False Start: A Fake Dating Sports Romance (Red Zone Rivals)

I couldn’t believe I’d agreed to this.

Two days after the house showing, a stylish white woman in her late thirties with platinum blonde hair and breasts the size of balloons was guiding me around an almost-empty boutique, plucking dress after dress from each rack we passed. Her name was Larissa, and when she picked a dress, she’d hold it up against my neckline and tug the fabric over to one hip, tilting her head from side to side, and then either put the dress back on the rack…

Or hand it to Kyle.

Kyle, who seemed all too happy to follow behind, his muscular arms serving as a shopping cart.

For the most part, I ignored him — focusing on Larissa’s questions as well as forcing each new breath into my lungs. And while I couldn’t believe I’d agreed to this little shopping trip, it was the other deal I’d made with the devil that was haunting me.

In that vacant mansion on the water, I guess it had made sense. I’d been standing too close to Kyle. His cologne must have made me dizzy. That was the only explanation for why I would have ever agreed to pretend like we were dating.

I didn’t owe him a damned thing. After what he did to me, leaving me behind when he knew I was pregnant with his baby, the only thing he deserved from me was a swift kick to the balls.

But when he’d seen the bruises on my arms, he’d lost his mind.

A chill swept over me even now as I remembered the way he’d carefully held me, his eyes shielded under furrowed brows as they assessed me for damage. And then, his jaw had tightened, his resolve set.

He wanted to protect me.

And while I’d been quick to point out that I could take care of my damn self, thank you very much, I couldn’t deny that seeing that protectiveness wash over him had done something to me.

I liked the thought of someone having my back.

I loved the thought of seeing Marshall squirm when he realized he couldn’t touch me — not with a beastly NFL tight end watching his every move.

Still, there was no way I was signing onto any deal with Kyle.

At least, that’s what I thought — until he twisted the game to work in his favor. I knew if I didn’t agree to this, he’d buy the first house I showed him just to make sure I was taken care of.

That infuriated me as much as it made my heart melt like a Creamsicle on a summer day.

I let out an audible groan as my thoughts warred with themselves in that little boutique. I hadn’t felt this confused and ruled by unpredictable emotions since I was pregnant.

“Everything okay there?” Kyle asked from behind me.

“There’s not even a single thing that’s okay about this.”

He chuckled. “Oh, come on. Have a little fun. You’ve got a personal stylist, a credit card without a limit, and a hunky football player carrying your shit. It could be worse.”

“You and I have very different definitions of what constitutes as fun.”

“Okay, I think we have plenty here to get started,” Larissa said before Kyle could respond, and she spun on me with a dazzling smile. “Let’s get you a fitting room.”

“Let’s,” Kyle said behind me, and I didn’t have to turn around to know the bastard was beaming at my discomfort.

I subtly flipped him the bird behind my back as I smiled at Larissa, who turned on one heel and led me toward the back of the boutique.

The dressing rooms were more like the closets of the houses I’d been showing Kyle throughout the week. Each one was brightly lit, with multiple full-length mirrors that let you view every angle of yourself — including ones you never wished to see. There was an elegant chaise lounge, a table with a bottle of champagne on ice and two flutes, and two large leather chairs.

There were also countless accessories everywhere I looked — high heels of every shape, color, and height propped around the room, purses and clutches hanging from hooks, jewelry daintily displayed on well-lit tables with a black velvet backdrop. I was thinking to myself there was no way Larissa would have been able to sneak in here to do all this when a young man frantically swept in with another pair of heels, setting them carefully by a mirror before he smiled at me and darted out again.

I was still looking around the room wide-eyed when Larissa began to take dresses from Kyle’s arms, hanging them one by one around the massive room. I let myself walk to the nearest one she’d placed, a rich brown, floor-length number that felt as bohemian as it did elegant. I ran my fingers over the buttery soft fabric, subtly fishing for a price tag.

There wasn’t one.

Which told me that the kind of people who shopped here didn’t ever need to think twice about the price of something before purchasing.

When Kyle’s arms were empty, he plopped down in one of the oversized leather chairs, crossing an ankle over the opposite knee.

