Photoshoots were up there on my list with root canals and ice baths.
In other words, fucking torture.
Normally with my endorsement shoots, I'd just stare straight at the camera with a 'don't fuck with me' kind of look on my face, but with this 'candid' shoot where the photographer wanted to get shots with us looking happy and sweet together...I wasn't all about it.
Especially since I wasn't allowed to be there during Elodie's interview, or Eli's, so I had no idea what was coming for my own, or if they were bombing her with questions that I wasn't there to protect her from.
It didn't help that we went immediately to the individual photoshoots when it was time for everyone else to be interviewed.
At the moment, I was stretched out on a picnic blanket in a dark blue long sleeved t-shirt, dark denim jeans and a leather jacket to keep the early fall chill off me, V and Evie sitting nearby on their own blanket while Eli was off interviewing with Elodie.
Evie, V and Eli were all color coordinated with light blues and yellows, while Elodie was wearing a dark navy colored dress that clung to her curves and made my mouth water immediately upon seeing her, somehow matching me even though we hadn't planned it that way.
I smiled realizing we already looked like a couple when I first laid eyes on her.
Finally, when it felt like I couldn't take anymore directions of "act like V just said something really funny but don't look directly at her," and "look right at the camera and act like V is embarrassing you," the reporter from People walked up with Eli and told me to go wait with Elodie for our joint interview.
My eyebrows flew up at that one but didn't argue, especially when Eli grinned at me and gave me a signature bro hug.
"Thanks for doing this, man. I know you hate photoshoots and all the publicity shit, but it'll really help the story reach a bigger audience with you in the spread."
"No problem, bro. I'm just glad you're finally stepping up and telling the truth about what happened."
He winced, but his green eyes didn't lose their happy sheen, especially when he glanced over to his pregnant wife throwing their daughter up into the air while she squealed with laughter.
My heart squeezed in my chest painfully. One day, I'd have that one day, too.
"Should've happened sooner, but I'm glad we're doing it the right way."
I nodded solemnly at him as the reporter and photographer began fussing over the cutest four year old I'd ever seen and began snapping picture after picture of Evie laughing while Eli rushed to join them, tickling Evie's sides until she laughed so hard I could've sworn tears started leaking out of her eyes.
I averted my eyes and strode quickly to where Elodie was hiding out in a gazebo nearby where they were holding the interview portion of the day. There was another photographer there, this one a woman clad in all black with a fancy white folding circle that looked like a sun reflector for car windows. Apparently it was for better lighting.
"Just get settled in, you two, and I'll make sure I've got the right lighting. I'll take a few test shots so just ignore me," the photographer said, her hands not on the camera hung around her neck but hitting a few buttons on what looked like a voice recorder.
I realized a recorder was needed for the interview even though it made me a little uneasy, but I took my spot next to Elodie on the bench inside the beautifully small and cute gazebo that overlooked the stretching and sprawling meadow of the park the magazine had chosen for this event.
"You good? This feels like...a little much."
Elodie sighed and leaned herself back against the bench, her rich light brown hair curled into perfect ringlets cascading down her shoulders and resting close to her belly button. How had I not realized just how long her hair actually was? I wanted to get her back at my place and wrap it around my fist.
We hadn't seen each other in person for almost an entire week and the distance had been killing me.
"I'm alright, I'm pretty used to stuff like this, especially since the adoption made national news a few years ago when it happened right when Eli and V's careers exploded around the same time. The media attention hasn't been so bad since I have all private social media and I don't participate in the high profile events so the media hasn't had a reason to focus on me. Well...until now."
"And you're sure you're okay with them telling the story about what really happened, and why?"
I kept my voice purposefully low, but her disarming smile that hit me like a ton of bricks made me let out a breath of air that I was sure the photographer heard and looked over to investigate.
"I'm fine, Matthew, especially if it means that your spot on the team isn't forfeit anymore. You don't deserve that, not over a misunderstanding. If anything, my brother should be the one penalized for his lie and taking so long to own up to it after so long. You did nothing but take the fall for something you didn't do. Yeah, okay, maybe you were rough on Eli the first game you two played against each other after seeing each other again for the first time in years, but he kind of deserved it. And then you were there for him again, pushing him to finally come to his senses and get V back."
"Yeah, but I feel like it's just putting you out, like wouldn't you rather be doing anything else right now?"
Her eyes took on a new quality as she lifted a brow up and suddenly there was no photographer snapping pictures at us, we weren't at some ridiculous photoshoot trying to salvage my reputation from some massive misunderstanding from back in high school.
