Page 35 of Fake Shot

“Morgan. Drew.”

“Okay, so we tell the five of them the truth.” Colt shrugs like this is no big deal. “If they can keep their mouths shut, this will work. And then down the road, when all the news about this has passed, my parents’ anniversary party is over, and the playoffs are done ...”

“We fake break up?”

“Sure. But I have one condition.”

“You’re the one trying to sellmeon this,” I remind him. “Andyou’resetting conditions?”

“Just one. You have to be the one to break it off with me.” He shoves his hands back in his pockets, and it has the rolled-up sleeves of his dress shirt pulling higher and revealing his inked-up forearms. I don’t even like tattoos, so why do I like them on him?

“Why? So I come off looking like the asshole?”

“No. So you don’t look like another woman I slept with and discarded.”

“I thought you said it’d be an amicable separation.”

“Maybe. But if anyone needs to do the breaking up for any reason, I want it to be you. I don’t care if I come off looking bad here. I do care if you do.”

I tug on the engraved star on the gold disk hanging at the base of my throat as my eyebrows dip and I assess his motives. “Why are you trying to protect my reputation here?”

“Because it was my impulsiveness that got us in this situation in the first place. And I don’t want you to have any negative consequences as a result.”

That’s a way more responsible and empathetic reason than I’d have expected him to come up with.

“I still don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Do you have a better one?” he asks.

“I might be able to come up with something if I had a little more time,” I say, and that’s when my phone vibrates in the pocket of my sweatpants. I pull it out and see Lauren’s name on the screen. Given the important conversation we’re having, I’d normally ignore the call. But Lauren usually texts unless something’s wrong.

“Hey, Laur, what’s up?”

“This is your courtesy warning that your brother is on the way to your house right now. And if Colt wants to live, he should probably not be there when Jameson arrives.”

Shit.Without traffic, it’s a fifteen-minute drive. Less if you hit the lights right.

“Oh shit, you guys saw the article already?”

“The articles,” she says, emphasizing the plural nature of the word. “And the video.”

Of course Jameson’s seen them, he’s Colt’s agent. Heprobably has all kinds of Google alerts set up for just this type of occasion ... they just don’t normally involve his sister.

“And,” Lauren continues, and I swear I hear a smile in her voice, “then he called Colt, like, five times and there was no answer, so he decided to head over. He may have said something about castration on his way out the door? I can’t be sure, though. I was distracted by the way his head looked like it was going to explode.”

“You sound like you’re finding this all quite funny.”

“I sure am. Sometimes he forgets that you and Audrey are full-grown women, and he doesn’t need to go into papa bear mode like you’re still teenagers.”

“It’s funny now. Wait until Ivy and Iris are that age and you have to run interference.”

Lauren groans, as she’s probably picturing Jameson parenting their twins in a decade. “Call me if you need backup. You can put me on speakerphone.”

“We won’t need backup, but thank you for the offer.”

“Okay, but once he leaves, will youpleasecall me and explain what the hell is going on? Because I could have told you that Colt was interested in you, but I fully believed you hated him.”

Wait, what?

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