The Romance Line (Love and Hockey #2) Read Online Lauren Blakely

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Contemporary, Forbidden, Funny, Sports Tags Authors: Series: Love and Hockey Series by Lauren Blakely
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Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 135831 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
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Features—like the thing Everly asked me to do in Seattle. I don’t mention that though. He probably already knows I refused. Dude probably knows what I ate for breakfast too. I stay quiet, waiting for him to keep going.

“But it’s been over a year,” he adds. Translation: the team’s patience is running out. “And it’d be good for you to get out there. Give a softball comment now and then after a game.”

“Like, I’m just focused on helping the team,” I say, rolling my eyes.

Rosario clears her throat, beaming as she chimes in. “Actually, that’s a great start. Our market research shows that a simple team-centric comment to the press can go a long way to endearing the public to a professional athlete.”

“Long enough to make them forget a pop star wrote a song about you that was dead wrong?” I counter. Not to mention the fight that came before that too.

Garrett levels me with a serious stare. “Not gonna lie—it’ll take some work, but it’d be a start.”

“You want me to tell everyone, too, why we split? Does the world need to know the truth of that?”

“No, Max,” he says, deadly serious. “It doesn’t do you any good to air dirty laundry. But it doesn’t do you any good to be so reclusive about yourself and the sport either. As it is, your reluctance is sending you backward.”

I sigh heavily. “There’s a reason I don’t talk to the press,” I say. And it has little to do with that song. Little to do with the fight. It has everything to do with what happened a week or so later when the press tried to track me down at my sister’s house after the fight. I burn with anger as I remember that night more than a year ago.

“We know,” John cuts in, his voice even more no-nonsense than Garrett’s. “But still.”

Then I get pissed. Like I would if I missed a save in a game. “This is bullshit from Thrive. I’ve promoted their product in every way possible. I did promo shoots and commercials.”

Garrett nods solemnly. “I know, Max. But the numbers don’t lie. Your marketability has decreased significantly. And they aren’t the only ones who have moved on.”

I bristle at the reminder. I lost Power Kicks, a sneaker company. I lost the watchmaker Victoire. Hell, I couldn’t even get a sponsorship with Seductive, the company that owns the cologne I actually wear every day.

The last year’s been a long, slow march away from me. I’m nuclear to brands. But Thrive felt like a lifeboat, consistently keeping me afloat.

“We have nothing compared to the other season,” John adds.

The one before I discovered Lyra’s lies. The one before the world blamed me for her lies. Lies she spun in her song of heartbreak. “Surprise Me” in-fucking-deed.

“And it’s affecting your likeability quotient,” Rosario puts in.

Frustration bubbles inside me. “What the hell is a likeability quotient?”

“It’s a measure of how appealing you are to audiences, Max,” Rosario chimes in gently, popping up from her chair and heading to the whiteboard. She rips off the paper covering it and shows a thermometer drawing, with only a small section at the bottom colored in red. “And right now, yours has gone way down.”

I scoff. “That sounds like a BS marketing term they use in ad agencies in TV shows. Or like a sign at a bank that’s trying to raise funds for something.”

Garrett nods, giving me that much. “Maybe, but the thing is, market research matters. Brands use it. They rely on it. Guys like Carter Hendrix?” he says, naming the star receiver for the San Francisco Renegades. “Very high likability quotient.”

I groan. Love the guy. He’s a friend. But of course he’s beloved. “He took his best friend on dates to farmers’ markets and chocolate shops and shot videos for a dating app. Of course everyone loves him.”

“So you understand how the likeability quotient works,” John says, his tone precise, ready to move on.

Wait. Hold the hell on. “Are you about to suggest I fake date someone? Because no, no, and more no. That is not going to happen.”

After a far too public relationship with a pop star went south, no way am I smiling and kissing for the camera. Besides, I don’t want to lie. I’d rather have zero sponsors than spin a fake love story for the world.

Rosario chuckles as she returns to her seat. “No, we’re not suggesting that. Studies show in your case that’d be worse for your image.”

My head spins with all their market research. “You did studies on the possibility of me fake dating?”

“Of course. But we don’t phrase it like that. We have subtler ways of asking the audience if it would be good for someone. But we feel that based on the, how shall we say, rather public attention of your last romance, a fake romance to improve your image is just too risky.”


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