Being regarded as a womaniser was something he used to take pride in because it gave him kudos. Of course, the girls he got with knew how to play the game too. They weren’t looking for anything serious – they were just in it for the fun and the clout of bagging a pro athlete. At one time, that was enough for Ward, too.

Now getting up, he groaned and reached for his phone to check the time. Pawing around for a bit and not finding the small flip device his hands were so accustomed to, he suddenly remembered the shiny new thing. And groaned again, realizing that his newfound influx of followers and associated attention must have been the trigger for the dream. Great. As if his ego wasn’t frail enough, now it was already falling into the validation-from-strangers trap too.

Or worse, performance anxiety stemming from his growing ease with Hannah?

Be better.

‘Shit.’ He had overslept, according to the phone it was almost ten – the exact time Shelley was scheduled for another training session.

Ward sat upright in bed and pulled on a t-shirt at the same moment he felt Pretzel brush against his leg. He shot her a dirty look. ‘And I suppose you want to be fed now, too? You could have at least woken me up.’

He quickly changed clothes and shuffled from his bedroom to the front door, the cat following in his wake.

‘Hold on, hold on, just a sec,’ he called before undoing the lock and throwing open the door. Sure enough, he found Shelley on the other side, tapping her foot impatiently.

‘Up late scrolling?’ she greeted, a sardonic smirk planted on her face.

Ward sighed and turned away from her, heading toward the kitchen.

‘I’d like to pretend I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he retorted. ‘But to answer your question, no, I was not doing that. And I don’t intend to any time soon.’

‘We’ll see. An occasional jump down the rabbit hole can be relaxing as hell,’ she shrugged, nonplussed. ‘Anyway, congrats for going live on socials. Big move for you.’ She smiled. ‘That picture in the restaurant you posted. It was good.’

‘I don’t get how you even know this stuff. And I didn’t post anything,’ Ward said, going into his pantry to get Pretzel her breakfast. ‘That was Hannah.’

His thoughts drifted to the weekend and as much as he wanted to throw some snarky comment out at Shelley about the whole situation, he realized he couldn’t. The fact was, he’d had fun on Saturday – Hannah had a knack of making everything more appealing and, despite the pitfalls, he had to admit he was impressed by how fast his newfound digital fame had grown. Course, he would never admit that out loud – not to anyone.