We Super Shouldn't: Complete Enemies to Lovers Romance Series Collection
Page 19
THE END
Super Not Into You
An Enemies to Lovers Fake Fiancé Romance
Super in Love Book 2
Copyright © 2019; All rights reserved.
Jamie Knight –
Your Dirty Little Secret Romance Author
Chapter One
Bryan
“You’re going to be alright, aren’t you? You’re looking a bit pale, Bryan.”
Palir’s voice echoes in my head, rattling endlessly. There’s an obvious answer that I’ll be sure to spout in a moment, but I’m curious about the actual answer. The truth of myself. I’ll have to keep calm the entire day and work through the obvious problems I’ll face; people coming into my space to ask me about the topic I want to converse the least about and maintaining a paparazzi worthy appearance throughout some sort of volunteer work. I don’t really know if I’m up for that. It all seems like such a hassle.
I lean back in the passenger seat of Pilar’s red convertible. The morning sun in New York City is warm on my face and the cars around us zip by like they don’t know who I am or care. There is space here under the pale blue sky for me to relax and breath. Space I won’t have very soon.
“Bryan, come on, buddy, are you there?”
“Yes,” I finally say, and rub my hands over my eyes. “Sorry, I sort of spaced out there for a second.”
“I know,” Palir laughs uncomfortably. He glances over at me. “Spacing out is something I don’t want you to do anymore. That’s sort of what got you here in the first place.”
I glare at my assistant, but he stays quiet until we reach a stop light. Palir turns to me from the driver’s seat, keeping a hand on the steering wheel and looks at me like a father would to his soon to be berated son. Before going into his lecture, he sighs deeply.
“Bryan, I can’t have you screwing anything up today. You have to be on your best behavior,” he warns me. He crinkles his dark eyebrows and they pull low over his brown eyes.
“You know you’re my assistant, not my manager,” I jokingly ask.
He scoffs. “Let’s be real, I’m acting as your severely underpaid manager. If your real manager got off his ass and did his job, you probably would have had this taken care of the day after your little fiasco. But no, it all falls on my shoulders. I tried getting you a tutor, I tried--”
I turn away from him and shake my head. “Palir, I get it. You’ve worked very hard to get—”
“Now hold on, don’t interrupt me, I’m in the middle of making a point,” he exclaims, holing up one finger.
The light turns green prompting Palir to turn his attention back to the road. Keeping his eyes straight ahead, he continues his lecture.
“I just want you to get back to where you were. You don’t deserve all the shit you’re getting from TMZ and Fox and the trolls on Twitter and I want the world to know that. You’re a good person, Bryan, and just because you don’t want the world to know that you’re dyslexic doesn’t mean you deserve to be shit on or have your football career ruined,” he goes on.
As a personal assistant, Palir has gone above and beyond to make sure I have a successful career. To his credit, he’s not lying about my actual manager. Roger has done more to further his success than he has mine. Palir could use a promotion with a generous pay bump. I won’t let him know that now, so he doesn’t get a big head right after berating me.
“I appreciate all of that, Palir, you know I do,” I admit.
“I sure hope so. And with that said, I hope that means that you’ll try hard to not to ‘space out’ while you’re volunteering today.”
“I promise, Palir.” I nod and cross my arms in front of my chest.
My mind runs for a moment, trying to fetch the memory of when Palir told me about my volunteering. It’s fruitless. I wasn’t listening at the time.
I sigh and run a hand through my light-brown hair. It’s getting long. I will need to shave it before the end of the draft and training starts. I like to keep it short when I’m wearing a helmet.
“Remind me again, what is it that I’m going to be doing these next couple of weeks?”
He shrugs. “Whatever they tell you to do. It’s a non-profit that helps schools set up afterschool programs. You’ll probably just be looking after kids. Making sure they don’t kill each other, and help them poke straws into their juice boxes, I don’t know. Whatever.”
Nothing I can’t handle, then. I tell myself to relax. It’s just a short road on the way to repairing my public image and making sure my contract is secure.
“You’re going to be here every day you can make it, alright?” Pilar lectures. “It’s off-season so you don’t have any excuse. When you’re not in the gym, or being interviewed, you’re here. Got it?”
He’s still shooting a stern look my way, but after I stare right back at him with a purposely confused expression, we both crack a smile and start howling with laughter.
Despite having to take on the brunt of the responsibilities in my life, Palir knows he’s more than an assistant to me. More than an underpaid manager. He’s been one of my only friends since my football career took off. After a revolving door of yes men and brownnosers, I chose Palir to be my assistant because he was the only person who genuinely cared about my life. Other previous assistants were scared of saying no to me or telling me the truth.
Palir helped and continues to help me stay grounded. He’s one of the few reasons I’ve been able to become a great football player without letting the fame go to my head. If it weren’t for him, I’d probably be off buying a billion-dollar property with a needlessly high number of garages for my equally needless high amount of luxury cars like so many of my teammates have.
As our laughter dies down, I feel a sense of dread fill the car. As lighthearted as I want to be, I still can’t escape the reality of the situation or the fuckup I’ve done.