And I didn’t care that he looked like the sports god he was in that moment. I didn’t care that his chestnut hair was perfectly mussed, his eyes taking on a sea-green hue in this light. I especially didn’t care that even in navy blue joggers and a heather gray t-shirt, his jacket slung over the arm of the chair he was in now, he looked as rich as the fabric in my fingers felt.

He was highly mistaken if he thought he was staying in this room while I tried on dresses.

I arched a brow at him that told him as much, and the brat arched one right back at me as Larissa popped the bottle of champagne and poured two glasses — handing one to him and offering me the other.

“I’ll let you two get settled,” she said. “I’ll be right outside, and when you’re ready in the first dress, just pop the door open and I’ll come in to help accessorize. Please let me know if you’d like the temperature adjusted at all, and of course, if you get hungry or would like anything other than champagne, we’re at your disposal.”

I was still glaring at Kyle, subtly shaking my head as he cockily sipped his champagne. I managed a thank you and a smile aimed at Larissa, who really was an absolute angel, before I was folding my arms and leaning my weight on one hip.

“Alright,” Kyle said once Larissa had left us, and when she closed the door behind her, the massive dressing room suddenly felt like a tight closet. He rubbed his hands together. “Which one first?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out at the same time Larissa does,” I said, pointing a finger at the door. “Out.”

“Oh, come on,” he goaded, spreading his hands out wide. One still held on to a half-full glass of champagne. “There’s plenty of space in here.”

“Out, Robbins.”

“I’ll be good, I promise,” he added, clutching the champagne flute under his chin in a prayer motion. “I’ll close my eyes and everything.”

I tapped one foot, folding my arms and giving him one slow blink that I hoped would get my point across.

His smile knocked my next breath loose in a rattle, the way it spread so wide and effortless across his too-stupidly-handsome face. He sighed, standing, and then tilted the flute toward me. “Fine. But it’s your loss. I’m great with zippers. Bra clasps, too.”

He winked, and I rolled my eyes hard enough to make my lids flutter. “Get out before I call this whole thing off.”

His hands went up in surrender at that, and once he was outside the dressing room, I let out a puff of a laugh, shaking my head.

He was just as infuriating as he had been as a bratty kid.

I couldn’t help but think about that time in my life as I undressed and pulled the first dress from its hanger, the brown one I’d been admiring. It felt like a mixture of silk and the highest thread count of Egyptian cotton as I slipped into it, and all the while, I thought about that summer nine years ago.

I’d been excited about the job, one my mom had told me about after talking to Kyle’s mom. They were good friends back then, ran in the same circle, and when Mom told me what they were paying for babysitting their son, I had jumped at the chance.

I was saving for college, just like my older brother had to do. Our parents took great care of us, but they didn’t have the kind of money to pay for tuition for two kids.

Of course, I had been a bit surprised when Mom originally told me about it all. I’d laughed, actually. I knew Kyle. We went to school together. Sure, he was younger than I was, but I knew him. Add on the fact that our parents were friends, there’d been more than a couple parties where we’d been at the same place at the same time.

Because of that, I knew he was fifteen. He wasn’t a baby.

Although, he sure acted like one that first day I showed up at his house.

I could still remember his scowl, could recall exactly how much of a brat he’d acted like until I proved to him that I wasn’t deterred. The more he acted like a child, the more I treated him like one. And somewhere along the way, he went from trying to get me to quit, to trying to get under my skin for another reason.

He had a crush on me. It was easy to see it.

What wasn’t easy was admitting that I had a crush on him, too.

It was embarrassing. His pestering turned into flirting, and I’d go home every night groaning and trying to slap some sense into myself. I was going into my senior year. He was a sophomore. His stupid jokes shouldn’t have made me laugh. His messy hair and goofy, lopsided grin shouldn’t have made my stomach tie into knots.

But they did.

When the school year started back up, I wasn’t his babysitter anymore. We were just two kids at school. He turned sixteen, kept growing even taller than he already was, and filled out that lanky body with muscles that made my teenage-brain short circuit.

The more that year went on, the more the joking between us drifted into something more.