We weren't in some kind of undefined relationship that we were hiding from everyone, we were just Matthew and Elodie, sharing some charged moment that set my blood pumping just a little bit harder through my veins.
She cracked a smile and her face lit up from that small action, like before she was sweet and beautiful, but when she smiled? She was devastating.
My teeth sunk into my lower lip and I was sure my face portrayed just exactly what I wanted to do to her in that very moment, but before I could skim my hands through her hair and twirl a piece of that loose dark golden curl around my finger, the photographer cleared her throat, giving us a strange awkward smile, and I suddenly realized we'd been staring at each other for an inordinate amount of time, inching closer and closer, neither of us saying a word because the closing space between us said it all.
"Sorry, uh, I was just going to take some pictures of you guys sitting next to each other while we did this interview portion, have some candids while we have a conversation. That cool?"
"Yeah, sounds good," Elodie said, her voice shaky but firm, and I realized that this photographer was probably a journalist/reporter, too.
Someone whose job was to report on celebrity's lives and she just witnessed us eye-fucking right in front of her. I needed to cool my jets to make sure the story didn't take a very different turn.
"So," the photographer started, taking a few snaps while I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.
"When did you two meet?"
"Uh...I don't really even know. He's always just...been there. He was best friends with Eli since they were really young."
"This was in Miami, right?"
"Right," I answered, keeping my answers clipped and short, but apparently Elodie wasn't that well versed in keeping things close to the vest if her next response was anything to go by.
"What did you think of your brother's best friend growing up, Elodie?"
Her face was flushed, she was beet red, actually, and I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. Shit. Did Elodie have a crush or something on me growing up and I had no fucking clue?
"Um...it was weird, having a new person looking after me, especially since I didn't have that many people to watch out for me growing up. Weird, but good. I looked up to him."
My chest caved in when I put the words into context. I'd had no idea what was going on in her life or Eli's as far as their abusive father and neglectful mother, but I distinctly remember patching up Elodie a few too many times while Eli was having a 'talk' with his father outside.
Countless bandaids, ice packs, you name it. I grew angrier in my seat remembering the past times that I'd thought were nice that must've been absolute hell for Elodie.
The backs of my eyes pricked, and even though I was trying to remain emotionless, I could tell I was failing miserably.
"And Matthew—you were aware of Eli and Elodie's rough home life?"
This was where it got tricky. The point of the whole steroid planting ordeal was that I had gone along with it so that Eli could remain close to his family to watch over Elodie, but if I'd known the truth, I would've just not applied to UCM, the college that Eli was gunning for not just because of it's tradition of churning out NBA stars, but because of its proximity to his family.
"I had no idea. If I had, Eli wouldn't have even had to ask twice about what he needed. UCM was only taking one player from our school, and I would've gladly let it be him, but he wasn't able to disclose what was going on in his life with me, and I don't know why he felt he couldn't trust me with that. I've never been through that in my life, so I can't imagine how he felt and how isolating it must have been, both for him and for Elodie."
I turned to the girl in question, sitting beside me unwavering and unflinching, not even biting her lip or shaking her leg in anxiety that she often did.
She was trying to be strong in front of the reporter, and I wanted to wrap my arms around her and let her know that she was okay—that I was here for her and she didn't need to fight anymore, but I also didn't want our relationship on Page Six, especially not before we'd even defined anything ourselves, or told her brother for that matter.
"And Elodie, how do you feel about what your brother did? Framing his best friend for steroids to ruin his chances at getting into UCM instead of coming clean and asking his friend to withdraw his application to the college?"
"I think that Eli was ashamed, because I was, too. We were both ashamed that there was this awful thing happening to us, and we couldn't talk about it, because...for me, at least, sometimes it felt like if I didn't talk about it then it wasn't real. If I didn't say it out loud, then my family was healthy and normal, and my big brother didn't have to go to such extreme lengths to make sure his little sister was safe in her own home with her parents. I think that telling someone was so out of the realm of possibility, for either of us, that it probably never even crossed his mind. Keeping the secret, hiding the abuse and the toxic-ness of it all, was second nature. It's not an excuse for what he did, but I understand why he did it."
"Matthew, how do you feel knowing that's how Elodie feels?"
She snapped a few pictures as I turned in my seat to face Elodie more fully, bracing an arm across the wood above her shoulder and boxing her in with my body so that I had her attention fully.
