Only One Love (Only One 7)

The phone vibrates in my hand, and I look down.

Nico: Becca said don’t do anything stupid. She’ll call you tomorrow.

I walk toward the set, stepping around the cameras. Stepping up to the chairs, I pick up the mic and attach it back on as best I can. She walks back on set, avoiding my eyes. "Looks like we are back on." She claps her hands. "Let’s go, people, and get this over with." She turns and walks past the camera guy and into the darkness. Bill comes out with his hands in his pockets.

"Well, I didn’t think you’d stick around." He smirks, grabbing the papers that were in his chair.

"Yeah, well, I’m not doing it for your sorry ass." I sit down and look in the camera, hoping she heard that last part.

"Good to know," he says.

"You think you can do your job and not fuck up?" I ask, leaning back in the chair.

"It’s funny." He chuckles. "I had that question down to ask you." I shake my head as the man comes out and calls the show, and Bill starts with his questions again.

This time, he sticks to the script, and after an hour, we are done. I get up, taking off the mic for the second time. Catherine comes over and takes the mic pack from me. "Thank you," I say to her, looking to see if Franny is around. I see her talking to one of the guys, and she laughs, and the burning in my stomach starts to come back. I take a step down, irritated and not even knowing why.

The guy spots me walking toward them. "Great segment," he says, and I ignore him, turning to her.

"Did you get everything you needed?" I ask when I walk next to her, and she finally turns to me, the smile on her face disappearing. My voice comes out harder than I wanted it to come out.

"We sure did," she says, being professional. "I’ll let Richard know when it’s going to air." I don’t bother to tell her that I fired him. "And I’ll be sending it to you a week before in case you want to change anything."

I nod at her. "Thank you." I turn, walking away from her, ignoring the need to turn and get one last look at her. After today, I doubt she’ll even acknowledge me when we do cross paths. The sun hits my face as soon as I walk out the door, and the way it clicks behind me lets me know it’s over.

I get in my Land Rover and let out a deep breath as I head back to my house. Walking in, I head straight for the bedroom and fall on the bed. Closing my eyes, all I can see is her face when I called her a princess. "You fucked up big-time." I turn my head to look out the window at the sun shining high in the sky without a cloud in sight. The whole day, I feel like an asshole, which irritates me even more, and when I walk into the rink on Monday morning, I’m snapping at everyone who talks to me.

After the third time of snapping at someone, everyone gets the memo. I push harder than ever in practice. I know exactly why I’m cranky, but I don’t want to admit it, not even to myself. Walking out of practice, I call Richard, who answers after one ring.

"Did you calm down?"

"I want all correspondence that you had between yourself and Frances," I tell him.

"I’ll send it right over." I hear him clicking away on his computer.

"Good." I get into the Land Rover. "By the way," I say when I get the notification that the email came through, "you’re still fired." I press the red disconnect button and pull up the email.

I scroll to the bottom where her information is—her name and her cell number. I click the number, and it pulls up a text message. I think of things to say, but only one thing comes to mind, and my fingers move before I can take it back.

Me: Sorry I was a dick.

Chapter 11

Frances

My phone beeps, and I look down. The number’s foreign, so I have no idea who sent it.

945-227-9648: Sorry I was a dick.

I look down, laughing as I read the text over and over again. "Who the hell?" I do a quick search in my emails for that number, but nothing comes up. "Must be a wrong number." I place the phone down and look back at the monitor.

Now that filming was completed yesterday, I get to have fun with it. And by fun, I mean I get to edit it and then go through hours and hours of old plays to incorporate into the segment. I get to watch old fights that got him his name as a bad boy. I wish I could say I didn’t have anything to work with, but there is something about Wilson that the camera just eats up. When he called me a princess yesterday, it was as if my body turned to ice. I hate when anyone thinks I have it easier than they do. I hate when anyone assumes things that aren’t true. I hate it all.