Page 128 of How to Lose at Love

“My older brother Duke played for New York, and anytime he was seen standing near anyone, the media would make it look like they were datin’. Could have been anybody—his publicist, his cousin, a friend, the stylist at a store—so my mom is used to shit like this. I don’t think she’s even texted me yet.”

Not yet anyway.

I’ve never been romantically connected to anyone before, so thereisactually a chance she’ll touch base.

“You gonna be okay if I head home?”

I have to get to the gym for the afternoon workout with my brothers, and occasionally our assistant coaches like to go over game footage before practice.

Ryann shrugs. “I’ll be fine.”

Fine.

I hate that word, but I’ll take it, ’cause I do have to split.

A hollow pit forms in my stomach, that little niggling I’ve come to identify as guilt, but there’s nothing I can do at the moment—not about the situation, not about having to leave.

I’m not going to be late because some dipshit reporter put my name on television.

thirty-one

ryann

“The day a man makes me happier than chips, guac, and a margarita is the day I get married. Unless he plays football.”

– Sav

“I’ll be fine.”Famous last words.

I let him walk out the door to go to practice without another peep, because what is there to say? Nothing can be done about this predicament, which is the predicament I signed up for without actually knowing the consequences.

How could I?

I’m just a normal person.

A normal student, going to classes and minding her own business. I don’t play in a stadium surrounded by thousands and thousands of screaming people—I don’t have fans. I don’t have a scholarship. I am not on television.

Dating Diego was different.

Diego isn’t going to be drafted; he isn’t going to the Combine, he isn’t entering the draft, and he won’t be playing professional football, so dating him was low-key.

Dating him was like dating a regular guy if you don’t include all the working out he did at the gym. Him hitting the gym felt the same as me having to work several days a week, so it never crossed my mind that being seen in public with a guy like Dallas would put me in the public eye.

I don’t watch or follow football. How the heck was I supposed to know he’s a big deal?

He’s in college, for crying out loud; he’s not an NFL superstar. At least not yet.

“I thought they were going to put a cute picture of me on the big screen at the stadium and that would be the end of it.”

How embarrassing.

My naivety landed me in this mess, and I cannot blame him for the position I’m in.

To make matters worse, I feel like I’m being watched—because I am.

Everywhere I go on campus, all eyes are on me. Class, the student union, walking through the quad—people are staring.

It’s a ton of pressure to know I’m being judged: on my appearance, on my credentials, Dallas’s fans finding me worthy or unworthy based on my looks, my waitressing job, my major.

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