“This is going to fix things, isn’t it? Once off-season is over, I’ll—”
“Let’s not worry about off-season being over until it’s over, huh? Worrying isn’t going to help anything,” he insists.
I try to refute him, but for the third time this car ride, he interrupts me before I can get more than a couple of words out.
“Listen to me, Bryan, even if this charity thing doesn’t work, there is still a lot of paperwork and bureaucratic whatever that will buy us time. You’re still going to play football.”
I sigh, “I know that. I know I’m still going to play. I just want to make sure that I’m playing for my team. If I’m traded, then… I’m not playing for my hometown anymore. I’ll end up playing against the people who have become my family.”
“For starters, if they were really your family, they’d have been a lot more vocal about supporting you these past few weeks, don’t you think? Secondly… I’m going to do what I can to make sure you stay on the team. I know that Coach Kramer knows The Leviathans won’t be the same without Bryan Anderson. No one can catch a ball like you. You block like a champ and you always have Marvin, the quarterback’s back. You’re the best tight end in the league, so he’s going to try to keep you on, too. It’s just up to the owners and if they don’t see a change in your public image… you might have to consider playing for another team,” he explains.
“That’s not happening,” I say firmly, “we have to make sure this charity thing works out. I’m not moving from New York.”
Pilar takes a corner and turns into a parking lot. We arrive at the headquarters for Children for The Future and get out of the car. The name of the charity rings a bell, but I can’t quite figure out why until I see the non-profit’s logo on a banner above the front door.
“Palir… this…,” I stammer, stopping in my tracks.
“Best way to improve your image is to make sure the world knows you’re sorry about what you did. And the best way to do that is by righting a wrong,” he proudly states rocking on his heels with his hands behind his back. “Come on, let’s get you all set up.”
We’re able to shoot the shit with the overly accommodating receptionist until she points out the person we’ve been waiting for. The woman who is going to be showing me around looks exactly as I’d envision someone in this line of work to look or at least her clothing does. She’s wearing a presumably free t-shirt from the charity, ripped up jeans, and scuffed trainers. She looks somewhat familiar.
But what I’m not expecting is for her to be incredibly hot. Her free t-shirt is pulled tight over large, round, perky breasts. Her jeans hug her thick thighs and hips, displaying every curve of her form. Her long black hair is pulled up into a high pony-tail and it flops down her shoulder with little pieces framing her round-shaped face with high cheekbones. She walks through the door with a smile on her full pink lips, but it quickly fades after realizing what she’s summoned for.
“Another apology, huh,” she asks with an annoyed expression, looking me up and down.
Everything about her body language is telling me to turn away, but her question makes it seem as though we’ve met before.
“Sorry, have we—”
“Yes, at the fundraiser,” she sighs and drops her head to the side. Her pony-tail flops over her other shoulder. “But I know why you’re here. To make another half-assed apology, but this time it’ll seem more personal because you’re actually here instead of at some press conference. Where are the paparazzi, huh?”
Palir steps between us. “Actually, ma’am, Mr. Anderson is here to help.”
“Help?” She raises one perfectly arched eyebrow.
“Yes. He understood that a public apology wasn’t enough to make things right after what he did. So, he’s chosen to come in and make an actual change,” Palir says confidently.
“And who are you?” the woman asks.
“Mr. Anderson’s assistant.”
The volunteer throws her eyebrows up in surprise. “You’re not his manager or agent or whatever?”
“Nope. I’m just here to drive him,” Pilar answers.
She glares at me with the prettiest hazel eyes I’ve ever seen. Her pouty mouth puckers into a frown. “Then why are you speaking for him. Cat got his tongue? Or is he drunk again?”
“I wasn’t drunk,” I snap. “And Palir doesn’t speak for me.”
She sighs, rubs a hand over her forehead and then drops both her hands to her sides. “Calm down, Tiger. Just want to make sure this isn’t some publicity stunt. That’s not something I want to waste my valuable time on,” she explains. “Call me Scout. I’ll be looking over you for… however long it is you’re looking to volunteer.”
I reach out to offer her my hand. She looks at my palm like she isn’t sure she wants to take it, like it might bite or something, but then she relaxes and puts her small hand in mine. It’s slightly cold, but I can’t help but notice how well it fits in mine. I shake once, delicately, and then let her go.
“I’m going to be here as often as I can,” I tell her.
She rolls her eyes and then asks Palir if he’ll be joining us.
“Oh, no. I’ve got some other things to do. Maybe some other day. Uh, Bryan, call me when you’re done, I’ll come and pick you up,” Palir says before leaving in a rush. Scout seems to have scared him something fierce. I get that. The woman has fire in her eyes.
Scout takes me through the establishment. Room by room, she explains what the volunteers do on a day to day basis. I find myself not minding because she walks in front of me and I can watch her hips sway as she walks. For nearly half an hour, she goes into detail about the work done in this building and even introduces me to some of the staff. Then, she turns to me and pisses me off.
“Got it?” she asks with a haughty look.
I shrug and lean back onto a wall. “Sure, yeah. It’s a lot to remember, but I think I get the gist,” I carefully admit.