At first, it was just hanging out after school. Sometimes, he’d walk me home after he got done with football practice and I finished up with yearbook. Sometimes, he’d text or call me when my parents thought I was asleep.

And sometimes, he’d show up at my window, a new mark on his body and a somber, haunting look in his eyes.

I never asked questions, not on nights like that. I’d just open my window and let him inside, tossing a pillow and blanket onto my floor without a word.

Fall turned to winter, and Kyle turned into my best friend.

Then, on a cold winter night when we were just two kids getting into trouble and sneaking into an empty house, he turned into something more.

I blinked, holding my eyes shut and shaking my head to clear the memory. Hastily, I pulled on the dress, not so much as giving myself a once-over in the mirror before I ripped the dressing room door open. I was desperate to get out of my head and focus on the task at hand.

Larissa buzzed over to me the moment the door was open, clapping her hands together and fussing over how beautiful I looked. She immediately ran in to grab shoes, and my eyes drifted to Kyle.

Just in time to watch his Adam’s apple bob hard in his throat.

His eyes washed over me, slowly, trailing a heated blaze from where Larissa was carefully strapping my ankles into a glittering pair of heels up to where the fabric gaped between my breasts. It showed a healthy amount of my chest, my collarbone framed with the delicate straps, and I saw Kyle’s gaze snatch there before his eyes flicked up to meet mine.

“Do we need to get you a bib?” I tried to joke, though my voice was softer than I would have preferred. “You’re drooling a bit there.”

But Kyle didn’t joke back.

It was like looking at me in this dress, he was shocked silent.

And that made my throat dry up like the Sahara Desert.

“Isn’t she stunning?” Larissa probed, continuing to accessorize me.

I watched her drape a long, delicate chain around my neck, the gold bar at the end of it settling in the gap of the dress at my chest. When my eyes found Kyle again, he was subtly shaking his head, his eyes drinking me in again.

“Always has been,” he said, his voice almost too low for me to hear.

He looked at me, and I tore my gaze away, turning to face the mirror, instead.

We all agreed the brown dress was an option, but there was no way Larissa was letting me get out of this hellish ordeal that easy. She wanted to see me in all the dresses she’d plucked off the racks, and I had no choice but to oblige.

In the end, it came down to three: the brown one I’d first tried on, a form-hugging black number, and a frosty blue one that draped like starlight down to the ground and had a slit so high it made my cheeks flush the first time I stepped out in it.

But it also made me feel beautiful.

I put them all on again, modeling them one at a time with full accessories for Larissa and Kyle. When I walked out in the blue one for the second time after the first two were seen again, Larissa’s eyes glistened and she clasped her hands under her chin.

“Oh, Madelyn,” she said.

Kyle stood, hastily smoothing a hand over his stomach like he was wearing a suit and not a t-shirt. He was quiet as his eyes washed over me, his hands finding his pockets like he didn’t know what else to do with them.

Like if he didn’t tuck them away, he might reach for me, instead.

I felt the heat from his gaze like a roaring bonfire, and by the time his eyes reconnected with mine, my neck was flushed a bright pink.

He swallowed, shaking his head. “Goddamn, Mads.”

Larissa’s eyes bulged, her head snapping toward him like she couldn’t believe that was his response. She’d expected him to call me beautiful, maybe. Or gorgeous.

But his response was so him that I couldn’t help but laugh, covering my face with my hands.

When I peeked through them, I saw him grinning.

I tried not to overanalyze the way my heart was fluttering when I disappeared inside the dressing room again, ready to get the hell out of this dress and this store. But when I went to unzip the back, the zipper wouldn’t budge.

I cursed, fussing with it until I realized I’d lodged it in part of the delicate blue fabric.

That made me curse again, and I maneuvered so I could watch myself in the mirror as I tried to undo my mistake. When my shoulders started aching from the awkward angle, I sighed, deciding my pride wasn’t worth tearing a dress that was likely more expensive than my mortgage.

I opened the dressing room door just a crack, peeking out, and Kyle’s gaze snapped from his phone up to me.

“Where’s Larissa?”

