Just My Luck (42 page)

“Tell me what?” she demanded. “Do it now. Whatever it is.”

Robbo sighed. “There are some . . . photos of you, and they’ve got your name on. On Facebook, Twitter, like that. Don’t know where they got started.”

“Photos of me,” she repeated with puzzlement. “With Nate, you mean? Why would that be a big deal?”

“No. Not with Nate. With some other bloke. And, Ally. You’re naked in them. And . . . having sex.”

“I’m
naked?”
She felt the blood drain from her head, found herself wrapping her arms around her suddenly chilled body as her fuzzy brain tried to process the information. “How can that be? Who is it? The guy?”

“Don’t know.” Robbo was looking more uncomfortable than ever. “Dark hair, they said. That’s why it’s obvious it’s not Nate.”

“It can’t be me either, then, whatever it says online,” she said with relief. She and Brian had never taken naked pictures, and anyway, his hair was light brown, like Nate’s.

“Somebody’s put my name on some porno pictures and shared them,” she realized. “Trying to cause trouble for Nate and me, not realizing they didn’t need to bother. Because it’s too late anyway.”

Although knowing it wasn’t her in the photos wouldn’t help that much with the embarrassment, actually. Not if it was big enough news that every guy at the gym seemed to know about it. But only because they knew her personally, and how many people did? Hardly anyone.

“They’re pretty sure, Ally,” Robbo said gently.

“Well, it can’t be,” she repeated firmly. “Because I haven’t posed for any naked pictures. Ever. Unless they photoshopped my face in.” The thought sent a shaft of anxiety through her. “That would be an awful lot of work, though,” she decided, “and they’d still need a picture of me to do it. Who would bother?”

“Never sexted?” Robbo pressed. “Never sent some bloke a snap?”

“Of course not,” she said impatiently. “What, do you think I’m stupid? The Internet is forever. Every woman with two functioning brain cells to rub together knows that by now.”

“Hope you’re right,” he said with relief. “Course, I haven’t looked, and I won’t.”

“Thanks,” she said with real gratitude. “You’re a good friend, and a good man.”

He looked a bit embarrassed at that. But they didn’t manage any more conversation, because Mac had walked over to join them.

“What d’you think this is, bloody happy hour?” he barked. “Not paying you to chat. Ally, didn’t you notice those new blokes, waiting for a training session? Get over there and get to it.”

“Sure,” she said distractedly, walking across the gym toward the two guys standing near the low wall. Who were both looking at her with interest, then exchanging a glance. Just like the guys she was passing now, the ones who’d inspired her little meltdown on Monday. The big one smirking openly, the other looking a little embarrassed.

This was either somebody’s idea of a sick joke, or maybe a former girlfriend out to cause trouble. But as soon as people knew she wasn’t dating Nate anymore, she reminded herself, trying her very best not to cringe, there’d be no story, and this would all be over.

“Naked pictures?” Kristen asked in horror when Ally’s shift had ended and she’d climbed the hill to the flat.

“Yeah,” Ally said with a sigh, going for her laptop and setting it on the kitchen table.  “So I guess we’d better check, see how much they actually do look like me. And figure out what to do. Not that I can imagine there’s much I
can
do.”

She waited the several minutes it always took for her computer to boot up, her heart beating harder despite the reassurances she’d been giving herself all day. She needed a new laptop, she thought irrelevantly. Ha. Like that was happening. Her parents had bought her this one when she’d graduated from college six years ago, making it an antique, and with performance to match.

Finally, though, it was up and she was online. She took a deep breath, typed “Allison Villiers” into the search bar, and hit the return key.

More seconds, and then the results. At least a page of them, she saw at a glance, and probably a lot more. An exclamation of distress from Kristen, and Ally clicked on the first, a blog post referencing a tweet. She clicked on that, came up with “Allison Villiers Nate Torrance gf #AllyNudiePix.” Well, that was clear enough.

And then the link came up, and it was clearer than that. Ally scrolled down the group of three pictures. And if she’d been cold before, she was frozen now.

Because it was her. On her back, taken from overhead, her face clearly visible. In one of the pictures, the man’s head was at her breast, and she couldn’t have said who it was, but she knew all the same, even before she looked at the second one, where his face was in profile. Devon. And there was absolutely no doubt what the two of them were doing.

