Fake Shot (Boston Rebels Book 2)

Colt hops out of his chair, turns mine toward him, and rests himself on both knees between my legs. He grips my hips in his hands, forcefully enough that I look up at him.

“Jules, it’s going to be okay.”

That feeling is starting again. The restlessness that makes me want to crawl out of my skin, the sensation that someone is sitting on my chest and making it impossible to breathe. My fingers twitch, and I clench them into my palms, making a tight fist and hoping I can stop this before it happens.

I take a breath through my nose, trying to get as much air in as possible, but it feels like my lungs aren’t expanding all the way, which only increases the panic. If I don’t get more air than this, I’m going to pass out.

Colt cups my face in his hands like he did in my bedroom earlier, and it soothes something inside me even though it shouldn’t—there’s no one in the world I’m less safe with than Colt. Not because he’s any danger to me physically, but because not keeping my distance from him is dangerous to my mental and emotional well-being.

“You’re going to need to breathe, or I’m going to start giving you CPR.”

Letting out a small laugh, I relax enough to tilt my head forward to fully rest it in his hands. His humor had the intended effect, and I take a deep breath and exhale slowly, relieved as my heartbeat slows to a more regulated pace.

“Sounds like a sad excuse to kiss me again,” I tease.

“Believe me, if I thought you wanted me to kiss you again, I wouldn’t need to make excuses.”

What does that even mean? Does he want to kiss me again?

“Well, I don’t. Want you to, I mean,” I tell him. Because even if Colt did want to kiss me, it still wouldn’t mean anything to him. And the only thing that would hurt worse that Colt not wanting me at all, is him only wanting me for a random hookup and then letting me go afterward. And he’s still my brother’s best friend. He’s practically part of our family. I’ll still have to see him all the time.

Distance, Jules, I remind myself. Keep your distance. 

He just chuckles—a low, deep sound that I feel in my gut—and says, “I know you don’t.”

“Do you even know CPR?” I ask, just to have something to say.

“Nah, but I was willing to bet you’d start breathing again if I tried it on you. It worked in the alley.”

I can’t hold in the snort. “That wasn’t CPR, Colt.”

He shrugs. “Whatever it was, it got you breathing again.”

There’s a split second when I think, It’s too bad he can’t be around to kiss me every time I feel a panic attack coming on. But that’s a horrible idea for all the obvious reasons and makes me think about what my therapist said about pushing myself out of my comfort zone in order to learn that I don’t always have to be in control—or shut down when I don’t. And Colt’s suggestion from earlier is still rattling around in my head.

“What did you have in mind, when you said that I need to find healthy ways to ‘let off some steam.’”

“I don’t know,” he says, dropping his hands and sitting back on his heels. I appreciate that he’s not right up in my face now—it makes it easier to remember that I’m supposed to be indifferent toward him. “Make a list of things that scare you, and do them? Challenge yourself physically? Learn how to meditate?”

I can tell he’s just spitballing ideas, but I appreciate how he’s trying to help me.

“I’ll think about it,” I say, and he nods. But then my anxiety spikes as I remember why we started this conversation in the first place. “In the meantime, what the hell are we going to do about this whole fiancée situation?”

“I was originally thinking we could just say that I saw you in a clearly uncomfortable situation and said you were my fiancée to get you out of it,” he says. “But now that video . . .”

I’m glad he’s at as much of a loss as I am.

“Yeah, even though it would have made me look like an idiot, that could have worked. But now . . .” I look away, staring off at the cabinets with the open shelving above them. “If that was the case, why would we be on top of each other in an alley afterward like two hormone-charged teenagers if you were just pretending to be my fiancée? People I work with are going to see that video. Oh my god, my clients and even potential donors are going to see that video! At best, I come off looking impulsive and unprofessional . . .”

“And I come off looking like I took advantage of you.” His words are grim.

“You didn’t take advantage of me.” My response is instantaneous, because he warned me he was going to do something we’d both regret—though little did we know how much—and I didn’t stop him. In fact, I jumped in wholeheartedly, which was the biggest mistake of all. “You were trying to help. But Colt, who’s going to want to hire me now? Who’s going to want to donate to our nonprofit or believe that I’m the kind of person who should be mentoring young women if I’m seen making out in an alley with a random hockey player?” I can hear the panic creeping into my voice the same way I can feel it moving under my skin again, little pinpricks of anxiety attacking my nervous system.