"I feel like it makes total sense, and I don't fault her or Eli for doing what they had to do. I feel terrible for not seeing it before, for blaming Eli and being so angry with him for so long that we lost touch. I feel grateful that I had a family that didn't treat me the way yours did, and I wish that I could go back and see it for myself and do something, get you out of there, but I didn't. I was just a kid, and so were you. We're not kids now, though, and I'll make sure he can't get to you ever again. You don't have to worry about him, or anyone else hurting you ever again."
I had switched halfway through talking about Elodie and started talking to her, because this was a conversation that I was going to have with her anyway, and it didn't mean the timing wasn't terrible, but I wasn't going to let her go around and feel unsafe any longer.
As long as it was in my power, I would make sure her asshole of a father wouldn't come a single step closer to her.
"And Elodie," another flash of the camera lit up her features as the woman continued, "do you feel safe being with Matthew now that your father is back in the picture?"
"I..." Elodie started, half dazed and staring at me with an awestruck look painting her beautiful features, half trying to sort through the response she needed to reply back with to the reporter who was capturing our connection in real time, but I couldn't find it in me to care.
She was seeing it, this love I'd been trying to bury inside of me for her for a while, and it was coming out full force with my proclamation to her, my promise that I'd never let anyone hurt her.
"Now that you're with Matthew, you feel positive your father won't be able to contact you again?"
Even though the reporter asked her question a second time to try and manipulate Elodie into answering that, I cut in before she could.
"We don't have a comment for that question."
"We?"
The reporters eyebrows were halfway up her hairline, but I stood my ground.
When it was clear neither of us were going to answer, she tried a different approach, asking Elodie about her classes at school which she happily answered, sticking to safer topics and then asking me about how it felt being able to reconnect with my childhood best friend and Elodie.
"It must've been great to move up here with Eli and his family, especially after reconnecting after being estranged for so long. Tell me, when did you two become so close?"
Elodie responded before I could tell her no comment.
"I don't know, it just sort of happened when he helped me move into my dorm."
"How great that you were able to put the past in the past and move forward together. Alright, that's all I need for now, let's head back and join the rest of the group."
Elodie quickly left and I followed after her, the photographer placing the giant white reflective circle in a tiny pouch, and it seemed like she was struggling to collapse it on her own so that gave me a minute alone with my girl.
Shit. I was falling so fucking hard, and I didn't even care.
I grabbed her by the hand and pulled Elodie behind the nearest tree I could find, slammed her up against the bark and kissed her like my life depended on it.
I kissed her like I could heal her with it, like I could take away all the pain she'd just had to endure reliving even a small piece of her past memories from her abusive childhood, kissed her like I could take all of that away and replace it with a piece of me instead, and prayed that she'd be glad of it.
Her hands wound their way through my hair and I breathed her in as if she were the oxygen that I needed to survive.
I pulled back minutes, hours, years too soon, and though she was disheveled and thoroughly kissed, pink lips plump and glossy after I'd swiped my tongue across it, I knew that if I didn't stop soon we'd be caught.
"What was that for?"
"I wouldn't have made it through another goddamn minute of this without doing that first. You're mine later."
"Always."
I didn't know if she even realized what she'd said, but damn if it didn't make me ridiculously happy.
We joined the rest of the group after fixing ourselves up, but our photographer, whose name turned out to be Jenna Archer, gave us a secretive, indulgent smile and a wink, like she was in on something the rest weren't.
That worried me the most, especially when I realized that she was the Jenna Archer, the same Jenna Archer that was the reporter who'd scooped countless other magazines or sites with the article that threw my name out in the world about the steroids story, not to mention countless other rumor type stories about other celebrities that ended up to be true. She was worse than TMZ and Page Six combined.
Not to mention, she wasn't just some random photographer or reporter, she was the lead journalist on this story, and she'd witnessed a few things that I would've preferred she hadn't, and I knew in my gut this story was going to be about more than the steroids story, I just didn't know how to tell Elodie.
We had to tell Eli together about what we'd been doing, but that would mean defining what we were doing together, anyway. Either way, something was going to give in this 'relationship' we were in, and I didn't know if either of us were ready for the fallout this blow up was going to bring.
***
A/N:
I loved writing the nosy reporter who can't mind her own business ;)
What did you guys think of this chapter??
What do you think is going to happen next?
What do you WANT to happen next?
DRAMA theories??? I wanna hear them ALLLLLL
P.S. We're officially halfway through the story OMG!
Until next time my lovely readers,
Kristen :)