“Oh, my God,” Kristen breathed. “Oh, Ally.”

Ally heard herself making a sound that didn’t even sound human, a whimper like a wounded animal. And then she was running for the bathroom, reaching the toilet just in time. Dropping to her knees and dry-heaving. No lunch to come up, she realized as she continued to retch. She hadn’t been able to eat, and she hadn’t even known it was true.

She stayed where she was for long minutes, her stomach continuing to contract in painful spasms, her eyes filling with tears that dripped into the porcelain bowl. Kristen was there, holding her hair, murmuring something soothing. But Ally barely heard her.

She had the early shift the next morning. Well, she thought, climbing out of bed on legs that felt like lead, she’d get it over with fast. And today would be the worst day. After that, she’d be used to it. You could get used to anything, she’d heard. Besides, the public attention span was short. In another week or two, this would be old news, some new scandal arising to take its place. She’d just have to suck it up and tough it out. She could do that.

So much for starting over in New Zealand. Kristen seemed to have done it, but all Ally had managed recently was a whole lot of crying into her pillow, which wasn’t like her at all. She was going to change that, she vowed. Starting today.

She was surprised to find Mac at the gym when she showed up. He usually didn’t come in until ten or so. She murmured a hello, went to stash her gear behind the counter where he was standing.

“Need to have a chat with you,” he said. “My office.”

Oh, boy. Ally followed him into the tiny space, moved a few file folders off the straight chair, and sat down as he seated himself at the metal desk opposite. Maybe he was giving her a raise. Yeah, right. He wasn’t giving her a raise.

Mac cleared his throat, reached for an envelope sitting next to his computer. “I wanted to tell you that I’m letting you go.”

“You know,” he hurried on at her look of shock, “it’s winter, and there just isn’t enough work to go round.”

“I’ve been here the longest, though,” she got out. “And I’m the most reliable. I’ve never missed a shift. I’ve never even been late. And you need a woman on staff.”

“Think I know what I need better than you do,” he said curtly. He handed the envelope across, and she found herself taking it. “Here’s your final statement. Your pay’s already been transferred into your account.”

“This has to do with those photos,” she realized. “Doesn’t it?”

“Nah,” he said, shifting a little in his seat. “Like I said. Staffing.”

“It does,” she insisted. “It totally does. Those pictures were taken without my consent. I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m the
victim
here. I know who posted them, and he did it either to embarrass me, or more likely, to embarrass Nate.”

“But it doesn’t matter anyway,” she went on, and hated the pleading tone in her voice, “because Nate and I broke up. So this is a nine days’ wonder, that’s all.”

“This isn’t open for discussion,” Mac said. He stood, gestured for her to stand as well. Ally obeyed, found herself moving to the door. Mac reached for her bag under the counter, handed it to her. And in another minute, she was standing outside the gym. Fired.

Darkness had filled her bedroom by the time she heard Kristen’s key in the lock. She thought for a fleeting moment about getting out of bed, then abandoned the idea. It just seemed way too hard. She registered the sound of Kristen moving around the flat, managed to turn her head when she heard the tentative “Ally?” from the doorway.

“You OK?” Kristen asked with concern, coming across the room to perch on the edge of the bed beside her. Laying the back of her hand across Ally’s forehead. “Are you sick? No wonder, you poor thing.”

Ally closed her eyes and swallowed against the lump in her throat. She’d thought she’d done all the crying a human possibly could, but it seemed she was wrong. She felt the ticklish tears inching into her hair, dripping into her ears. “I got fired,” she got out.

“Fired?”
Kristen asked incredulously. “When? Today? Because of the . . . the thing?”

Ally nodded, tried to stop the tears. “As soon as I got in. I’ve never been . . . I’ve never been fired. And it hurts so
much.
”

“Oh, Ally,” Kristen said, and the sympathy in her voice just made Ally cry harder. Kristen reached for her, pulled her up against her, and Ally let it all go yet again.

She’d walked back home, still numb, and booted up her laptop. Had spent hours unable to keep herself from endlessly refreshing, morbidly fascinated as the hits increased. Reading the blog posts and comments, many of them vindictively pleased and downright vicious. “Skanky” was particularly favored, she’d found. She hadn’t realized how unpopular the new All Black captain’s association with yet another North American would be in certain quarters, but she sure knew now.

