Page 53 of Out of Bounds

"Look, you need something besides the two of us robot-walking out of here."

"We’ll walk normally."

"That’s not good enough," I pointed out. "If anything, a disrespectful hug would be better."

His eyebrows furrowed. "What’s a disrespectful hug?"

"It’s where I smack your ass before the game."

"Kassie." He stared at me, shocked. "You’re not smacking my ass."

"I don’t think I could reach anyway."

With a nod, I thought through everything, trying to figure out exactly how we could do this. They wanted a front-page relationship. Just walking together wasn’t going to cut it and my fake boyfriend was great getting his teammates together, not so much with the lovey-dovey stuff.

"Go ahead, I got this," I assured him.

"What are we doing?"

"Just go ahead. I’ll figure it out."

"Kassie." He leaned down. "I need a game plan."

"Just trust me," I told him.

Slowly, Ryan shifted away from me, watching me carefully with those dark honey eyes of his. It was quiet between us. The truth was, I had no idea what I was going to do but I also knew if Ryan knew too much ahead of time, he’d get too mechanical about it.

"Alright." He nodded. "You’ll hear the cameras go off."

"Okay."

I waited along the hallway, counting down the seconds while Ryan walked the long way around the halls, back to where the cameras were. All the cameras. No doubt our photos would be everywhere in a couple of hours and I still wasn’t used to that.

Cameras went off like crazy.

Go time.

I drew in a quick breath and pushed away from the wall, taking a quick right. A line of photographers were set up bythe hallway. The flashes from the camera were enough to give anybody a headache.

Make him look human.

Turning away from the cameras as much as I could—and as much as I knew he couldn’t—I hurried up to him and walked along his side, wrapping my arm around his and tugging him closer to me.

My heart beat in my throat.

Facing the end of the hall, my fingers ran up his arm. I’d never get used to the muscle. Ryan wasstacked. And being in front of the cameras meant being…touchy. We were approachable, we were human, we were falling desperately, madly in love. For the cameras.

My hand dropped back to my side and I breathed out a sigh of relief the second we left their sight.

Until he sought mine out.

He reached for my hand and wove his fingers through, holding my hand. At first, I didn’t believe it. I glanced down in surprise and back up to see Ryan looking straight ahead, walking in time with me as we took our place deeper into the stadium.

It was a good thing he wasn’t looking at me. The blush blazed across my skin.

He’s better at this than I thought.

21

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