I fully expect this marriage sham will only last a few months, maybe a year. But I’m at a point in my life where it’s one adventure after another, and what bigger adventure could I embark upon right now other than dedicating my entire life to becoming a football wife? I’m already devoting a huge chunk of my time to this man as his public relations manager. Why not just take it another step (okay, a few thousand steps) further?
At the worst, it’s maybe a year out of my life. Even if Luke and I end up hating one another, if we agree to just one year, he has a big enough house that we could basically avoid each other. I could go live in the damn pool house if I need to. And there’s a lot of potential in that it might open doors for my career. It might give me a whole new network of people—celebrities, which, I’ll admit now, even includes athletes—to meet and potentially work with.
“I’ve got nothing else going on,” I say instead of any of that, and I realize it makes me sound both desperate and incredibly sad.
He presses his lips together. “I had a hard enough time coming to terms with you agreeing to be my fake fiancée. But my fake wife?” He shakes his head and glances away from me. “When I said it at first, it just sort of slipped out. But I just...I don’t see myself getting married again. Not after Savannah destroyed me the way she did.”
I nod even though I feel a little defeated. He’s the one who brought it up first. “Okay. It was a stupid idea. Forget it.”
He drums his fingers on the table beside him where he stands, and then he heaves out a huge breath. “What if it’s not a stupid idea? Am I stupid for actually considering it?”
My brows shoot up. “You’re considering it?”
“Josh will kill us both.”
“This isn’t about my brother,” I say. “I don’t really care what his opinion is. If I’m in and you’re in, isn’t that all that matters?”
He nods. “I don’t know if I’m in.”
“Okay, so we’re trial running me as your PR manager for the next week or two, right? What if we trial run me as your fiancée, too?”
He nods and steeples his fingers in front of his mouth. “Okay, I like where your head’s at, but what do you get out of it?”
“I get to be married to a hot ass football star.”
He laughs and shakes his head modestly and with a touch of embarrassment. “I’m insane for even considering this,” he breathes, and he pauses. “You’d need to get something out of it. I could double what I offered to pay you for my PR. And, no offense, we’d need an airtight prenup. I don’t know you well enough to fork over half of everything I own when we know there’s an end date on it.”
I pretend his words don’t kill a little piece of me. I fully know what I’m getting myself into here. I’m under no illusion that he’ll magically fall in love with me and we’ll navigate our very own fairy tale as we find our way to our happily ever after.
Even though a girl can still hope and dream.
CHAPTER 4
Luke’s watching ESPN to catch today’s sports highlights while I flip through the selection of dresses on the mobile sites of some local stores, and then he clicks for the recorded shows on his DVR and starts a football game.
It’s the Aces against the Bears. I glance over at him with pursed lips, and he laughs at my expression.
“Listen, babe. If you’re engaged to me, you better understand the basics of what I do.” He clicks a button on the remote.
I huff out an annoyed breath and give him a look with raised brows. I hold out my hand toward the television as if to say, all right, let’s get on with it.
“Lesson one,” he begins. “This is just a quick overview of the game.”
He starts telling me about quarters and downs and yardage and blitzes, and the way he’s so passionate as he talks is both endearing and incredibly sexy. He clearly loves the game. He loves what he does, and as he shows me examples of each part of the game he explains, I actually start to get it.
All the times Josh and my dad have tried to explain this damn game to me were absolute failures. But after one session with Luke, I finally understand what a first down is.
I even know the little thing the fans do with their arms to indicate a first down.
I see him in his uniform. I watch for number eighty-four. I see him catch the ball. I see him run.
It’s really freaking hot.
He’s fast and agile, and watching him play the sport that’s everything to him sort of peels back another layer of who he is. I can see it in the way his eyes study the screen before they light with passion when he glances at me to explain what something means. I can hear it in the inflection of his voice, both excited to talk about the game and patient as he explains what must be the most rudimentary aspects of it.
He loves this game. It’s the most important thing in his life.
I get why he’s scared going into the last year of his contract. He doesn’t know what comes next because he’s never really had to think about it. He’s been too busy living his dream to worry about the next stage even though it looms closer and closer every season.
It's not just that, though. He’s not just looming closer to the end of his career...but he’s doing it alone. When he got married, surely he didn’t expect to get divorced. Nobody goes into marriage with that mindset—unless you’re doing it as a sham, I guess. He must’ve seen her in his future so that when his career was over, he’d have someone there beside him as he entered into whatever phase of life came after the game.
And maybe that’s why I fell into his life. Maybe part of my job here isn’t just to help him continue playing for the team he loves so damn much. Maybe it’s also helping him discover what the next phase of his life is going to be once it’s time to transition...because that time will come whether he’s ready for it or not. He can’t play football forever.
I can’t help my yawn as the clock strikes eleven.
“Sorry,” Luke says, his eyes still animated as he watches the game. “I’m boring you now.”
I laugh. “Actually, not at all. I could listen to you talk about football forever.” I realize how much I mean those words when they tumble out of my mouth. Watching how excited he gets about a catch is something lovely to behold. “It’s just getting late.”
He glances at the clock. “Yeah. Sorry, I get caught up when I’m talking about the game. You ready to go to bed?”
I nod. It’s our first night sharing a bed, and that thought is a little daunting. “I think I’ll head up.”
“You go ahead,” he says. “I’m just going to watch a little more film.”
“Film?” I ask.
He chuckles. “It’s just what we call it. An older word leftover from another time. I’m going to watch a little more of this game and study it. Look at what I did, what I could have done differently, what those around me and on the other side of the ball did, that sort of thing.”
“Okay,” I say, and I have this strange and totally natural urge to lean over to kiss him goodnight. But I don’t. I somehow stop myself. “Have fun watching your film.”