“Now I want you to forget about that, because you’re mostly going to be in the field,” she says, growing an entertained grin. She even giggles a bit.
“What? So why did I —”
Her small shoulders pull up in an exaggerated shrug. “I had to kill time before our bus arrived. I wanted to see if you would listen. We’re going to be heading to some schools,” she tells me, patting my back like I’m a little kid and not a huge football player that has over a foot of height on her and probably two hundred more pounds of weight.
My temper flares. Who is this chick to treat me this way? She may be hot, but she’s a nobody. Deep breaths. Deep breaths are how I’m going to get through today if Scout continues being this unwelcoming. I understand that my screw up made Children for The Future lose some of its funding but taking it out on me with such annoyance seems a bit childish.
Still, I’m here to change my image.
Screaming at a sassy volunteer isn’t going to help me any, even if she deserves it.
Chapter Two
Bryan
A school bus parks outside of the charity’s building is soon filled with volunteers wearing the same grey shirt Scout is wearing. We follow the others inside. Scout chooses a seat near the front and I slide into the one behind hers. I sit forward and put my arms on the top of her seat, so that if she sits back, she would have to touch me. Something she seems disinclined to do. She leans towards the seat in front of her and glares at me.
“When do I get one of those?” I ask, trying to be amicable. I point at her shirt.
“When you’ve done some actual work,” she replies coldly and flips her pony-tail to the other shoulder.
Once the driver is on board, we set out for a nearby elementary school. I glance around and realize that a truck bearing the Children of The Future logo on its side trails the bus.
“What’s the truck for?” I ask Scout. For some reason I want to annoy her by keeping her talking to me.
Scout replies to a text and doesn’t look up from her phone to answer me. “It’s carrying supplies.”
“A truck full of supplies?” I ask for clarification and lean over her seat more to crowd her space.
“Yes,” she sighs, finally looking up at me, “we just got the last of our funding until who knows when and we’re going to use it to set up jungle gyms at schools that don’t have them.”
Jungle Gyms, that sounds like a good idea. Lazily, I scratch my chin. “Shouldn’t we leave that to professionals?”
She rolls her eyes at me. “Big football player afraid of using a wrench,” she scoffs. “Why am I not surprised?”
“I’m not afraid of using my hands.” I reach out with my palm open to illustrate that my hand is as big as her face. “Or anything, for that matter.” I give her a grin and Scout rolls her eyes. “I’m just not a contractor, or… jungle gym assembler.”
Scout huffs and looks back at her phone. “It’s not rocket science, Bryan. Besides, it comes with instructions and you’ll have, what, 20, 30 other people helping you out. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“Like I said, I’m not afraid of anything,” I press.
She sighs, rolls her eyes again, and turns her back on me. “We’ll see, I suppose.”
Feeling defeated, I sit back in my seat and drop my arms to my lap. Scout just does not want me to like her, I take it. I’m trying to seem interested by asking questions, but she’s just continually shoots them down with condescending answers.
There’s a strange occurrence that happens every time two people meet for the first time. For a moment, even subconsciously, both people think about the other naked, or how they’d be as a sexual partner. It normally lasts a few minutes. For me, at least.
When Scout walked out onto the lobby, I pictured her naked. It’s only natural. She’s an attractive lady with a good body. She’s charitable, young, and passionate. But I stopped fantasizing about Scout imme
diately after she opened her mouth for the first time, and I’m sure the same happened on her end.
All of my attraction melted away as soon as I was received with pure antagonism and sass. Her feelings toward me aren’t without reason, but I feel as though I should be given the benefit of the doubt. Not all famous athletes who mess up own up to their actions, outside of addressing and apologizing for their fuckup. I’m really trying, and I want this woman to recognize that.
Here I am doing my best to stay in a charitable mood, and Scout is doing everything in her power to dissuade me from ever wanting to be altruistic again. Though, I suppose it’s not true altruism. I do have an ulterior motive. But she doesn’t know that.
When we get to the first elementary school, Scout has me get out before everyone else and start unloading the truck carrying the supplies. These supplies consist of heavy boxes holding the metal rods and parts for the jungle gyms we will be building. As I step off the truck carrying two boxes, I look out to see the other volunteers walk into the school without me.
“Hey! Scout! Where do you want these boxes?!”
I see some volunteers turn their heads back to me, but none of them do more than that. Some of them even seem to be laughing and smiling. It sets my temper on edge. I didn’t come here to get fucked with. I promised Palir that I would be on my best behavior but that was back when I didn’t know it would be so difficult.
I hold onto the boxes and carefully walk behind the crowd of volunteers. I end up standing in the blacktop part of the campus. Having caught up with everyone, I carefully set the boxes down. My eyes search for Scout.
“Yo, Bryan, what are you standing there for? There are more boxes on that truck, aren’t there,” Scout shouts from the front of the thirty-person crew. None of them move to help me and I know it’s because she told them not to.
I frown. Hiding my disdain for Scout is becoming increasingly less possible. I’m going to be the only person of thirty to carry out about fifteen boxes, two at a time. I thought she considered her time valuable. How is this efficient at all?