“Gee, thanks.”
He laughs. “This solves your need for a date. It’s a plus-one for the night only and a way to keep your mom from trying to set you up with every jerk in Savannah for a while. It also keeps Jack happy with his ticket purchase, and you can probably end up at the guy’s hotel if you really want to, but that’s a hard limit for me. I’m not about to talk to you about fucking guys, Riss. This is Bellamy’s department.”
“Noted.”
I consider his proposal. It would work. It could be fun. And it might be the only way to solve all of my problems.
Sure, I could ask someone else. But I would have to see those people again around town. It would be easy to call them up in a moment of weakness too. But Hollis doesn’t live here. I’ll probably never see him again.
Come to think of it—this might be the only way to stay true to myself while keeping the peace with everyone around me for the time being.
“You have to admit it’s a pretty great idea,” Boone says.
It is, but I’m not about to tell him that. Not yet, anyway.
I sigh. “I need to figure out what I’m going to do. Thanks for helping me.”
“Anytime.”
“Talk to you later.”
“Later, Riss.”
I end the call. But before I even remove my finger from the phone screen, a text pops up.
Hollis: It’s my turn to ask for a favor.
Seven
Hollis
“What the hell am I doing?”
I glance down at my phone and re-read the text I sent Larissa.
It’s my turn to ask for a favor.
Could I have been any more pathetic?
Maybe she didn’t notice. After all, she didn’t ask questions. She simply volunteered to meet me here.
Groaning, I sit back in my seat and watch the door.
Paddy’s is fairly quiet, which is not a surprise since it’s two thirty. I worked at a restaurant on campus my sophomore year and learned that the hours between two and four thirty are pretty dead. That’s precisely why I tried to work every shift I could that included those two hours. You basically got paid for sitting on your ass.
I spin my phone around and around. The sound the device makes as it slides across the wooden tabletop is smooth and almost melodic. I find myself humming a tune that starts slow. But as the minutes tick by and my eyes stay trained on the door, waiting for Larissa to walk in, the spins get faster, and the beat gets harder.
Fuck, Hollis. You’re calmer than this before game day.
Finally, the phone jets from between my fingers and winds up leaned against a menu display.
My body pulses with the need to move—to run or do push-ups or lift some weights. Something. Anything. For a split second, I wish that I was back on campus and in my daily routine.
As much as I thought I’d hate everything about college except football, I was wrong. It was the first time in my life I had structure. Routine. Predictability. I could go to sleep at night in my bed and know that I’d be crawling back into the same bed the night after.
Unless I ended up at a girl’s house, but the point remains the same.
I find it strange that the one thing I thought I’d hate most about Braxton College—the regime of it all—will be the one thing I look back on and wish I had the most. Because after graduation, who the fuck knows what’s going to happen?
I squirm in my seat and shift my eyes to the door again.
I’m not sure if all this pent-up energy is from knowing that Larissa will be walking through the doors or if it’s because I have a commitment to be at Landry’s house in a few hours. Both are exciting in their own way. They’re also equally nerve-wracking.
“She’s just a chick,” I whisper to myself. “A chick who owes you a favor.”
But even as I say the words, I know they aren’t true. She doesn’t owe me jack shit.
She’s about to be my fake date.
I imagine her next to me at some fancy table in Landry’s dining room. The conversation in my mind is about football and the future—things that are inherently private and personal to me. If I imagine Larissa with me, it doesn’t feel like a fake date anymore.
And that’s enough to make my insides seize.
The fun of just screwing around diminishes when you start adding in real-life talk. I don’t share those conversations with anyone, really. River knows the most because he has shit he needs to get off his chest too. We sort of talk about things and then blast abrasive rap music or go for a run and pretend it never happened.
I should’ve considered having to discuss things in front of Larissa before I got all impulsive and sent her that text.
Shit.
Do I really want to do this?
As alarm bells start ringing in my head, the door to Paddy’s opens.
Larissa walks in.
Jeans kissing her thighs, a jacket skimming the curve of her waist, and a smile on her lips that feels like it’s challenging me not to groan.
I’m not sure if she walks really fast or if my brain slows way down, but she’s at my table before I have time to get settled.
“I just realized something on the way over here,” she says as she sits across from me.
“And what might that be?”
She grins. She’s even cuter this afternoon than she was yesterday—and that’s quite a feat. Most women are much better looking in the evening hours than they are during the day. It’s some kind of law of the universe that’s never been fully explained.
“I realized that your little ploy of pretending to be my knight in shining armor was just that: a ploy,” she teases.
I lean forward and rest my elbows on the table. Her eyes dance as I peer into them. They’re clear and fresh with little lines coming from the corners that give her a playful energy.
“And how do you figure that?” I ask.
“Well, you told me that you were giving me your number in case I needed you for anything.” She sets her purse on the empty chair to her right. “But I bet you already knew you’d need me.”
“Untrue. Although I appreciate your confidence that I would choose you automatically.”
