. He clearly likes the color green. He clearly likes stripes. He clearly likes soccer more than anything.

I dump the pizza on the kitchen counter and open it up. I"ve been breathing in the smell of cheese the entire way here and I'm starving now.

"What have you got?" Miles asks, leaning over my shoulder to try and get a look.

"One cheese, one pepperoni," I say. "I thought I"d keep it simple."

"Nice," he says, reaching in and grabbing a slice to shove in his mouth. I can't help but laugh at him. It"s times like this, these little moments when he lets his guard down, that I remember he's human. "So what do you want to do?"

I reach into my handbag to pull out a large bottle of tequila. "Since your plan was probably to go out and get smashed, I thought why not do that, but from the comfort of your own home?"

His face lights up at the sight of the bottle. "I"m starting to like the way you think," he says with a grin.

"Finally," I huff, pretending to be mad about it. He shakes his head at me like a lost puppy.

I think for a second that he's about to say something else playful, but then he stops. I'm relieved — because I definitely can"t have a conversation more heartfelt than this without some drink in my system.

He wanders over to a cupboard and grabs two glasses.

"How civilized," I say as he puts them down next to the pizza.

"I"m not sure we know each other well enough to share a bottle quite yet," he says, winking, and there"s that stupid flutter again. That little feeling that I've trained myself not to acknowledge. That tiny stirring inside me trying to tell me what it wants. But what it wants is Miles. I can"t want Miles. I don't want Miles. I can"t stand the idea of it.

"Cheers," he says, holding a full glass out to me.

"Cheers," I say, taking it with a nod and tapping it carefully against the side of his so they ring.

"You know, I just finished unpacking today—" he starts.

"Took you long enough," I interrupt.

Miles chooses not to reply to my comment, instead carrying on with what he was saying. "And I found a shitload of video games. What do you think? Fancy a challenge?"

My face splits into a huge grin. Little does he know that he's looking at the ninth-grade queen of video games. "You"re on," I say. I finish off my drink, tipping it down my throat, then refill it. "But be warned — I won't go easy on you."

He grins in return. "Bring it on."