Page 29 of Only Between Us

Lola leans into my side. “So cute! He’s showing off for you.”

No, Lola. He’s showing off for the hundreds of phones currently pointing at him.

“Oh—look!”

I follow Lola’s gaze to the jumbotron behind the end zone, where my unimpressed face stares back at me. Everyone else is on their feet after Brooks’s heroic display.

I’m sitting comfy in my chair. Arms and legs crossed tight, without a fuck to give in the world.

Lola gives me an odd look. “Are you two okay?”

And now it looks like I despise my boyfriend, the town darling.

Quickly, I fix my attention on Brooks, who’s nearing the bencheswith his helmet off. I give my best interpretation of an awed girlfriend of nine months. The way he shakes his head at me plainly saysCome on, Pippen. Is that all you got?

Dick.

There’s a smattering of bird whistling mixed in with the cheering now. That, along with his challenging look, gets me to my feet. Gets me crooking my finger at Brooks in aget over heremotion.

The crowd is so loud, my ears will be ringing for days.

After a beat of surprise, Brooks closes the distance at a jog, reaching the barrier between my seat and the field. His brows shoot up in surprise when I throw out my arms.

“What are we doing?” Brooks says through a wide smile.

“I don’t know.” I cup his face between both hands, faking a smile just as big. “Just go with it.”

He wraps an arm around my waist and hauls me off my feet and over to his side of the barrier, keeping me tight against his padded chest.

With a hand on each side of his face blocking the view, we should be able to pull this off. Fake a kiss. No one will know any better.

“You go left,” I whisper.

Brooks’s eyes widen in understanding. I lean in, then veer to the side at the last second. Meaning to place a kiss at the corner of his mouth. Except that it’s not the corner of his mouth at all, because we move in the same direction.

Brooks’s mouth presses against mine, and I can’t hear my own shocked gasp over the insane screaming around us. I can’t hear his grunt, either, but I do feel it in the kiss, in the way his body tenses against mine.

The crowd must be as stunned as we are, because every single person in this stadium goes silent.

In the back of my mind, I know that’s impossible. That what’s probably happening is that my own hearing has gone out at the feel of Brooks’s lips.

I’m frozen.

He’s hesitating. Then probably realizes how bad it looks, hesitating into a kiss with his supposed girlfriend of nine months. The future mother of his children.

So… hekissesme.

He sucks on my lip before tilting his head to go in for more. I’m only holding up my end of the bargain when I lick into his mouth. Brooks grunts again, body going pliant. He pulls back, nips my lip, then kisses me deeper, selling the act for the thousands of people watching. And that’s exactly why I wrap my legs around his hips. Pull us closer together, cup his face the way I would if this were real. Breath hitching when he rests a hand under my ass to support my weight and sighing when he threads his other fingers through my hair.

We stand there, enduring this kiss.

This terrible kiss.

This kiss with his soft, plump, totallyfuckingkissable lips, oh my fuckingGodit’s so good—

What the hell am I doing?

I wrench away and the screaming around us rushes back in. I do my best to ignore the noise. I wish I could equally ignore the smug look on Brooks’s face, but I don’t have any luck with that given it’s only a handful of inches from mine.