Page 98 of Hard Count
“Yes.”
“The money, the contract?” Piper froze.
“Yes, yes, all of it, yes. This man knows all of it, and there is something else.”
“What the fuck else can there be?”
He sat back on the stool across from her.
“He was sent several pictures of you and Noah doing your best private OnlyFans performance at The Beverly Hills Hotel. You both don’t know how curtains fucking work do you?” Vivienne asked as her eyes rolled to the back of her head.
Piper looked down at the floor, trying to process the magnitude of what he was hearing.
“He’s asking for an interview once it breaks. Apparently the Jayson content is off limits because that asshole owns the publication Caleb works for, but these pictures are going to get out. He claims he is holding on to them but he doesn’t know who sent them to him. Piper, someone hired a private investigator to shoot these from a rooftop adjacent to The Beverly Hills Hotel.”
“These can’t come out before Seattle. I need to win this game, Viv!”
“I don’t know when, and I can’t control when. This is going to blow up. We have to work on the angle. Your fans are not exactly rainbow-wearing friends of fucking Mary are they now?”
Piper took a breath.
“What do I need to do?”
“I need you to play on Sunday. I need you to play Sunday like you have no idea any of this is coming. I need you to not speak to anyone who isn’t me about this between now and Sunday night. I need you to ignore any messages you get from anyone else. Including...”
“Including...”
“…Noah.”
Piper looked at her.
“We aren’t speaking, Viv, Jayson forbade it. You saw the amended contract, didn’t you? Does he know this is coming?”
“I did, and I didn’t fully realize that you and Noah were in a relationship. We are not telling Noah, because he has a game to focus on.”
She took a breath.
“I’m sorry you had to end it because of this asshole. I have tried for years to get you to not re-sign this bullshit contract, but you dug your heels in every fucking time, Piper,” she said, embracing Piper as he stood there frozen.
“I need to focus on Seattle,” Piper said, changing the subject.
“Good, don’t fuck with me, Piper, no contact, don’t make me bring your mother to the game. That would overshadow the entire game, you know that.”
“You are such a bitch, bringing Donna into this.” They both laughed through the fear.
***
The rain storm started early in Seattle.
Piper watched the forecast clip on his phone while he ate breakfast. The meteorologist said a system moving in from the Pacific, sustained rainfall expected through Sunday evening, wind gusts of thirty miles per hour in the stadium. The meteorologists were saying the storm was going to be nasty, which was fitting for the game of the season.
He finished his Lucky Charms, watched film for two hours, and then went for a run in the hills, which he almost never did, but his head needed to be cleared.
He avoided X or Instagram or TikTok which felt like a drug user going through withdrawal.
At nine p.m. the team bus was going to take him to LAX.
Piper was thinking, almost entirely about Noah Reyes, and he was not allowed to text him that he needed him, that they bothwere about to be outed on the most public stage after they played the game of the fucking season.