The corner of her lip turns upward. She mirrors my position by resting her elbows on the table.
“Was I your first choice?” she asks, her tone teasing.
“Absolutely.”
“Okay. I just wanted to make sure a list of women didn’t turn you down.”
“Sweetheart, no one ever turns me down.”
Her lips twist into an amused smirk. “I’m not sure if that means I should be the first or if I really have it in me to break your streak.”
I point at her, my finger bouncing up and down. “You are a funny one.”
She tosses me a wink.
Before I can say anything else, the waitress who brought me a drink earlier appears out of thin air. She asks Larissa if she wants anything. Larissa orders a tea just to be polite, I think.
Once we’re alone, she looks at me again. “What do you need from me?”
“Well, I have a little situation that’s not totally unlike yours from last night.”
She raises a perfectly arched brow. “You have an ex-girlfriend you want me to help you with?”
“No. When you put it like that, it’s totally different.”
“Well, when you put it like that, it makes me more likely to help you.”
She pauses and takes her drink from the waitress. After declining to order anything else, Larissa’s attention is all mine again.
“You were saying …?” She takes a sip.
“I got invited to dinner tonight, and it was implied that I should bring whoever is traveling with me. Only I don’t have anyone traveling with me. Hell, I don’t even know anyone in Savannah.”
“So I get the invitation because I’m the only person you know?”
“Yes.”
She sighs dramatically. “That makes a girl feel good.”
; “Would you rather me lie to you?”
Larissa takes a second—a longer one than I expect—before answering. She makes a face like she’s disgusted, and the gesture makes my stomach tight.
“I just realized something else,” she says. “My first reaction was to say yes, I would rather you lie to me. But what does that say about me? Don’t answer that.”
I grin. “Although you asked me not to answer, I’d say it means you want someone to make you feel important. And I don’t think that’s a terrible thing to want.”
She balks. “What are you? A philosopher?”
“Nope. I’ll be getting a good ole bachelor’s degree in business administration with a minor in music appreciation.”
“I didn’t know music appreciation was a thing.”
“Yeah, well, I love music. All kinds of it. But I don’t play an instrument and don’t want to learn. This let me take all the music classes I wanted to without taking saxophone lessons or some shit.”
She laughs, the ends of her straight hair hitting the small of her back.
The anxiety I felt earlier is long gone and, in its place, is a feeling of manageability.
“So you need me to accompany you to a dinner tonight. Is that right?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
“And we’re going as friends?”
I suck in a long, deep breath.
Going as friends will probably work fine. But would it feel pitiful if I tell Landry that I picked up a random girl I just met and asked her to go with me? Because it seems like it would. And if there’s one thing I don’t want, it’s Landry’s pity.
“Friends is okay. But maybe we could pretend we’ve known each other for a while? You don’t have to want to fuck me, but maybe you didn’t meet me last night either. Make sense?”
Her cheeks flush. “You want me to lie?”
I shift in my seat as my eyes lock onto hers. “About which part?”
A smile slips across my lips as a fire begins to burn inside my body. The flames lick at my veins, and all I can feel is my body heating.
Her tongue darts out, and she licks her lips. I think she’s doing it to fuck with me. If she is, it’s working.
“Before I agree,” she says, “I have something to ask you.”
“What’s that?”
“Another favor.”
“What do I look like? A favor boy?”
She sits back in her chair and exhales. “You look convenient.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
She tries not to look amused but fails. Miserably.
“Okay. In all seriousness, what do you need from me?” I ask.
“My stepfather, Jack, has this charity fundraiser thing he does every year. I wasn’t going to go, but he’s bought two tickets for me. If I don’t go, it’ll be the start of a war in my family, and I’d just like to get through the holiday season without anyone melting down.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “I’m not from here. I can’t ask anyone else—hence, you by default.” Which I’m not mad about. “But you, on the other hand, are from here. Or I suppose you are. So why not ask someone else?”
“To be honest, my mother will have someone there as my date if I don’t bring one. And while that seems fairly innocuous, it’s not. It’s a long and convoluted story that ends with my mother trying to marry me off to some random athlete that she thinks will simultaneously make me happy and save me from a life of eating TV dinners alone.” She sighs. “So I need a date, a fake one I won’t actually fall in love with, to save me from an arranged marriage.”
She smiles triumphantly.
I tilt my head to the side. “There’s one problem I don’t think you’ve accounted for.”
She makes a face.
“You don’t think you’ll fall in love with me?” I grin. “That’s very bold of you, Larissa.”
She levels her gaze on me. The sparkle is still there but also a heavy dose of confidence I wasn’t expecting.
“On the contrary, I think it’s very bold of you to think I will, Hollis.”
“Your naivete is adorable.”
“And your confidence is admirable.”
We watch each other like two gamblers in Vegas—both of us waiting for the other to fold.
This is a side of her that I didn’t expect. It’s a whole lot sexy, and a little badass, and I could really, really get into it.
