Page 114 of Out of Bounds

Ryan needs an actual football girlfriend.

"Do you want me to beg?" he asked softly. "Do you want me on my knees?"

I had nothing to say to that because my brain had effectively stopped working. Maybe he was being facetious, or maybe he was digging around for anything to keep up the charade, I had no idea. My breathing slowed, watching him.

Oh no.

I like Ryan.

I liked how grumpy he was and how he stilled for me any time he caught me sketching him so he wouldn’t ruin the drawings and I liked the cologne he wore and how he’d bark at his teammates and how he could jerk back and talk in the gentlest voice to me, five seconds later, and how he kissed me and—goddammit—all of that scared me.

"Shit," I whispered under my breath and sank into the nearest chair.

If anything, that was even more reason to end it.

Before anyone got hurt.

Ryan stuck to his word and got on his knees, still trying to talk while I was halfway through a spiral.

"Kassie? Look at me."

"I’m sorry, I—"

He captured my chin between his fingers, tilting me to meet his eyes. "Do you know what the difference is? Between us and King and June?"

That could’ve been anything but the softness in Ryan’s voice made me hesitate. He was genuinely asking me. What was I supposed to say?

"Um…June’s a homecoming queen?" I suggested.

"The difference is King isn’t content with the arrangement. He wants more."

"With…June?"

"No. Not like that. But King didn’t expect it to last this long and he wants something else now." Ryan took a deep breath. "Art girl, that’s the difference between us and them. He’s not content. I am."

My heart thumped so loud in my chest, I was sure he could hear it.

"You don’t think you’re good at this, you are," he insisted. "My jersey’s sales are up two hundred and twelve percent across the board, every time they use your name as a merchandise code, it breaks numbers, and—you know? Fuck it.I’mhappy."

I needed to hold on to my resolve but I could already feel it slipping away. "Oh."

"There’s no one else I’d rather do this with," he admitted.

Am I going to agree to this?

Because if I was, I wasn’t agreeing to it because of the jersey sales. The only reason I’d continue with this was for Ryan’s sake. The only thing keeping me signed on was the grumpy football player who everybody wanted to parade around in a glass box.

The man with the dark honey eyes, who only talked tenderly to me.

I’m a goner for a guy I can’t even get into bed.

"Um…” I needed to come up with some kind of timeline. Because I knew I couldn’t make it until the end of the semester. “What about until the weekend?”

“The weekend?”

“It…gives us time to get all the last-minute jersey sales done.”

He paused. “Until Louisiana.”

---