Page 8 of Play the Last Track
“I am not dragging some poor girl into this world, knowing I’m just going to break up with her. She’ll get attached. It will get messy,” I say down the phone. This is a bad idea. A very, very bad idea.
“Don’t worry about that. It’ll be a PR relationship. You’ll both know what it really is. An even playing field and clear expectations. We do this shit all the time.”
“What the actual fuck, Hollie?” I curse down the phone while seasoning the pieces of chicken. She has got to be kidding. Right? People don’t actually have fake girlfriends. No way.
Do they?
“Yes,” she decides. “We’re going with the girlfriend plan. I will sort it out and come back to you with options in a few days. Till then, do not get photographed with any females and, for god’s sake, do not get into any more fights.”
“Hollie. I am not getting a fake girlfriend,” I say with a sigh. Drizzling some oil into the hot pan, I scrape the sliced chicken on top. It sizzles, immediately filling my kitchen with the smell of spice and seasoning.
“Oh yes, you are,” she replies, and the tone of her voice warns me not to argue. “We’ll talk about it in a few days when I get it organized. Keep your head down.”
“Hollie—”
“No, Flynn. You got into a fight, and it got caught on camera. You fucked up. But, luckily for you, I am going to fix it. Focus on winning games and let me do my job,” she clips. “Okay?”
I sigh, absentmindedly turning over the pieces of chicken. “Fine.”
“Great. Be a good boy. Talk soon.” The line goes dead before I get another word out.
Goddamn.
This is not how I imagined this going.
I thought, at best, I would have a few charity visits in my future. A couple of extra appearances at causes the team supports and maybe a few extra dinners with the major sponsors. Those I can get through. A girlfriend, though?
I can’t even imagine what that is going to look like. I don’t even know where to start.
By the time I sit down on my couch, a bowl of chicken and pasta in my lap, there’s only one face in my head. Only one person’s opinion on this plan I care to hear.
Will she care if I get a girlfriend? Will she be annoyed?
Do I want her to be?
Fuck, this issonot a good idea.
Chapter Three
Katie
I’mnotexactlysurewhen or how it happened, but sometime between graduating with honours in a degree in education and actually working in a classroom, I fell out of love with teaching. Don’t get me wrong, the kids are great, and I learn a lot about the next generation with every new class I teach. Yet, I can’t deny that sitting at a desk, in front of a class of twenty-six students staring expectantly back at me, has lost its allure.
My heart isn’t in it. My head is elsewhere.
It’s at the bar.
It’s in my office there, the one I turned into a small studio.
It’s in the music that I’m planning to record later when school gets out. It’s in the dreams of turning the space into something other than just a sports bar.
I guess I should be sad about the teaching thing. Most people would be. They would be sad about losing the love for something they worked so hard on, for so long. My parents spent thousands sending me to college so I could become a teacher, and it turned out that the moment I stepped into the classroom, I lost the love I once held for it.
Or maybe I never loved it at all. Maybe I chose it and then just decided it was easier to settle for it.
Like Grant.
I chose him. We got four years in, and I guess, somewhere along the way, I decided that I had to settle for him. It was fine. Teaching was fine. Being with Grant was fine … in the beginning.
