Blindsided (Fake Boyfriend #4)(74)

Talon hold ups his hands in a just wait gesture. “You’re ping-ponging all over the place. Is this about my career or yours? Is it about us now or what we’ll become?” He steps closer and reaches for my arms, rubbing them soothingly from shoulder to elbow and back again. “What are you really scared of?”

I pull away and slink down on the bed. “I think I need time. I like where we’re at. We’re good. Why mess with it? Don’t fix what ain’t broke, right?”

“But don’t you see it? The world is broken, which means we’re broken. Having to hide this shouldn’t be a necessity or a choice. It shouldn’t be anything. It shouldn’t even be a factor in anyone’s lives but our own.”

“And that’s my point! It is a factor, and maybe I’m not ready to face that yet.”

Talon’s hand lands on my shoulder. “If this is a simple matter of you not being ready, then take all the time you need. I’m not going to force you to do anything here today, and if you want me to wait for you, I will. But can you sit there and tell me that’s all there is to it?”

My heart rate calms down a little, but it does nothing to put out the raging inferno in my gut that just won’t die down.

“I don’t know,” I whisper. “It’s everything.”





Chapter Twenty-Seven





TALON





“I need some air.” Miller’s last words before he walks out of the hotel room don’t exactly fill me with confidence.

I don’t know what’s going on with him—I don’t think he knows himself—so I can’t fix it. I’m a fixer. It’s what I do. I want something, I go for it. Something stands in my way, I handle it.

I’m not used to this feeling of helplessness.

What am I supposed to do? Lie to him and say everything will be fine? That his worries don’t hold merit? Because they do. They really fucking do. It’s not going to reassure him any when he knows I’m lying. I can promise to do everything in my power to make this work, but what if that’s not enough?

I’m used to getting my way, but a solid future in football and with each other might be one thing that’s out of my reach.

So, I watch him leave, knowing there isn’t anything I can do to stop it.

He needs time. Miller’s a thinker, and he’s analytical, and that’s why we work well together. I’m impulsive, but he’s smart about things.

He’ll come back. He’ll realize this is the right thing.

That’s the lie I’ll tell myself, because even though I have my shit together always, this is the first time in my life when I can feel everything slipping away.

What if it’s not just cold feet and he’s rethinking everything? What if he comes to the conclusion it’ll be easier to walk away forever?

The living room of the suite is minus one agent when I gather the courage to go back out there.

Lennon and Damon stand together, both looking worried.

“Miller just needs to cool off,” I say. “This is big, and he’s been fighting for his career for months—pushing himself to get ready for the season. This has the ability to make all that work pointless.”

I hope that’s what his true issue is. Because that’s fixable. We fight more, push harder …

“I just wish I could reassure him about how this is gonna go over.”

Damon nods. “It’s better for him to have that freak-out now instead of when it’s too late to take back.”

“I don’t know what to do. Where’s Alan?”

Damon purses his lips. “You’ve got a lawyer on hand, right?”

My stomach sinks to my balls. “I can get one. Why?”

“Umm … so, those doors aren’t exactly thick, and you and Miller were loud. He was on the phone to Touchstone Sports basically the minute you threatened to fire him.”

“Trying to find a way out of the contract?” I light up at the possibility. I need a supportive team around me, not someone who wants to drive a wedge between me and Miller.

Miller was completely fine until Alan opened his mouth.

Damon grimaces. “Trying to keep you locked to it more like it. You’re their firm’s biggest client. I totally understand why he’d be reluctant to let you come out, but the industry needs more guys like you to step forward. Matt, Soren, and Ollie are a great start, but in all truth, they’ve barely dented the surface.”

“I want to do the article, but it feels wrong doing it without Miller.”

“If you’re worried about this affecting him, we could always redact Miller’s name and replace it with someone else’s to protect his identity, or we could not talk about him at all,” Lennon says.

“I kinda have to talk about him. He’s the entire reason I even discovered this side of me.”

“Ooh, that’s good. We can use that.” Lennon walks over to his computer. “If you still want to do this, we won’t publish it until I get the okay from you and your agent.”

With Alan leaving half-cocked and Miller “getting air,” I know it’s not the time to do this. I want to tell the world my experience, because if someone had told me a year ago that I would be head over heels in love with a man right now, I never would’ve believed it.