Page 14 of Only Between Us

Siena bursts into laughter. “You’re kidding, right?”

“My agent seems to think this is the only way out of this mess. You’d be my ticket back to the Rebels, and I’d be your ticket to some more of that internet infamy. Brand deals, whatever. Based on those articles, it’s already working.”

She digests my words. “Fake dating?Who does that?”

“I do. I once fake-dated my best friend’s girlfriend for a while and…” I trail off when her eyes grow in alarm. “Forget it. It’ll be temporary. Surface-level. We won’t even need to see or speak to each other outside of public appearances where we’ll have pictures of us taken with my dog.”

“Let me see if I understand this clearly. You want me to pretend to be your girlfriend for however long it takes you to sign with the Rebels.”

“That’s the gist of it.”

Her brows pinch together. “You want me to make appearances with you where we’ll presumably be photographed together, so that the Rebels management team thinks you’ve settled down.”

I think she might really be considering this. “Exactly.”

She combs her fingers through her hair, thinking hard. “And once you sign, you’ll move away. We’ll pretend to… what? Break up because of the long distance?”

I jab my finger in her direction. “Perfect.”

She hums, nods along with me. “And what I’ll get out of it are cuddles with your German shepherd and more internet fame as an NFL girlfriend?”

“See? It’s win-win.”

Siena snorts, and the pensive look melts right off her face. “I’m going to have to pass. As tempting as it is.”

“You won’t do it?”

“Of course I won’t do it!”

“Why not?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she says sarcastically, pacing to the windows. “Maybe because—contrary to your glowing opinion of me—I don’t care about being internet famous. Besides, you’re a total stranger.” She turns on her heel and makes for the locked door of the coaches’ booth. “A scheming stranger, who probably lured me up here knowing we’d get stuck together, just to convince me to pretend-date him and his dog.”

Siena whips a credit card out of her wallet and moves for the door. She fiddles for a few moments until an unmistakableclickbreaks the silence.

What the fuck? “How’d you know how to do that?”

Calmly, she replaces her credit card and wallet into her purse. “I’ve been jimmying locks since I was a kid.”

A number of questions bounce around my head. I settle on “And why didn’t you do that to begin with?”

“You didn’t seem especially concerned that we were stuck. And I’ll admit I was… intrigued. Now, though?” When she finally looks at me again, it’s with something akin to disgust. She indicates me with a flippant flick of her hand. “No, thanks.”

Siena grips the door handle just as it swings open on its own. For the second time today, I throw my arms around her, catching her around the waist before she face-plants into the ground.

“What the hell is going on in here?” We look up to find Summer, still dressed in her UOB faculty gear. Her hair swishes as she looks between us. “I got your SOS. I thought you said the door was locked from the outside?”

Siena smooths her hair, wafting some of that sun-kissed, ocean scent to where I stand behind her. “It was.”

Summer eyes Siena with interest. “Hey, you’re the girl from the picture. It’s all over ESPN down in the gym.”

Fucking. Awesome.

Definitely no way out of this, then.

“That would indeed be me.” Siena clutches her purse. “Well, I’m out. Thanks for the attempted save…”

“Summer.”