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

It was the calm before the storm.

I felt it as we walked into the hotel lobby of a boutique luxury hotel in downtown Denver. There was no press waiting when we arrived, which meant somehow Giana had kept the wedding under wraps — at least for now. It also seemed like she and Clay had hired a full staff of security. They were everywhere, from where the black car dropped us off to where we walked now to check in.

It felt like we slipped into our own little bubble of the world when we walked through those revolving doors, and it was quiet in the lobby. Peaceful.

But I knew that wouldn’t last long.

Someone had already taken our luggage, and without anything to hold onto, Madelyn folded her arms over herself. She looked around at the high-hanging chandeliers, the lush gem tones of the rich furniture, and the impressive textures of the walls and floors — marble and wood, everything polished to shine.

I told myself I was putting on a show when I carefully threaded my hand over her forearm and pulled her to a stop, waiting until she looked up at me.

Her soft brown eyes were wide as they swept over me, and the corner of my mouth ticked up before I tucked her hair behind one ear. My knuckles grazed her neck when I did, and I didn’t miss the goosebumps that paraded over her skin.

God, I loved that sight. I loved the thought that maybe that little flush on her cheeks wasn’t completely pretend.

“How are you?” I asked.

“Good,” she said, and then forced a smile. “Great.”

I arched a brow. “What was that rule you made when we were younger?” I asked, and then hung a hand on my hip and tried to imitate her. “No lying. Lying is the highest offense punishable by purple nurple.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle when I said it, my imitation of her voice leaking out of me like a deflating balloon. It had been hilarious the first time she’d said it to me — even more so when she’d followed through on that promise and twisted my nipples so hard I yelped the first time I’d tried to lie to her.

But Madelyn didn’t even smile.

Her eyes were a bit hollow as she said, “Sometimes the truth has worse consequences than that.”

I frowned, my heart stuttering, and everything she’d said on the plane came rushing back to me.

I felt it again.

It was the calm before the storm.

This exact same feeling had washed over me on that fateful weekend when I was sixteen, the weekend that everything changed.

I had been sick back then, a tornado of teenage hormones and emotions. I could feel Madelyn pulling away from me. I could feel her rationalizing how I was too young for her, how she was about to go to college and do something with her life while I was stuck in high school for another two years.

She’d stopped answering my texts. She’d stopped picking up my calls. At school, she avoided me in every way she could.

When I found out about the party my parents were hosting, that’s when the first bit of wind blew. That’s when the storm announced its impending arrival.

I didn’t know why I felt that way, only that my gut was telling me something and I wanted to listen. I called and texted Madelyn repeatedly, begging her to be there.

But she didn’t come.

Not until the next morning, when everything had blown up.

I’d been staring out my window in a daze after the longest night of my life, my lip split and starting to scab from trying to control my father. He’d shown his ass in the worst possible ways, in ways that I knew couldn’t be erased with a simple apology.

But then I saw her.

Madelyn parked her car in front of our house, and I swallowed, watching as she walked toward the door with her arms crossed hard in front of her chest. She didn’t look up at my bedroom window the way she usually did. She just kept her eyes on the door.

I waited.

I waited for my parents to call me downstairs, to say that Madelyn was there to see me.

I waited for Madelyn herself to bound up the stairs and into my room, to throw herself into my arms and say she was sorry she hadn’t been there.

I waited for mercy, and it never came.

Instead, I heard voices downstairs, and thought it was just her being polite to my parents before she came up.

Then, I saw her leave.

She was only a couple steps across our lawn when I barreled downstairs, wild-eyed and panicking. I’d sprinted for the door, but my parents had stopped me — Dad with a hard hand on my chest, Mom with her eyes flooded with tears as she shook her head.

I’d looked between them and knew before they said a word that Madelyn had turned her back on us.

On me.

“I’m sorry, son,” Dad had said, and the way his eyes stuck on my split lip, I wondered if he was apologizing for more than one thing. “She doesn’t want to see you.”

Mom had folded in on herself, crying even more, until Dad gently nudged her and she nodded, her eyes finding mine.

“She’s asked us to tell you…” She shook her head, more tears spilling. “She’s asked that you stay away from her.”

My entire world had crashed down with those words.

I pushed past my parents, one of them spitting apologies while the other one tried to stop me. I didn’t know which was which. I pushed until I reached the door and yanked it open, but Madelyn was already gone.

My father took my phone then — as punishment for my behavior the night before, but also as a mercy.

He knew as well as I did that I wouldn’t have been able to leave Madelyn alone, not even when she asked me to.

It was the longest weekend of my life.

And on Monday, my dad took me to school long enough to get my shit.

And we moved.

A distant laugh from check in snapped me back to the moment, and I glanced over to find Braden working his charm on the attendant handing him his room key. I swallowed, trying to erase the memory of the past as well as Madelyn’s question from the plane.

Why did you leave?

She knew. She knew why. She’d told me to stay away, and then my parents had put states between us, robbing me of any choice after.

But if that was the case… then why did she ask?

I couldn’t explain it, but it put all my senses on edge. It made me want to get her alone to talk, made me want to drag up that dark memory that clearly still hung over both of us.

It also made me suspicious.

Because all this time, I’d thought she’d turned her back on me.