“Ouch.” When I look at him for clarification, he cocks an eyebrow at me. “So now I’m just some random hockey player?”

“You know what I mean—the optics are bad no matter how we spin this.”

“Yeah, unless . . . ” He pauses, and I’m almost afraid of what he’s going to say next. How could we spin this in any way that we don’t tarnish both our reputations?

“Unless?”

“Unless we pretend that we actually are engaged. It would explain my reaction in the restaurant, and then you don’t look like you’re making out with ‘some random hockey player.’” The way he repeats my words back to me sounds a little bitter, but he’s got to understand that this is how people would see it. He’s got a reputation and a list of past hookups that would probably stretch from here to the West Coast.

“Colt,” I say as I stand. “That’s the most ridiculous idea I’ve ever heard.” Who gets fake engaged? That’s not a thing that happens in real life.

“Why?” he asks, rising from his knees so he’s towering over me.

“Because first off, no one is going to believe it. Anyone who knows us is going to know it’s not true. Anyone who’s ever seen me is going to know there’s no way I’m engaged to you.”

“What are you even talking about?” he asks.

“Colt, you have this . . . energy . . .”

He slides his hands into the pocket of his dress pants, all casual-like, but there’s nothing casual about the timber of his voice when he asks, “Oh yeah? What kind of energy is that?”

He knows exactly the kind of big dick energy he exudes as he swaggers through life, and I’m not planning to give him the satisfaction of telling him I’ve noticed.

“I think you know,” I say breezily as I try to walk past him and out of the kitchen. But his big hand is around my wrist, pulling me to him.

When we’re toe-to-toe, he straightens up to his full height, and I’m forced to tilt my head all the way back just to see him. “I want to hear you say it.”

He wants to hear me say that he’s got the kind of energy that has women dropping their panties before he even has to ask. Meanwhile, I’ve never even let a guy into mine? I look away. No way in hell is he hearing that admission from me.

“No.”

His palm slides across my throat and he uses his splayed thumb and fingers to cup my jaw, turning my head back toward him. I like the feel of his hand around my throat way more than I should.

“What’s wrong, Jules? Can’t back up your claim?”

“More like, I don’t need to because we both know it’s true.”

“What’s true?” he asks again.

I note the way his hand is gripping my neck possessively, how his gaze bores into my face with an intensity I can’t muster, how his whole body practically vibrates with dominance. “That I don’t match your energy.”

“Maybe that’s because you exceed it?”

A laugh bursts out of me. What in the actual hell is this man talking about? “Yeah, Colt. Sure.”

“How do you not see what everyone else does?”

Yeah, I know what I look like. But my energy must scream Stay away! because that’s exactly what guys do the minute they get to know me.

I step back and he lets me go, but he plants his hands on his hips like he’s creating a barrier between the exit from the kitchen and me.

“Can we go back to talking about why you think it’s a good idea to pretend we’re engaged, and how in the world you think anyone would believe that for even a second?”

“Sure,” he says as he shrugs his shoulders. “I think it’s a good idea because it gives us both something we want. And I think the only people who aren’t going to believe it are your family, and we can tell them the truth. Everyone else will believe it.”

I don’t even know where to start with that, so I circle back to the first thing he said. “How does this give each of us what we want?”

“It gives me an excuse for why I haven’t been with a woman in at least six months⁠—”

“What?” The question burst out of me with an incredulous laugh. There’s no way that’s possible. Being a manwhore is kind of his brand.

“Why is that so unbelievable?”

“It . . .” I don’t want to admit that I’ve spent any time at all thinking about him or his sex life, so instead, I say, “. . . just isn’t what I expected. So, you’d get fake engaged to explain away a dry spell?”

“No. No one even knows about that. I’m just saying that it’s not like there would be women saying ‘You can’t be engaged, you were in my bed last weekend.’ I wouldn’t put you in that position, just so you know.” He runs a hand through his short hair. “But mostly, what I get out of this is that you could come with me to my parents’ anniversary party. My parents would be thrilled, and you could be a buffer between me and my brother.”

“How do you think your parents would feel when they found out this was all fake? Or when we ‘break up,’” I say, using air quotes. “Wouldn’t that just hurt them in the long run?”

“They’d be okay. It’s not like you guys are going to bond in a weekend. And we can make it an amicable split in the end, don’t you think?”

The look on his face is as doubtful as my thoughts.

“And what do I get out of this, exactly?”