“She ran up to the front to help another customer,” he explained. “I told her we’d bring all this to the counter.” He frowned when I muttered an expletive under my breath. “What’s wrong?”

“Zipper’s stuck.”

At that, Kyle beamed, standing and tucking his phone away before spreading his arms wide like he was God’s gift to the world. “My specialty.”

I glared at him. “I’ll wait.”

“Come on,” he said on a hearty chuckle. “I’ve got you.”

When I didn’t respond, he walked closer, lowering his voice.

“You really want to stay stuck in that dress for who knows how long to wait for her to come check on us? I’m right here,” he reminded me, as if forgetting that fact was possible with him towering over me and smelling like a mixture of teak, turf, and the woods after a rainstorm. “Let me help.”

I bit my lip, craning my neck out a little farther to search for Larissa. When I didn’t see her, I looked back up at Kyle, who arched a brow.

I groaned. “Fine.”

I didn’t watch his victorious smile for longer than a second before I opened the door wider and let him step inside. I’d intended to keep that door open, but when I turned and Kyle walked up behind me, the door closed of its own accord, no doorstop propping the weighted thing open.

It shut with the quiet click of the lock, but it might as well have been a gun blast for how my ears rang.

“I’m glad you picked this one,” Kyle said, his voice drowned out by how my heart was beating in my ears. He reached for the zipper, one hand holding the fabric taut as the other maneuvered the contraption. “The blue is…”

He didn’t finish that sentence, just shook his head, and I watched him in the plethora of mirrors all around us. His eyes were fixed on where his hands worked, and my attention was fixed on where I felt the slightest brush of his skin against the back of my neck.

Every second dragged with him so close behind me, my body buzzing and all too aware of the subtle heat rolling off him. When he finally got the fabric free, the zipper lurched down an inch, and I sucked in a breath that made us both freeze in place.

Kyle’s eyes snapped to mine in the mirror, and then that gaze dropped to where my chest was struggling to take a deep breath.

He wet his lips, swallowing once before he slowly started sliding the zipper down.

His knuckles brushed against my spine as he did, and my eyelids fluttered shut at the touch.

Neither of us said a word, the only sound being the soft snick of the zipper as Kyle carefully guided it all the way down to the small of my back.

My chest was on fire with how hard it was to breathe, and then I felt the warmth of Kyle’s breath against my ear.

“Maybe we should practice.”

I swallowed, trying to wet my mouth so I wouldn’t cough from the desert dryness when I attempted a response. “Practice what?”

I opened my eyes, finding Kyle staring right back at me with just a slight tilt of his lips.

“Flirting,” he said, and his knuckles found my spine again, this time running up the length he’d just traced down.

I shivered, feeling every centimeter of that touch until he found one of my straps and carefully, slowly, slid it off my shoulder.

“Touching,” he said softer, and my heart stopped when he bent and lowered his lips to the sensitive spot just behind the shell of my ear. “Kissing.”

My next breath shuttered out of me, and I ripped away from his grasp, folding my arms hard over my chest to keep the dress in place.

“Ha-ha, so funny,” I deadpanned, hoping I came off as agitated or annoyed rather than the shaking mess of nerves he’d turned me into. “Next, you’ll say we need to practice horizontal dancing.”

Kyle quirked a smile. “That wasn’t on my list, but I’d be happy to add it.”

I rolled my eyes, thankful for the distance that was allowing me to find at least some semblance of my dignity again. “Okay, Casanova. Thanks for your help. Now, get out.”

He laughed a little, sliding his hands in his pockets as he backed up on a shrug. “I’m serious, you know.”

“I’m sure you are.”

“Better for us to get comfortable when no one is around. Wouldn’t want my friends to see that pretty blush on your cheeks the first time I kiss you in front of them.”

My eyes widened, my cool fingertips floating up to touch my cheeks that were as hot as an oven.

That made me scowl, and I resorted to shoving Kyle the rest of the way out of the room while he laughed.

When I was alone again, I pressed my back against the door, one hand flying up to my forehead as I closed my eyes and internally groaned.

What have I gotten myself into?