But I won’t.
“I think the logical thing for us to do is to establish some boundaries for this relationship pact,” she says. “I mean, if you’re still considering this whole thing.”
I rub a hand down the side of my face. “What kind of boundaries?”
“Well, our interaction and relationship—both in reality and the one we are putting on for everyone else—is rooted in friendship. We might be acting like a couple but not a couple-couple. Not all over each other,” she says. “More like friends that might be trying something new.”
I get what she’s saying. It makes a lot of sense.
“Can we fuck and still be friends, though?” I ask.
She’s not sure if I’m teasing or not.
Her eyes shoot to the ceiling, her little rosebud of a pout parting and gasping for a quick breath of air.
I’m not kidding. I’d love to break her down and have her reeling from it for days. But that’s not what we’re doing here, and it’s probably for the best. I’m not sure she’s used to that sort of thing, and I’m definitely not a guy like she’s used to.
Case in point: Sebastian.
“I’m just kidding,” I tell her. “I don’t think you can handle me.”
She sighs, knocking a strand of hair out of her face. “You’re an asshole.”
I shrug.
She sits up and takes a drink of her tea. When she looks at me again, she’s composed.
“If I do start to fall in love with that wicked charm of yours, all I’ll have to do is remember this conversation, and I’m sure I’ll be able to deal,” she says.
“Yeah, well, women usually take it as a challenge.”
“Not me. I’m challenged out. Just looking for the easy road from here on out.” She pulls her purse onto her lap and sorts through it. “What will your dinner thing require? A dress? Casual? A bottle of wine?”
“Casual. I think. He said pizza.”
She looks up. “Pizza is good.”
“Pizza is great.”
She nods and takes her hand out of her purse. “Okay. For my thing, you’d need a suit and tie. Would that be a problem?”
“Nope. I have one with me for the event I’m here for to start with.”
“Can you make small talk?” she asks.
“I’m making small talk now, aren’t I?”
“Good point.”
She puts her purse back on the chair and focuses solely on me once again.
The need to move, to burn off excess energy comes rushing back again. My leg bounces up and down as I wait for her to figure out what she wants to do.
Because I know what I want to do.
I want to make this deal.
It’ll help me out of a bind. Fortunately, it’ll help her too.
And the fact I’ll get to hang out with her and watch her laugh and banter back and forth isn’t that bad either.
She wrinkles her nose. “So do we have a deal?”
“I’m in if you are.”
She shoves her hand across the table. I take it in mine.
Her skin is as soft as I remember, and her perfume brings me right back to the sea. Feeling the warmth in her palm and the sturdiness in the weight of her hand causes my leg to stop hopping around under the table.
We shake gently, easily, our eyes glued together.
She slips her hand from mine entirely before I’m ready, which is weird because I don’t do the hand-holding thing. I mean, I’ve done it. Sometimes you have to in order to keep the peace. But it’s never once been something I wanted or enjoyed. It feels intimate—like p
arents and their kids or girlfriends and boyfriends—and when have I ever had that?
Never. And despite what Lincoln said earlier, it’s not something I’ll probably ever have. That shit makes me uncomfortable.
Still, I miss the stillness from Larissa’s touch, and that throws me a bit.
“Guess we have a deal then,” she says softly, her eyes finding mine.
She has beautiful eyes.
“I can pick you up tonight around six thirty. I drove here from school, so I have my car.”
“Great. I’ll text you my address.”
A smile ghosts her lips as she gets to her feet. I stand, too.
My heartbeat thumps away as I watch her. She takes her purse in her hand and smooths her shirt down with the other.
I want to follow the movement and take in the beauty of her body, but I can’t look away from her face.
I wish I could ask her to stand still, to never leave that spot just so I could stay right here and feel this … balance. This calm before what I’m afraid might be a storm because there’s always a storm brewing. It’s a fact of life.
“I’ll see you tonight,” she says.
“Six thirty.”
She grins. “I’ll grab a bottle of wine. Don’t worry about that.”
“I wasn’t.” I hadn’t even thought about bringing something to dinner.
“I saw the panic in your eyes when I mentioned it before. But don’t worry—I have many, many extra bottles at home that will work.”
“Well, if you insist …”
She laughs as she turns on her heel and walks away.
I stand beside the table and watch her, wondering what just happened here. She’s a chance encounter. Temporary. The perfect solution to an imperfect situation.
Yet … there was a vibe between us. Our energies fell in-sync so easily that being around her feels like being around one of my guy friend. It’s easy. It’s fun.
Except that I wouldn’t mind fucking her.
I shake my head. You’re here for a few days, Hudson. Then Savannah is in your rearview, like so many people and places before Larissa.
So many people.
I heave a breath and find a smile spreading across my cheeks.
Maybe so, but I’ll get this girl for two nights. And that’s better than what I usually get—nothing.
The Relationship Pact: Kings of Football Page 7