Free Once Upon A Half-Time: A Secret Baby Romance by Sosie Frost

goddamned vice—
    Elle pulled away from me.
    The hell?
    I wasn’t in her bedroom. I stood before her front door, opened wide, just like the zipper on my jeans.
    “Sorry, Lachlan,” Elle pushed me into the hall. “Our once-upon-a-time is over.”

5
    Elle
    I should have destroyed the SD card when I had the chance.
    It took a week before that decision came back to bite me in the butt, leaving teeth marks next to the nibble that was my marriage to Lachlan.
    Monday’s practice wound down with limited requests from the team to take a shower with me, but Peter called to me before the guys shuffled off the field.
    “Elle, let’s take a walk. Gotta talk to you.”
    I wasn’t sure what would be harder—returning to training camp and facing the fifty-some men who’d witnessed my unintentional soapy burlesque show…or facing the one man who exposed me more than a dropped towel ever could.
    Stripping could probably get me out of the conversation, but that’d be fighting fire with fire—the unethical against unethical. I kept my arms and legs in my shirt and leggings, and I bluffed an easy-breezy attitude with a quick redo of my ponytail—three times as I followed Peter off the field.
    I couldn’t look at him. Peter had been a mentor to me. He’d taken a chance on a nineteen-year-old girl who needed a way to break into the world. Without him, I’d be trapped in some dead-end job with no way to see the cities and landmarks and natural wonders that first lured me from home.
    But he was helping the team to cheat.
    The photos were damning enough, and the league wouldn’t care who had or hadn’t seen them. Everyone was culpable for a crime like this. If they found out, everything would be lost. The team. Our reputation. The championship we’d won.
    And all the players, all of my friends , would be ruined because of it.
    Peter guided me to the tunnel, out of the team’s earshot. The grey peppering his beard spread through his hair. Had he always been this old?
    “Elle, I’ve wanted to talk to you for a while now,” he said.”
    “Yes, I’m sorry. It was me. I used the eight hundred millimeter lens.” I hoped admitting that I touched a twenty-thousand-dollar piece of equipment would distract him. “But I got a really nice picture of Lachlan.”
    “Clothes on, I hope.”
    I cleared my throat. “All rated G.”
    “Good. But that wasn’t what I needed to speak to you about.”
    Moment of truth. At least I could handle a bit of pressure. My whole childhood had been a series of secrets and trouble, blown curfews and forbidden friendships hidden from my father. If I couldn’t bluff my way through this, then I’d have nothing to show for a broken family.
    “Have you noticed anything missing from our office?” Peter asked.
    I swallowed, resisting the urge to glance towards the relative comfort of the field. “Missing? Not that I know of.”
    “Nothing of yours was moved? No equipment stolen?”
    “ Stolen ?”
    “Well, misplaced.”
    Big difference.
    My heart thudded a little too hard, and I blinked too fast, like I chased away the spots from a bright flash. He didn’t notice.
    Was it better to lie? Pretend like something of mine was taken?
    No. That would only open up more allegations. Nothing good would come from the team investigating a theft, especially if they placed me at the facility the day I saved Lachlan from the car. I’d lied that I was home sick with a stomach bug, and so far, no one had questioned it.
    “Nope,” I said. “Everything’s accounted for.”
    “Strange.” He rubbed a hand through his trimmed beard. “Well, keep an eye out, Elle. Don’t leave your gear unsupervised.”
    “Gotcha.”
    I smiled and headed back to the field. That hadn’t been so bad.
    But Peter wasn’t done.
    “Elle, one other thing.”
    Damn it. I turned. “Yep?”
    “I was wondering…it might be time to give you a few more responsibilities in the office.”
    Uh-oh .
    “Absolutely. What did you need?” Was