“I’ll help you find healthy ways to overcome your fear of losing control. And you have a plausible reason for why you were making out with me in an alley. I don’t think anyone would have any trouble believing I’d have you up against a brick wall at the first chance I got.”

“Yeah.” I bark out a laugh. “That’s exactly the part I think no one is going to believe.”

“You just gotta trust me on this one. No one’s going to question it. And no one is going to think less of you because someone caught you on camera kissing your fiancé.”

“There’s a zero percent chance that anyone who knows me is going to believe this.” Why am I even entertaining this idea?

“Besides Jameson, Audrey, and Lauren, who else isn’t going to believe it?”

“Morgan. Drew.”

“Okay, so we tell the five of them the truth.” Colt shrugs like this is no big deal. “If they can keep their mouths shut, this will work. And then down the road, when all the news about this has passed, my parents’ anniversary party is over, and the playoffs are done . . .”

“We fake break up?”

“Sure. But I have one condition.”

“You’re the one trying to sell me on this,” I remind him. “And you’re setting conditions?”

“Just one. You have to be the one to break it off with me.” He shoves his hands back in his pockets, and it has the rolled-up sleeves of his dress shirt pulling higher and revealing his inked-up forearms. I don’t even like tattoos, so why do I like them on him?

“Why? So I come off looking like the asshole?”

“No. So you don’t look like another woman I slept with and discarded.”

“I thought you said it’d be an amicable separation.”

“Maybe. But if anyone needs to do the breaking up for any reason, I want it to be you. I don’t care if I come off looking bad here. I do care if you do.”

I tug on the engraved star on the gold disk hanging at the base of my throat as my eyebrows dip and I assess his motives. “Why are you trying to protect my reputation here?”

“Because it was my impulsiveness that got us in this situation in the first place. And I don’t want you to have any negative consequences as a result.”

That’s a way more responsible and empathetic reason than I’d have expected him to come up with.

“I still don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Do you have a better one?” he asks.

“I might be able to come up with something if I had a little more time,” I say, and that’s when my phone vibrates in the pocket of my sweatpants. I pull it out and see Lauren’s name on the screen. Given the important conversation we’re having, I’d normally ignore the call. But Lauren usually texts unless something’s wrong.

“Hey, Laur, what’s up?”

“This is your courtesy warning that your brother is on the way to your house right now. And if Colt wants to live, he should probably not be there when Jameson arrives.”

Shit. Without traffic, it’s a fifteen-minute drive. Less if you hit the lights right.

“Oh shit, you guys saw the article already?”

“The articles,” she says, emphasizing the plural nature of the word. “And the video.”

Of course Jameson’s seen them, he’s Colt’s agent. He probably has all kinds of Google alerts set up for just this type of occasion . . . they just don’t normally involve his sister.

“And,” Lauren continues, and I swear I hear a smile in her voice, “then he called Colt, like, five times and there was no answer, so he decided to head over. He may have said something about castration on his way out the door? I can’t be sure, though. I was distracted by the way his head looked like it was going to explode.”

“You sound like you’re finding this all quite funny.”

“I sure am. Sometimes he forgets that you and Audrey are full-grown women, and he doesn’t need to go into papa bear mode like you’re still teenagers.”

“It’s funny now. Wait until Ivy and Iris are that age and you have to run interference.”

Lauren groans, as she’s probably picturing Jameson parenting their twins in a decade. “Call me if you need backup. You can put me on speakerphone.”

“We won’t need backup, but thank you for the offer.”

“Okay, but once he leaves, will you please call me and explain what the hell is going on? Because I could have told you that Colt was interested in you, but I fully believed you hated him.”

Wait, what?

“Uhhh,” I stutter, my eyes flying to where Colt stands a couple of feet from me. But I don’t have to question whether he heard her; the way his chest shakes with laughter is all the proof I need. “Okay, I’ll talk to you later. Thanks!”

As soon as I disconnect the call, I tell Colt, “Alright, you better get your ass out of here before Jameson gets here. I’ll explain the situation to him.”

“Like hell I’m leaving you.”

“This explanation doesn’t require both of us, and he’s much more likely to stay calm if the man who pushed his sister up against a wall in an alley isn’t standing in front of him. I’m the one who needs to explain this to Jameson,” I insist.

“You can do the explaining,” Colt says, taking a step toward me and planting his hands on my shoulders, “but there’s no way I’m not standing next to you while you do.”