Page 26 of Resisting the Running Back

“I can’t wait to meet her.”

“She’s amazing. She’s a physical therapist. She helped him recover from his ACL injury last year. She’s a great mom, too,and she and I have gotten close. Her name’s Cassie. I’ll ask Tanner when they’re free, and maybe we can get together for dinner.”

“I would love that. I haven’t seen Tanner in years.”

“You haven’t missed much,” he says dryly, and I laugh.

We walk into the jewelry store, and we’re greeted by a salesperson who introduces herself as Charlene. “What can I help you with today?”

“We’re looking at engagement rings,” Miller says.

“Congratulations,” she says warmly. “Did you have something in mind?”

We glance at each other and shrug, and Miller takes the lead. “Can we see what you have? This is our first time doing this.” He glances at me. “When we were in college, she and her friends all designed their dream engagement rings. She wanted a princess cut back then, one with diamonds all around the center stone and down the band.”

“A fine choice. We have something like that over here,” Charlene says, but I barely hear her because…what?!?

He remembers that? I hardly remember doing it, but he remembers everything down to the cut I liked.

Princess cut is classic. It’s square and sparkly and lovely, and part of me wants to tell him that no…I want the princess cut for myrealengagement. I want that to be the ring I wear forever, not for whatever it is we’re doing here.

But I can’t make myself stop this train.

“We have this gorgeous ring here with a three-carat princess cut diamond in the center. It has an additional two carats of diamonds down the shank and around the halo,” Charlene tells us.

That’s it. That’s the ring.

My eyes widen and get a little misty as they fall on it.

It’s the dream one, the one I created on a website all those years ago. It’s the one I dreamed I’d wear forever when the man of my dreams slid it onto my finger one day.

But I haven’t really met any dreamy men worthy of slipping a ring onto my finger. The only guy worthy of sticking a ring on my finger is doing it purely for show.

Is this just kicking my goals of being a wife and a mother down the road? We haven’t talked about what this fake engagement really means. We haven’t discussed how long we’re going to keep up the act.

Hell, I don’t even know how long I’m going to stay here in San Diego playing house with Miller.

He glances over at me, sees that I’m overwhelmed with emotion, and turns back to Charlene. “We’ll take it.”

CHAPTER 12: Miller Banks

I Don’t Deserve You

I don’t give her time to protest. Charlene sizes her finger, and she tells me she’ll call me when it’s ready to be picked up.

And that’s it. Boom. Ring shopping—check.

Over the next few days, we fall into a routine that’ll get thrown into upheaval once the season begins in a few months, but it’s working for us for now.

I start the day with a workout while she works in the kitchen. She’s always up already typing in the morning when I walk in. She keeps going until she hits her word count goal, and then she does her administrative work. If there’s time left, she goes back in for more words.

She works until I make breakfast and shove a plate of food in front of her, and it’s really anybody’s guess if she actually ate meals before she moved in here or if she just grabbed whatever protein bar was handy in between her busy schedule.

We eat breakfast together, sometimes out on the back patio, and then she usually gets back to work while I sometimes swim and sometimes take a shower.

We eat lunch together, which is usually something simple like a premade salad or leftovers.

She works for a few hours while I do my own thing, which consists of meeting up with Tanner or some of my teammates, attending meetings, or doing little things for Sophie like setting up an LLC or looking into finding her an assistant.

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