But she asked why I’d left, as if it hadn’t been her to do so first.

And suddenly, all I could think was that I didn’t trust my parents. I never had.

And I was analyzing every detail of that day under a magnifying glass, looking for new clues.

When I turned back to face Madelyn, I held her gaze, as if I could look through those eyes and find the truth. “Once we get checked in, you can go nap, if you’d like,” I offered.

She chuckled. “Oh, God. I haven’t napped in years.”

“Really?” I smiled a little. “You used to love naps. And you’d wake up from them and immediately start writing, like your dreams would fade if you didn’t capture them right away.”

“No time to nap when you have a kid,” she said, looking down at her feet.

I tilted her chin up with my knuckles. “Hey, Sebastian is with your mom. He’s good. And you have permission to relax this weekend.”

Madelyn’s eyes searched mine, a soft line appearing between them. Then, that gaze slid behind me, and she smiled a bit.

“I have a feeling there won’t be any relaxing happening,” she said.

And before I could reply, I was tackled from behind, barely catching the heavy sonofabitch who mounted my back and clung onto my shoulders.

“Aw, shit! The party has arrived!”

I recognized Leo’s voice before I even shrugged him off me to confirm it. His feet had barely hit the ground before he hit me with a fierce hug, both of us clapping each other hard on the back.

“Damn, what are they feeding you up there in Washington?” he asked when we pulled back, punching my pec. “You’re almost as buff as me.”

“Please,” I scoffed. “I’ve always been bigger than you and you damn well know it.”

“Eh, depends on what we’re talking about,” he said with a salacious wink, and I rolled my eyes before pulling him under my arm and ruffling his hair like he was my kid brother. The motherfucker loved to brag about the size of his dick — one he let sling between his legs like a proud bull when we were in the locker rooms at NBU.

To be clear, I was just as cocksure and had no shame when it came to being naked. I was packing and proud.

But Leo Hernandez was a fucking freak of nature.

“No, really, it’s good to see you, man,” he said when I released him, and then his eyes slid to Madelyn, and both of his eyebrows inched up into his thick hairline.

He glanced at me, then back at her, and then shoved me out of the way.

“Excuse this rude motherfucker,” he said, extending his hand for hers. “I’m Leo.”

“Madelyn,” she said, taking his hand.

“Nice to meet you. Blink twice if you’re in danger or being held against your will.”

Madelyn smiled a bit at that, and I ground my teeth, gritting out a smile of my own.

It was a joke. This was what we did. We razzed each other practically nonstop.

But fuck, I was tired of being the butt of this particular joke.

A cool hand sliding into the crook of my arm made me blink and release the tension in my jaw, and then I looked down in time to watch Madelyn nuzzle into my space. She looked up at me with a heart-stopping smile, one that slapped me with more memories of the past.

“Never felt safer, actually,” she said.

Then, she tilted up onto her toes, trailed her arms up around my neck, and pulled me down into her for a kiss.

Time slugged like a train pulling into a station, steam erupting from the depth of my being when she pressed her lips to mine. They were warm and soft and perfect — just like I remembered them.

And this kiss put the one I’d given her in front of her house to shame.

That had been brief, a little peck of a greeting that I did without even thinking. Braden knew the truth. I didn’t have to put on a show for him, but damn if that was going to stop me. I’d stolen that kiss. I’d kissed her like we were used to it, like we’d done it a thousand times.

But this…

This was Madelyn fitting every inch of herself to me in a seam. It was her arms around my neck, and us both inhaling when my hands found the small of her back and pulled her even more flush against me.

It was her hands trembling where they tangled in my hair.

It was a low and throaty groan I didn’t mean to let loose when I wrapped my arms all the way around her, when I felt her shaking in my grasp.

She didn’t just hold her lips to mine and then pull away. She kissed me once, twice, a third time, each one more sensual than the last. And I met her kisses eagerly, nipping at her bottom lip until she opened her mouth on a slight gasp — one I captured with my mouth on hers again.

My hands trailed up over her rib cage, her arms, sliding north still until I cradled her face in my hands.

I didn’t give a fuck if Leo was there anymore.

I didn’t care about putting on a show.

I knew Madelyn initiated the kiss because that was her role. She was here pretending to be my girlfriend.

But nothing felt fake about this.

I deepened the kiss even more, ready to let that woman consume me for all eternity. But she pressed her fingertips against my chest gently, just enough to tell me she wanted me to stop.

I pressed my forehead to hers, breaking the kiss even while my heart battered my rib cage and begged me to carry her upstairs to the first room I could find.

Madelyn’s eyelids fluttered open when she pulled back, and then she flushed a dark crimson, burying her face into my chest like she’d just realized we’d put on a show.

And what a show it must have been.

Because when I looked back at Leo, he was smirking and shaking his head like we’d proven our point.

And he wasn’t alone.

Everyone was there.

Zeke and Riley, Clay and Giana, Holden and Julep, and now Mary was hanging on Leo’s arm. Braden was walking over from the lobby desk with an intrigued grin.

Everyone else was silent, shocked, and gaping at us.

“Well,” Holden finally said, breaking the silence as he put an arm around his wife. His grin was the kind only a superstar quarterback could have — all teeth and dimples. “Seems we have a lot of catching up to do.”

It was absolute chaos after that.