Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 105306 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 527(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 351(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105306 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 527(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 351(@300wpm)
She’ll be even more skeeved out when she reads the news online, but we can cross that bridge when we come to it.
By now all her friends—and mine—will have seen the news coverage, and why this is important to people is beyond me. For real, who gives a shit who I’m dating or not dating or sleeping with? What does it affect anyone to know whom I choose to kiss in a parking lot after a game or take home to meet my brothers?
Who.
Gives. A. Shit.
I cross the room and sit on the couch behind her, hoping she’ll pop a squat and sit down, too, so we can discuss this rationally.
I don’t want to be in this mess any more than she does; if anything, having this blasted puts more of a spotlight on me when all I’m trying to do here is play football.
“Look,” I begin. “I was surprised to see that pap in the parkin’ lot last night too. I honestly thought you’d be on the big screen with a caption that said ‘friend of’ like they’ve done with a few other players’ girlfriends ’cause the crowd loves it. That’s the truth.”
“But you did see the guy in the parking lot.”
“Yeah, I saw him. That’s why I wanted to get you out of there, but by that point it was kinda too late.”
“Too late,” she repeats.
“Yeah. I guess the damage is done, as they say.”
“So now what?”
“I suppose we have to let it blow over.”
“Are we still going to do stuff together? Like—be seen in public?”
I rub my chin, unsure. “Let me ask Eli what he wants me to do.”
“Who is Eli?”
“My agent.”
Her mouth flattens into a line. “Oh. Him.”
“He’s not a bad guy. He only wants what’s best for me.”
Ryann huffs. “What’s best for you isn’t what’s best for me.”
I…
Hadn’t thought of it that way.
She’s right. What’s best for me isn’t what’s best for her—not now that she’s going to have people breathing down her neck. She has classes to take, and she has to work.
“I just want to know what to tell my parents. If I tell them I’m pretending to date you, they’re going to think I’m an asshole. I already told my mom we weren’t dating, and she was appalled—evidently, she’s living in the 1950s where a girl can’t kiss a man she’s not betrothed to.”
Her mom sounds like a peach.
“My mom is used to this stuff.”
Ryann’s brows are raised. “How is that possible?”
“My older brother Duke played for New York, and anytime he was seen standing near anyone, the media would make it look like they were datin’. Could have been anybody—his publicist, his cousin, a friend, the stylist at a store—so my mom is used to shit like this. I don’t think she’s even texted me yet.”
Not yet anyway.
I’ve never been romantically connected to anyone before, so there is actually a chance she’ll touch base.
“You gonna be okay if I head home?”
I have to get to the gym for the afternoon workout with my brothers, and occasionally our assistant coaches like to go over game footage before practice.
Ryann shrugs. “I’ll be fine.”
Fine.
I hate that word, but I’ll take it, ’cause I do have to split.
A hollow pit forms in my stomach, that little niggling I’ve come to identify as guilt, but there’s nothing I can do at the moment—not about the situation, not about having to leave.
I’m not going to be late because some dipshit reporter put my name on television.
thirty-one
ryann
“The day a man makes me happier than chips, guac, and a margarita is the day I get married. Unless he plays football.”
– Sav
“I’ll be fine.” Famous last words.
I let him walk out the door to go to practice without another peep, because what is there to say? Nothing can be done about this predicament, which is the predicament I signed up for without actually knowing the consequences.
How could I?
I’m just a normal person.
A normal student, going to classes and minding her own business. I don’t play in a stadium surrounded by thousands and thousands of screaming people—I don’t have fans. I don’t have a scholarship. I am not on television.
Dating Diego was different.
Diego isn’t going to be drafted; he isn’t going to the Combine, he isn’t entering the draft, and he won’t be playing professional football, so dating him was low-key.
Dating him was like dating a regular guy if you don’t include all the working out he did at the gym. Him hitting the gym felt the same as me having to work several days a week, so it never crossed my mind that being seen in public with a guy like Dallas would put me in the public eye.
I don’t watch or follow football. How the heck was I supposed to know he’s a big deal?
He’s in college, for crying out loud; he’s not an NFL superstar. At least not yet.