He debated ignoring it, but then flipped open the phone to talk.
“Who’s the girl, Jase?” Brianne demanded immediately.
“What girl?”
“Didn’t you see the paper today?”
“Uh…no.”
“Nice picture of you two. Didn’t take you long to find someone else. I guess it was me, huh?” She reminded him of his lame line when he’d broken up with her, telling her it wasn’t her, it was him.
There must be a picture of him and Remi taken last night. “Brianne.” He closed his eyes. He so did not want to have this conversation. “I told you the truth. I met her after we broke up and it’s…it’s nothing serious. We’re just going out, having fun.”
“Right. You bastard.” And she hung up on him.
Shit. He tipped his head back and gazed up at the ceiling of his apartment.
Then he called Remi. “Hi, Remi.”
“Now what?”
He frowned at the exasperated greeting.
“I gather you saw the paper today?”
“Oh, hell yeah.”
Her tone told him that nothing about that made her happy.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” she replied and he heard a sigh. “You are who you are.”
“Is it at least a good picture?” He smiled hopefully.
“Actually it is. But I’m not used to having my picture all over the newspaper. Thank god they don’t know my name.”
“That won’t take them long.”
He heard her groan. “I think I heard from everyone I know in Chicago about the picture. And some people not even in Chicago.”
“Ah. I’m sorry if it put you in a bad spot. But it’s really no big deal.”
“Again, not to you.” She sighed.
“I gotta go,” he said regretfully. “I have to finish packing and get to the airport. I’ll talk to you next week, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Oh Remi, he’s so hot!” Emily said, looking at the newspaper photo.
“He is,” Sarah said, looking over Emily’s shoulder. “Very hot. Very…big.”
“And don’t tell me he’s just being nice to you because of the reading program,” Delise said in a dry tone. “With that look on his face, he’s not just being nice to you.”
To her surprise, Delise seemed rather intrigued by the paparazzi story. “Like, how many paparazzi were there?” she asked.
“I don’t know how many there were. It felt like a hundred.”
“Really. Wow.”
“I thought you didn’t want me to go out with him,” Remi grumbled.
“She’s just jealous,” Sarah said with a mischievous look at Delise.
“No I’m not!” Delise paused with a piece of pizza halfway to her mouth. “I guess I didn’t realize how famous he is. But I still don’t think pro athletes are really upstanding guys.”
“How can you say that!” Remi shook her head, thinking of the work Jason had done with the kids at school. Oh hell. She was defending him.
“Well, a lot of them don’t exactly have good track records. Wives beating them with golf clubs for cheating on them. Getting accused of rape. Taking performance enhancing drugs. Or other illicit drugs.”
Remi sank her teeth into her bottom lip. “Yeah. Uh…well, that’s true. But they can’t all be like that. Anyway, it wasn’t cool. It was scary.” She thought back. It really had frightened her. She couldn’t imagine that happening if she’d been out alone. Not that it would, since she was nobody, but at least with Jason there she’d felt somewhat protected. “It felt like a…a violation.”
“Oh.” Delise regarded her with sympathy. “That’s not good.”
“No.” She shook her head. “So I don’t think I’ll be seeing him again.”
“That’s good.” Delise nodded approvingly. “So what should we do? Hit a club tonight?”
Remembering the last time she’d done that and had met Jason didn’t make Remi feel much like hitting a club, but she went along with her friends, mostly to keep busy and to keep from thinking about Jason.
After the five day, three game, road trip, Jason wanted to go home and crash. But he had business stuff to attend to, laundry to do and oh, yeah, call Remi.
He wasn’t sure if he was angry or disappointed about what had happened last week after those damn photographers had descended on them. Sure he was disappointed, because he and Remi had been on their way up to his apartment for what he was sure was going to be some really hot sex. But he was angry too, angry at the paps for screwing up his night, but also annoyed at Remi for letting it get to her. It really wasn’t that big a deal, especially if you compared him to big movie stars. Half the time they’d followed him, he’d been pretty sure they were more interested in pictures of Brianne than of him.
Which reminded him—she’d left another message on his voice mail. Why, when she knew he was seeing someone else, he had no goddamn clue. He really needed to call her and have a little chat.
He sat on his couch and held his cell phone in his hand. Jesus. He had to call two women and there was nothing good about either of those calls. He hated having to tell Brianne to get lost, but really, she needed to get over it and get on with her life. And he was afraid to call Remi because he had a rock-like feeling in his gut that she was going to tell him to get lost.
Which kinda didn’t make sense, given the reason he’d broken up with Brianne was because she was getting way too serious. And here he was all freaked out because Remi didn’t want anything to do with him.
Get it over with, dude.
So he called Brianne first. Amazingly, he got through to her. He’d thought maybe she’d be on a photo shoot or something.
“Jase!” she answered breathlessly. “Hi!”
She sounded so damn happy to hear from him. He closed his eyes.
“Hey,” he said. “How are you?”
“I’m okay. I’m so glad you called!”
“Uh, yeah. Listen. You gotta stop calling me, Brianne.”
Silence.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I miss you so much.” Shit. She sounded like she was going to cry. “Please, Jase. Can’t we just sit down and talk?”
“We did that already,” he reminded her. And hadn’t that been fun. “I’m sorry, Brianne.”
“I don’t understand! How could you find someone else already? You were seeing her before you broke up with me, weren’t you?”
“No! Christ, no.” But it was true that it hadn’t taken him long to meet someone. He’d never intended for that to happen, he’d been looking forward to being single and free, and he still wasn’t sure why he was so interested in Remi.
“Never mind,” she snapped. “Damn you, Jase.”
And she hung up.
He slowly closed up his phone. Yeah, that had gone well.
On to the next call. Of course Remi was at school. He glanced at his watch. It should be her lunch time, so he might catch her. And he did.
“Hi,” she said, not sounding nearly as enthused to hear from him as Brianne had. Dammit.
They made the usual small talk and then he said, “Can I see you tonight?”
She sighed. “I don’t think so, Jason. This isn’t really going to work.”
Well, he’d seen that coming. He leaned back into his couch. He wasn’t going to be like Brianne, all heartbroken and chasing after her. He had some pride. With his insides burning, eyes closed, he said, “I figured you’d say that. Okay.” He paused, not sure what else to day. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow. At school.”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Bye, Remi.”
And again he closed up his phone. Then he threw it, hard, across the room.