The pain of knowing that she was adding to Nate’s burdens made her feel even worse. The posts that talked about his poor judgment, blamed the team’s losses on his lack of focus. She’d longed with an overwhelming ferocity to respond, to defend Nate, to defend herself, to explain. Had had to force her fingers away from the keys to keep herself from doing it, because she was pretty sure that would only make things worse.

And then there was the rage at Devon, boiling over at intervals throughout the day like lava, red-hot and corrosive. And, to a lesser extent, at Mac. So much anger, and nothing to do with it, no place for it to go. She’d found herself wanting to call her mother, to crawl into the security of her love and concern, but the thought of her parents seeing those pictures, how horrified and disappointed they would be . . . No, that hadn’t been an option.

“How could Devon do that?” she asked Kristen when she could speak again, taking the handful of Kleenex she offered and doing her best to mop up. “What did I ever do to him?”

“Some people are just angry,” Kristen said, stroking Ally’s hair, smoothing it back from her tear-streaked face. “Everything’s somebody else’s fault. And I think Devon’s one of them. But it’ll be OK,” she soothed. “This’ll blow over, and you’ll get another job. Everything will be OK.”

“Oh,” she remembered. “I need to show you something.” She left the room, came back with her purse, pulled out her mobile. “A text for you from Liam.”

Ally took the phone from her, did her best to focus on the tiny characters.

Tell Ally: Kia kaha.

“It means, be strong,” Kristen said.

“I know. That was sweet of him. But, Kristen, if he sent you that . . . It means Nate probably knows too.” Which was the thought that had hurt most of all today, even more than being fired. Even more than the prospect of looking for another job, knowing that anywhere she applied, they’d know about this. If not as soon as they saw her name, at least as soon as they did a computer search for it.

But none of that was the worst. The worst was envisioning Nate going online and seeing her like that. Her mind shied away yet again from the thought. “Have you talked to Liam?” she asked Kristen instead.

“Not yet. We have a call scheduled for late tonight. So hard with the time difference.”

“I heard from Robbo.” Ally pulled herself up against the pillows and battled to shake off some of the cloud of misery that had enshrouded her all day. “He texted me, wants to meet me for lunch tomorrow. I probably shouldn’t, though,” she realized. “I need to save my money.”

She’d turned her phone off, she remembered. Reached under the pillow for it and checked. A string of voicemail messages that she wouldn’t be answering, the reason she’d turned the phone off in the first place. Journalists from both New Zealand and Australia, wanting her reaction. A text from Lachlan saying how upset everyone at the gym had been at the news, which was nice of him. And one from Nate.

I heard. Phone you as soon as I can.

Well, that was one conversation she definitely wasn’t having. Call her a coward, but she just couldn’t do it. She texted quickly back.

Sorry about it. Don’t call me. Good luck on Sat.

“Don’t tell Liam I lost my job,” she begged Kristen. “I don’t want Nate to know.”

“Ally . . .”

“Please. Promise me. It would upset him, I know, and what’s the point? All this is going to be hard enough on him, and it’s not like there’s anything he can do about it. At least don’t tell Liam until they’re back here. I mean, obviously it won’t be a secret at that point. Please? Wait till then?”

“OK,” Kristen said reluctantly.

“Thanks,” Ally sighed. “And that’s all the nobility I’ve got. Maybe by tomorrow,” she said, the tears closing her throat again, “I’ll be able to think of some alternative to just lying down and dying, you think?”

“Oh, sweetie,” Kristen said. “I know you will.”

Finding Ally

Nate tried ringing Ally again as soon as the plane landed. No voicemail greeting this time. Instead, a recording telling him that her number was no longer in service. Had she changed it, then? He shuddered to think of her humiliation, the harassment she must have undergone. He had a publicist who could say “no comment”—and had—but Ally didn’t have anybody. She certainly hadn’t had him.

He drove from the airport, and realized as he pulled into the garage that he couldn’t remember a moment of the journey. He walked in his door, dropped his duffel, carried his pack into the kitchen and pulled out his laptop, waited impatiently for it to connect. Still no answer to the first email he’d sent, and the second had bounced. She’d changed her email too, then.