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)
Oh my God.
Obviously, he knew.
He knew the guy was there taking our photo, and apparently, he was recording us too.
“Do you see that?”
“See what?” He craned his neck around as if he were having trouble seeing the same guy I saw.
“That guy.” I paused, rain pelting my eyes. “I thought I saw him taking pictures.”
“In this rain?”
I nodded. Did it make a difference if it was raining or not for the press to take our photos? “Before that…”
He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward his truck. “Why are we still standing here? Let’s go.”
Distracting me.
“Ryann, are you there?” Mom’s voice interrupts my memory.
If this phone I’m on had a cord, I’d be nervously twirling it. “I’m assuming Dad almost having a heart attack wasn’t a good thing?”
“All I know is we’ve been getting call after call, and it’s still morning. This is ridiculous. Who is this boy?”
She keeps calling him a boy, but he’s anything but.
“I’m not dating him. We just…we’re friends.”
“How did you become friends with a guy who dumped you for one of his buddies?”
Ah. So she does remember me mentioning Dallas! How sly my mother is when she wants to be.
“It’s complicated,” I tell her. I can’t very well say I agreed to a farce for the sake of his football career. Which suddenly sounds so fucking stupid and was such a dumb thing to do, the whole idea gross to me. An idea that, at the time, I thought I could handle.
Mom huffs in frustration. “I don’t understand your generation.”
“You don’t have to understand it. This is really between Dallas and me.”
“And now it’s between you and Dallas and the entire nation of sports fans.”
“Mom, I just woke up. Can I have some coffee and call you back?”
“You told me you were in the shower.”
Dammit. I hate when she does this, as if she were a freaking private detective putting pieces of a mystery together. Except this isn’t a mystery—this is my personal life! And I still have no idea what she’s talking about.
I mean, I know what she’s talking about.
I haven’t seen with my own eyes what she’s talking about, but as soon as Dallas is out of the shower, I’m ready to pounce.
thirty
dallas
“Do you ever want to cuddle with your girlfriend and realize you don’t have one?”
– Drew Colter
Why is Ryann looking at me as if I just did her dirty?
Was fucking three times last night not enough? Do I need to fuck her once more before I bounce?
Seated on the couch, she’s been patiently waiting for me to put my clothes back on—the T-shirt and joggers I had on yesterday nice and dry from the dryer.
Not clean, but dry.
Anywho, I pause en route to her bedroom so I can riffle around for my socks, which have gone missing in action somehow.
“What?”
She crosses her arms.
“Did I do something?” Best to get the question out of the way since it’s obvious I have indeed done something to earn this ire, but I’m not dumb enough to ask something stupid like, Why do you look like someone pissed in your Cheerios?
“Have you seen the news?”
No, I haven’t seen the news, although my phone has been blowing up all morning, most of the messages from my teammates and my brothers, who are wondering where I am and why I never came home last night.
“No.”
Hey, it’s not a lie. I haven’t seen the coverage, but I know damn well what she’s referring to: our picture being blasted all over the national news.
“I thought they were going to put a cute picture of me on the big screen at the stadium and that would be the end of it. That’s what you told me was going to happen.”
I shrug. “What do you want me to do?”
Her eyes almost bug out of her head as she stares at me. “Something!” Her arms go up. “Do you know how furious my parents are right now?”
I snort. “Oh, please. Who gives a shit? You’re twenty-one years old. Do you ask them permission to take a shit, too?”
Ryann’s mouth falls open.
Shuts.
Steam practically rises from her nose. “Of course I don’t ask their permission to take a shit, but a heads-up from me would have been great.” She stands. “Actually, a heads-up from you would have been great, too. Someone had to have known about this.”
“My agent arranged it.” I say it as casually as I can, the words sounding foreign to me and odd. My agent arranged it.
“I had to shut my phone off,” Ryann announces indignantly, as if having to do so is a violation of her constitutional rights.
“Okay? Want me to shut mine off too?” Seriously, what does she want me to do right now?
The situation is beyond my control.
Her eyes narrow. “No, I don’t want you to shut yours off too! That’s not what I meant. I just meant…” Her arms flop up, then down at her sides. “I don’t know what I mean. I’m just…freaked out.”